I don't see Dubya's spacey announcement as having any affect on the budget. It will be like AIDS relief to Africa, 15 thousand million in the newspaper headlines then two days later, cut the budget and send them nothing. This will be the same deal. As soon as Dubya's basked in the glow of scientific achievement, the money will be pulled and NASA will become an engineering subsidiary of Halliburton.

Sending humans to the planets, should it ever happen, isn't about science, it's about conquest. Think of Dubya as the Emperor from the Star Wars movies.

      - Mark