Ok, as everyone here, i like the idea of space travel but let us face reality : we don't have the technology to go out in our solar system efficiently. We are still using the same engines that the ones used in the appolo project in 1969. Ok, they got a little bit of efficiency between there and now but it remains VERY difficult to go to space.
To escape from the earth gravitational field (and so go to the moon, mars, whatever), you need the object to be propelled at 11.2 km per SECOND. Man, that means a LOT of energy for a 750 tons Ariane 5 rocket including 700 tons of fuel.
It means 90% of the INITIAL rocket mass is just useless once in space.
Do you understand now ? It is not about Obama, it is about TECHNOLOGY. That's real stuff, you can't do anything about it except improving it. And that needs time.
Yes, space exploration is important indeed for science. But sending men, not probes, to moon, mars, etc... is about a nation pride. If you think spending money for pride is more important than in real stuff like social projects in our good old earth, your choice. Create a lobby for space exploration but don't claim loudly non-sense things like "Obama is a stupid politician". Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, it has nothing to do with it. We need something more efficient than mere rockets to go to space and now, it just doesn't exist.
Nowadays, would we discover lots of platinum ingots on the moon, it would still cost more money to bring them back here than what they are worth (and please stop with that nonsense about fusion : please understand the nuclear theory besides before talking about it. Every atom in the universe can fusion with an another one if you inject enough energy in them, not just only the Helium 3 : basically, you can do it with deuterium and tritium and there is plenty of those two on earth. It is just less efficient. And we are still decades far from making a fusion energy plant.)
Myself, i am an ingeneer student and then a true scientist. As then, i don't bother about a nation's pride but about the maximum amount of knowledge you can get from one amount of money. And as today, it means sending probes, not human in space. I am happy that the completely unrealistic NASA project went down as it will mean more money in really valuable projects.
One day, a time may come when the science would be discovering a way to go to the stars without consuming slices of entire countries'GDP. You just need to be patient.
