I am worried about the future of the US Space Program. And I am very concerned that without a strong space program, the US will not be at the forefront of the scientific and technological innovation that the most key element to the success of human beings on Earth.
You see, we are getting a bit crowded here, and low on resources. We need to learn how to maximize new technologies for cleaner energy, cheaper food, and we also need to think about having somewhere to go if things get too "hot" here on Earth. (Hopefully I am talking WAY WAY in the future here, but there's nothing like planning ahead, ok.)
The US is making a number of really bad mistakes with it's space program right now. We have allowed the Shuttles to age without planning the next model fast enough. The current plan relies on the Russian Space Program to shuttle our astronauts to and from the International Space Station in coming years. With the increasing aggressive behavior of Russia in Georgia/ South Ossetia, and the increasingly controlling-at-all-costs (freedoms be damned) behavior of Vladamir Putin I am certainly not the only person who can see the folly in that.
Obama, whom I like in almost all respects, has not had anything particularly supportive to say about NASA, and has suggested cutting their Mars mission budget to pay for his well needed programs. I say please cut elsewhere.
The third mistake is relying on private corporations to carry the load of research and development of new spacecraft. While I applaud the efforts of Richard Branson and his ilk, and think Space Tourism has a strong future, these not exactly cheap travel deals have a place in the future but we can't rely upon them. This is too big of a job to allow pure Capitalism to do the work. This is why we have a government, people. This is the logical next step for our Air Force and our World's Greatest Military strength. If we could funnel 1/4 of the cost and manpower we have put into the Iraq war into NASA just think what we could be accomplishing and what we could be learning about our Universe.