Remarkably, for the second straight year, Congress passed a budget that fully funds NASA, so the President's vision for space exploration, the building of the shuttle replacement and a return to the moon by 2018 continues. NASA's FY 2006 share of the federal budget comes to $16.5 billion. For those who think we should focus our attention on problems here on earth, well, that is precisely what we do. The bulk of the federal budget goes to things like social security, medicare, education, and the like. NASA's $16.5 billion for the year represents only 0.7 percent of the federal budget. 99.3 percent of the federal budget focuses on all those things that the naysayers think are important.

I suspect that the naysayers drop a larger percent of their personal budgets on watching movies and other frivolous things (or do such people really spend all their time and money helping the homeless at soup kitchens?)

So there.