Wasting scientists' work and taxpayers' money

NASA's future was laid out by President Bush a couple years ago when he proposed going back to the Moon first and from there to Mars. He obviously didn't care diddlysquat about NASA, the Moon or Mars (he was probably thinking of the Mars chocolate bar, not the planet).

He wanted to divert attention away from some scandal (or his shortcomings as the Commander in Chief) and tried to show he's a leader with a vision, but failed on both accounts, since people have this amazing ability to concentrate and understand more than one topic at a time, and, above all, no one blessed with cognitive thinking would ever seriously cogitate: "Bush, a visionary leader" (I just wrote an oxymoron... about a moron).

The thing Bush doesn't seem to realize is that, because of the immense power that comes with his job title, whatever he says, has consequences. He just used the "space frontier" topic in hopes that it would put him in the same league as President Kennedy, when he laid out a policy to get to the Moon during the Cold War, but it takes more than a speech, a nice suit and a camera to look into.

So now NASA is left to carry out Bush's desires without any extra funds toward it. Kennedy had given NASA immense resources to accomplish the goal to get to the Moon. Bush, ensnared in his oil-war in Iraq that's sucking up billions from the federal budget, just told NASA to find the funds within its budget, by either reallocating resources, or canceling existing projects.

And that's precisely what NASA is doing. Among the victims, however, there are two projects for which they've already spent millions, and one that is almost complete:

Dawn Asteroid Orbiter

• What we'd Lose: Insight into our planet's birth. If launched later this year, Dawn would study two rare asteroids containing building blocks of the early universe.
• Money saved: $40 million, which is the cost to complete the project. (NASA has already spent $371 million to build the orbiter.)
• The rationale: Dawn's ion engine is weaker than it should be, and the processing units that provide power to the orbiter's thrusters are not functioning properly.

Prometheus Nuclear Systems and Technology

• What we'd lose: The ability to reach Mars in two months instead of six. The program would build nuclear reactors to power and propel spacecraft.
• Money saved: $2.1 billion over five years. (NASA has already spent about $900 million on the project since its inception in 2003.)
• The rationale: NASA hopes to share the cost of the research by partnering with countries including France, Russia and Japan, all of which are investing in nuclear propulsion.

Both projects are clearly worth carrying out. The first one seems to have encountered some technical hurdles, but NASA has already spent 9 times the amount of money it would save by scrapping the mission, and the amount saved is probably wasted in Iraq every two hours. Wouldn't it be wiser to carry it to conclusion at this point?

The second one seems to me of paramount importance for the goal of reaching Mars in the future (hell, I've never been in a spaceship, but I'm sure that a trip of 2 months would be preferable to one of 6). Yes, partnering up with other nations to share the costs would be nice, but scrapping our project would mean trashing NINE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!!

Are they crazy!?