1. By: Riley Uecker

2.  We can go back to the moon if we use existing launch vehicles. With this it will cost about 40 billion dollars but they can use the annual human spaceflight budget over 10 years.  It will end up costing around 40 billion not hundreds of billions.

3.  Space missions can do a lot for people. We could discover new things that we didn’t know were there before. Also we could find places where humans could live if the world ever started to completely run out of recourses or ended.

4.  Continuing space missions doesn’t just benefit the people working in NASA. It would employ roughly around 19,000 civil servants, 40,000 contractors, and 10 centers just in San Francisco.  It will create around 5,300 jobs and 877 million worth of economic activity.

5.  Manned space missions can work against the U.S because it will put the government farther in debt when we are already way in debt. Also if we come back with nothing from the missions than what did those missions actually do for us.

6.  Soon after Mr. Bush's announcement I predicted that sending astronauts to the moon and Mars would be so expensive that future administrations would abandon the plan. This prediction seems to have come true.  The cost of all the satelites would be a few billion dollars -- not cheap, but nothing like the hundred or so billion dollars for a manned return to the moon, or the many hundreds of billions of dollars for a manned mission to Mars.

7.  "It just won't work, it can't work, and it guarantees that America becomes a second- or third-rate nation with regard to the space race."  "The Obama administration is boosting funds for NASA by $6 billion over the next five years, but not a penny of it is going toward human space flight. Instead focus is on the International Space Station, robotics R&D, and the creation of in-orbit fuel depots and closed loop life support systems. Also, NASA will more intensively study climate change here on Earth.The Obama administration's new NASA budget cancels funding for the Constellation program. It makes no substitute plans for human missions to space. Nor does the new budget directly fund a space-shuttle replacement.

8.  In my opinion I think that NASA should keep doing Manned space missions. It helps the world in many different ways. It could help find a new home for humans if the planet that we are on ever fails. Also we discover many new things threw these space missions.

9.  "Back to the Moon--For a Fraction of the Old Price." Wall Street Journal. 03 Feb 2012: A.17. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 23 May 2012 Researcher. Web. 23 May 2012.  Docksai, Rick. "Down-to-Earth NASA." Futurist (Vol. 44, No. 4). Jul/Aug 2010: 9. SIRS Issues Miller, Charles.  Sterner, Eric. "5 Myths About NASA." Washington Post. 03 Jul 2011: B.2. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 23 May 2012.  Weinberg, Steven. "Obama Gets Space Funding Right." Wall Street Journal. 04 Feb 2010: A.19. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 23 May 2012.