NASA's Challenge

"[Scott Horowitz] does not promise that this budget will be enough to get astronauts to Mars, however. Instead, he echoes a refrain heard frequently from Griffin: Americans won't complain about giving NASA more money once they understand what a tiny a piece of federal spending the agency accounts for."

Editor's note: Oh c'mon Scott. This has been true for decades and the general public has *never* been able to grasp NASA's relevance to the overall budget nor express concern or outrage even if they do learn of how little we spend on the agency. To base the success of the VSE (its future funding) on this premise is totally naive - especially when you consider NASA's ability to communicate its relevance and importance and your boss' antipathy to any sort of cogent community and public relations. Indeed, the President does not even mention the VSE in his own National Space Policy!