Clark Lindsey points out that, while there may be many good arguments against NASA’s human spaceflight program, the notion that we can’t afford it is ludicrous.

It’s really tragic that the debate is so simple minded. There seems little point in debating whether or not NASA should continue to spend money on manned spaceflight–that seems to be inevitable, for reasons of inertia, perceived prestige, and (most importantly) pork. So, as Clark points out, if we could accept that as a given, it would be nice to have an intelligent discussion about how NASA spends the money that they seem inevitably to be given. Unfortunately, that debate is driven largely by pork as well.

[Update at 8:50 AM EDT]

Jeff Foust has an article about media reaction over at The Space Review this morning.

[Late afternoon update]

There’s an interesting discussion in comments at this post by Jeff Foust at Space Politics, including comments on the existence of lunar water by Paul Spudis.