The rest is silence

Yesterday- 42 years and one day after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon- America's man-in-space program ended.

We are now a second-rate nation when it comes to space, reduced like Third World countries to having our astronauts hitch rides with the Russians.

American vehicles will take Americans into space again. But due to the Obama Administration's decision to get the government out of the space program- one of the areas in which the government truly does have the resources and motivation to do things the private sector at this point cannot- it will be years from now. By that time, we will be far behind not only the Russians but the Europeans, the Chineses and perhaps even the Indians.

This is a sad day for America.

ADDENDUM: It seems that I owe the President an apology. I hadn't heard about it, but over a year ago he reversed field at least to a degree and approved the continuance of the Orion crew vehicle for low-orbit missions. A new heavy-lift booster (though apparently not the Ares component of the Constellation program, which paired a new booster with the Orion not only for orbital missions but for a return to the moon and future missions to Mars) will also be developed, with a target date of 2015,

Nice save, Mr. President. Though we should still be going to the moon and to Mars ahead of the Chinese. I can think of few things the government could do  that would be better for the economy- that would produce more jobs and greater stimulus per dollar. It's worth remembering that the Apollo program produced exponentially more money for the economy than was spent on it.

Contrary to the mantra we often hear from the Left, we couldn't spend money more efficiently than on manned space exploration, especially since the income it has historically generated in tax revenue has provided such an impressive return on the money the government has spent on it.