The New Space Race

Obama recently set a goal for NASA to reach and land on an asteroid by 2025 and to reach and land on Mars by 2030. This new project was the reason that the old Space Shuttle program was retired. NASA has already spent nine billion on a new project to get to the moon, which was cancelled for the Asteroid and Mars project. The project is slated to receive three billion a year for these next six years. Hopefully this would assure that, even though we are a slowing super-power on earth, we would remain the pioneer in space, continuing our legacy. On the legacy note, Armstrong, among other astronoughts have gone before the Senate begging for the reinstatement of the Shuttle program. They want it reinstated because as of right now, Americans have to rely on Russians for transport until private industry "space taxis" are completed. (The first of which is being created in the Arizona desert.) They just want a viable back up way to ferry astronoughts to and from low earth orbit. I feel like this option is viable for three reasons. The shuttle program is an iconic image of the US and, I feel, should not be replaced by a privitized back up that is not related to the government. It is not the same. Two, It is cheaper in the long run than having to pay a company millions to ferry men to the stations. And three, they would coninue to assert ourselves as the superpower in space. However, I think this could also be caused by a new space race that could occur between the US and China. China just launched their first space station and rockets early in the week. So the questions comes to: should we sacrifice all of NASA's programs and hopefully fix the current issues, continue the cutbacks on NASA, or keep everything running to win this new space age race? Can we really afford it? If not, what as a nation do we loose.