For a legacy (if indeed that's what this White House was seeking) this proposal is remarkably Clintonian - hifalutin' verbiage with plenty of grease but no meat. Slick. (This Administration won't appreciate the comparison, I'm sure.) I also recall now that Mr. Bush's predecessor made some bad strategic choices (forcing the Mideast negotiators where they weren't ready to go) in a desperate grasp for a legacy, which didn't work out, neither for him nor the country.

One wonders if the original Seitzen & Cowing piece carried by UPI last week was in fact a leak, and if some Administration apparatchik has been twiddling the dials downward ever since, based on the public commentary.

This White House is easily sophisticated enough to do that. The rest of the press, to its discredit, appears to have foregone fact-checking the original UPI piece in favor of the immediate clever pounce. So a possibly great idea has been shot down before it ever got off the ground. Such are the policy choices forced on us by the modern news cycle.

A flat increment of $200 million per annum as reported by Vartabedian in the /LATimes/ yesterday (not compounded as the Cowing piece explicitly stated) does not even keep up with inflation. The Producer Price Index has been slightly lower than the Consumer Price Index for the last decade. Say, PPI = 2.75%. Applied to a $15.5 base, NASA's constant-value increment should have been:

FY05: +$426 mil vs. +$200 mil actual, variance = -$226 mil
FY06: +$438 mil vs. +$200 mil actual, variance = -$238 mil
FY07: +$450 mil vs. +$200 mil actual, variance = -$250 mil
FY08: +$462 mil vs. +$200 mil actual, variance = -$262 mil
FY09: +$475 mil vs. +$200 mil actual, variance = -$275 mil

* Each* of these annual variances is enough to pay for a complete robotic mission to deep space (Discovery or Explorer class, I forget which). That's quite a opportunity cost to science.

But it's worse.

Now compare the announced figure to the bandied growth rate of 5%. Applied to a $15.5 base, NASA's Moon/Mars growth increment should have been:

FY05: +$775 mil vs. +$200 mil actual, variance = -$575 mil
FY06: +$814 mil vs. +$200 mil actual, variance = -$614 mil
FY07: +$854 mil vs. +$200 mil actual, variance = -$654 mil
FY08: +$897 mil vs. +$200 mil actual, variance = -$697 mil
FY09: +$942 mil vs. +$200 mil actual, variance = -$742 mil

Each of these annual variances is enough to pay for a complete planetary mission, such as the MER double shot, the Pluto-Kuiper express, a Mercury orbiter+lander, a Europa orbiter, etc. That is one helluva opportunity cost, not only to science, but to public pride and the spirit of discovery.

I have no idea how NASA is going to reprogram money to achieve the manned space goals set out this afternoon within a sub-fixed budget, but I fear for planetary science (currently robotic).

Let me remind you that the recent triumphs have been brought to you by robots.

The recent tragedies involved flesh-and-blood people, may they rest in peace.

If I were NASA's Administrator forced to play this less-than-zero-sum game, I'd go with the robots, and ditch spaceflight.

The president's announcement today is a downer, in every sense of the word.

Editor's note there are additional details on the Plan at NASAwatch that possibily explain how these numbers are getting crunched.

Robert G. Kennedy, P.E. is president of The Ultimax Group, Inc., a registered professional engineer (robotics specialty) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA, and worked for the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 1994 Congressional Fellow. He has published extensively about technology, society, and international affairs; manufactured and distributed Russian space software worldwide, and co-authored with Ken Roy "Mirrors & Smoke: Ameliorating Climate Change with Giant Solar Sails" in the Summer 2001 issue of The Whole Earth Review.

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