This past weekend, China sent its first woman into space. When reading about Liu Yang's trip I was touched by what Mae Jemison -- the first African-American female astronaut -- had to say. She grew up during NASA's Apollo era of space travel, and as a child, was irritated by the lack of women involved who could have been role models for her.
If I had seen someone like me involved in NASA when I was a little girl, it would have given me a great big grin and made things a whole lot easier when I was starting out... It's not just that you can see yourself in that position, but also the fact that then other people understand that there is a wide range of talent to draw from.
Jemison on why including women is a no-brainer:
China has tremendous talent and resources, but if you don't bring all your best players in, you're not going to have the best opportunities to understand how things can be better, and how to make stuff happen more effectively. I'm very excited that women will be included on this flight.
Jemison served aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in September 1992 and has certainly been a role model for many young girls and women here in the United States.
But then something else struck me. America has killed the space program! And China is now following in our footsteps -- and perhaps will advance far beyond -- so where does that leave us?
Fast forward a few years......Now that the United States no longer has space shuttles, but relies on the Russians to send our people into space, my 22 year-old daughter is, to her great disappointment, replanning her future. Even if she did not become an astronaut, she hoped to become involved with the US space program.
This a great step backward for science in this country.
For openers, visit NASA.gov.
You'll find that the U.S. is a joint partner in operating the International Space Station, which is why the Shuttle was designed in the first place -- to build the ISS.
U.S. astronauts are onboard the ISS right now and have been continuously since November 2000. They will remain there until at least 2020, when the current joint agreements expire.
NASA is seeding the private sector with investment money to grow new commercial cargo and crew programs. Apparently you were in a coma last month when the major media were reporting on SpaceX sending the Dragon capsule to the ISS to deliver cargo. That capsule was commissioned by NASA, and the space agency helped SpaceX design the capsule. Dragon was designed for eventual use as a crewed vehicle by 2015.
Four companies, along with SpaceX, are working with NASA as part of a government-sponsored competition to start a new commercial crew industry.
For beyond Earth orbit, NASA is building a new heavy-lift rocket called the Space Launch System that will take astronauts back to the Moon, or to an asteroid, or to Mars. The first Orion capsule for the SLS is currently under construction at Kennedy Space Center.
NASA has probes and satellites active throughout the solar system. The Mars Science Laboratory arrives at Mars in August.
What you wrote was incredibly ignorant, and that's to be charitable.
The link refers to one program, ExoMars, that was cut because our European partners could not guarantee that they could fund their end in the future. Furthermore, much of the astronomy budget is being poured into the Webb space telescope -- Hubble's successor -- because Maryland senator Barbara Mikulski chairs the subcommittee over NASA's budget. Webb is being built in her state so she has used her power to protect Webb at the expense of many other astronomy programs.
Outside of that, NASA's budget is pretty much flatline from one year ago. You can find NASA's proposed FY 13 budget and previous years' budgets at http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/ .
As for "affecting our competitiveness," I'd like to know who it is you think we're competing against and what is the competition. If the competition is for the commercial launch business, China has already admitted they can't compete with SpaceX and it appears that both ESA and Japan won't build any more cargo modules for ISS delivery because SpaceX and Orbital can do it cheaper.