Cool. So what will the financing be based on, then...voluntary contributions? Because that agenda won't get you any tax money.

Seems to me we're transitioning very slowly to privatized space untiliation. The next ten years will prove very interesting.

My kind of girl. :-) Wanna see my Earth Station?

Note changes made to NASA's objectives as defined by Congress. Study of earth science has been completely removed. The exploration of space has been replaced with 'colonization of space'. As a result, those wildly successful unmanned space programs (that consumed less than 10% of NASA's budget and did most of the science) are being trimmed back for things like the ISS, a moon base, and sending a man to Mars. All sound good politically - and currently have near zero science benefit.

Even the Martian Rovers that were so successful as to require refunding almost got eliminated.

Inasmuch as space colonization is the thing that will actually make money up there -- and money up there can fund all kinds of space science -- I'd say this time they have it right.

People doing hardhat stuff, people making rocket fuel, people mining iron asteroids for high-grade, and no environmental protection problems (others instead, like the cosmic-ray environment) because there's no biosphere up there, shortorder cooks learning how you flip a burger in zero G -- this is what actually puts people in space. Any science fiction fan could tell you that; guess it fell to this one this time.

Sure there are...you need lots of protection from the environment.

Yep. Eskimos do too. And similar protection goes for the Dakotas in January.