Lest you doubt that President Obama can perform miracles, consider this: today he proposed eliminating human spaceflight from NASA's budget and the space activist community did not erupt in outrage; in fact, overall, they seem to like it! Likewise, I definitely support it. Here's why.
Bush's Vision for Space Exploration AKA "Apollo On Steroids" had problems. Principally, it failed to articulate why we should return to the Moon. It's a dead end. Robert Zubrin (founder of The Mars Society) has said, "the Moon will be an interplanetary pay toilet but they'll pay you to make a deposit." He meant that literally, in that the Moon is so poor in organic resources that human excrement would be worth more than gold to any future lunar colonists. Dennis Wingo, writing on The Space Review, cogently points out that we need to justify space exploration in terms of economic benefits that the public can understand. The Moon, in my personal opinion, does not provide that. It's a new Antarctica, a great place for certain types of research such as radio astronomy (on the Farside), but little else for the foreseeable future. It actually costs more, in terms of fuel, to stop at the Moon on the way to destinations beyond.
Those other destinations are where the action should be, and the Obama NASA budget proposal explicitly focuses exploration here. It won't be human exploration, at least in this budget. But by pointing NASA's Exploration division (as opposed to the Science division) in that direction, it lays a foundation for a better human spaceflight program: one that won't be repeating the glories of the past but reaching for new challenges beyond. This 'flexible path' provides a diverse multitude of destinations which have demonstrable economic benefits. First, the Sun-Earth Lagrange points, gravitational islands in space where we already have operating astronomical research satellites and more, including the next-generation Hubble, will be stationed. Repair missions to these could protect our investments in this fundamental research. Next, the Near Earth Asteroids. Sooner or later, we'll need the ability to 'nudge' a potential Earth-impacting asteroid out of the way. These asteroids also contain immense mineral resources and it's not too far-fetched to think that innovative techniques could make some of those resources available to industry here on Earth. Further out, the tiny moons of Mars, asteroids themselves, do provide an economically sensible staging area for missions down to the red planet. And Mars is the ultimate destination, the most Earth-like of planets, the one most rich in resources that humans can use to live.
By proposing robotic precursor missions to these places, the Obama administration is laying out the the boldest vision for NASA since Kennedy's, and one that can pay-off in benefits beyond the "flags and footprints" of national prestige.
These rationales have been advocated by The Planetary Society, by the Augustine panel (an independent task force commissioned by Obama; they recommended a number of alternatives too), by space mission designer Robert Farquhar, and probably many others. It's a credit to the president that he's making decisions that would provide more value for the NASA buck (actually, for every dollar of taxpayer money spent on NASA, about 167 dollars are spent on other things). Congress will fight back--NASA's human spaceflight infrastructure provides for tens of thousands of jobs, particularly in the Gulf Coast states.
Congress may win. Who knows, we may end up with a NASA budget that funds the Constellation architecture (the Ares I and V rockets, the Orion capsule, etc). As an aside, one of the problems with the Constellation plan, in contrast with Apollo, is that it would require two successful coordinated launches, one for cargo and one for crew, for any trips to the Moon or beyond. Instead, Obama calls for a new heavy-lift vehicle.
He also calls for making use of the International Space Station for ten more years, until 2020. The ISS, begun over a decade ago, has only just recently been completed to the point where it can host a crew of six, as originally planned. A few more shuttle missions are scheduled to fully complete it. Since it took twelve years to build, it makes sense to make what good use we can out of it.
Additionally, Obama calls for NASA's budget to be increased incrementally, by about $1 billion a year to support increased R+D and Earth & space science missions. This is exactly what NASA needs to be doing as a core mission: developing technologies that can be turned over to private enterprise, as well as continuing to do space science that lacks a profit motive, but enriches our experience and inspires learning.
Finally, Obama proposes that deliveries to the ISS be outsourced to private enterprise, as the Shuttle is still slated to be retired in a year. There are few companies that could deliver in that timescale, but still, you have to start somewhere. This could be the kick-off of competition that finally begins to reduce launch costs which, ultimately, are the biggest obstacle in the way of further space development.
