Can we rebuild Gulf Coast and fly to moon, too?

People are variously saying that the cost of Katrina’s cleanup and reconstruction should put a stop to Social Security reform, delay the Medicare prescription drug benefit and even hasten the withdrawal from Iraq. One expenditure it should render unaffordable is another moon shot, which NASA estimated Monday will cost $104 billion if done by 2018. We’re going to have to get back into that final frontier someday, but the nation’s earthbound problems are more pressing right now.
Still, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin made a good point Monday: “We must deal with our short-term problems while not sacrificing our long-term investments in our future. When we have a hurricane, we don’t cancel the Air Force. We don’t cancel the Navy. And we’re not going to cancel NASA.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman