NASA administrator Griffin has released his guidance on NASA's budget planning. Essentially, the science and education programs will be held flat while the agency tries to safely phase out the Shuttle, finish a workable International Space Station configuration, and fund the transition to the planned Crew Exploration Vehicle and the rest of the Vision for Space Exploration.
Comment: Those who would like to see robust science and education programs while still keeping the VSE development on track really have only one option: fight for more funding. NASA is shedding employees (contract and civil service), asking for proposals for contracting out delivery of cargo to the space station to private industry, and otherwise pushing for all the economies Congress will let them get away with (I say that because there's no chance Congress will let he agency get away with closing any of its field centers, even though they were established when NASA was much larger.) A higher "topline" is the only real option, and that means NASA and its supporters (myself included) must do a better job of making the case for more NASA funding within a constrained Federal budget.
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