Michael Gallagher wrote:
All the talk about the possiblity of Orion being "shrunk" to fit on an
EELV and with that, the possible scuttling of Moon flights by the (yet
to be inaugurated!) Obama administration leaves me with a question:
Do politicians have an aversion to sending manned missions beyond LEO?

Sticker shock.

Sticker shock is one possility, but why would politicians who shelve
ouy $1 trillion in bailouts shirk at $50 billion or $500 billion
spread out over decades to actually go someplace in space?

Simple.

Many of those politicians believed that without a federal bailout, the
entire US banking system would collapse, creating a financial crisis
worse than the Great Depression. Quite a few more more didn't believe
that, but didn't want to take a chance on being wrong. (In other words,
they were too cowardly to stand for their principles.)

"actually go[ing] somewhere in space" pales against that. It simply is
not the same priority.

Then again, maybe the cold weather is freezing my brains.

I won't argue against that.