ANOTHER OBAMA RETRENCHMENT FOR THE WORLD'S GREATEST POWER – AT 9:10 A.M. ET:  You have a perfect right, even a responsibility, to be enraged at what Obama is doing to the space program, perhaps the single most important symbol of American engineering prowess.  From WaPo:

When astronaut Garrett Reisman returned from an 11-day space shuttle mission last May, he knew he was headed to the back of the line. If he wanted to return to orbit, he would have to wait at least five years for a second tour aboard the international space station, which he had called home for 95 days in 2008.

And even if he were offered a chance to return to space, Reisman would have to fly aboard a cramped Russian capsule, not an American space shuttle. After NASA’s Atlantis rolls to a stop later this month, the Soyuz will be the only ride to space — and slots are limited.

Imagine, a Russian capsule will be the only ride into space...for the first time in almost half a century.  Obama certainly has changed things, hasn't he?

For the foreseeable future, NASA plans to send just four to six astronauts — American and international — to the space station each year, paying Russia up to $56 million per seat.

Instead of waiting, Reisman joined a steady flow of astronauts drifting away from NASA like so many untethered spacewalkers.

The agency’s vaunted astronaut corps, trained to withstand high acceleration, dangerous spacewalks, isolation and countless technical hiccups, now confronts a challenge with no handy checklist: the unknown.

“A lot of astronauts have to make a decision. Do they want to wait five, six, seven years?” said Thomas D. Jones, a Baltimore native who flew four shuttle missions before leaving NASA in 2001.

At that time, the agency employed 150 astronauts, the largest space-going workforce in its history. By October 2009, that number had fallen to 92. Now it stands at 61, with two retirements imminent — including that of Mark Kelly, the commander of a recent shuttle mission and the husband of Gabrielle Giffords, the wounded Arizona congresswoman — and “a few more departures” likely later this year, said Peggy Whitson, chief astronaut at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

COMMENT:  I know, I know.  Some space exploration can be done more cheaply by machines rather than astronauts.  But the symbolism of the astronaut cannot be matched, not can the sheer thrill of men and women in space speaking to Earth, and expecially to their countrymen.

Great nations require great symbols.  "Showing the flag" is a time-honored way in which a nation displays its abilities and its strength.   It enrages me to think that the only flag that will be shown in space for a long time will be the flag of a corrupt, struggling Russia, a nation no one ever described as the last great hope of mankind.

July 5, 2011