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:roll:
Reading comprehension is obviously not strong with you.
Currently, NASA's budget is $18.7 billion, and increases are figured.
Multiply that by five (2011-2015), what do you get?
That's right -- $93 billion. Without increases.
Is $55 billion more than $93 billion? Does it "greatly exceed" it?
The article refers to what Obama's budget estimate for manned space flight programs was over those years, within the NASA budget, not in excess of it -- and it also refers to what some panel calls "worthwhile manned space flight," not just the Constellation program.
And even if you increased the initial estimate from 93 billion over five years to 104 billion over five years -- which you would not have to do; you can simply shift funds within the budget instead of adding to it (like what they're DOING!) -- you'd have $20.8 billion a year instead of $18.7 billion. That's not "greatly exceeding." :roll:
To say nothing of the fact that $55 billion, a mere $11 billion a year, for manned space flight is chickenfeed. Table scraps. A rounding error. Hardly a blip on hardly a blip. Hell, there's $350 billion in unused TARP funds sitting there that they don't want to give back, and they aren't spending it, so that takes care of the whole shebang almost seven times over.
Put things in their proper perspective:
The WASTE in Medicare in 2009 ALONE was $50 billion, which means we could have paid for a complete new moon mission, from scratch, ever year from Medicare savings alone.
And Medicare isn't even Constitutional.