NASA's Budget Heading for Trouble

According to Bloomberg.com, the NASA budget, after two years of modest increases, is going to be slashed in FY07. If they want to keep the Vision for Space Exploration on track, the only thing left to cut is the Shuttle program. The Shuttle is currently planned to fly 19 missions before retirement: 18 to the International Space Station and one to service the Hubble Space Telescope. A major cut will, unavoidably, mean reneging on committments to international partners. No matter what one things of the value of the Shuttle, this is very disruptive and will create severe problems with future international projects in space and non-space areas.