I just started laughing (though in a polite way and mostly internally- I’d just started after all). I told them, essentially, “Look, I busted my ass in undergrad to get a degree in astrophysics, which I don’t want to be immodest but is NOT the soft option, and I make $30/hr with no benefits as an entry-level contractor. My brother boozed and partied his way to an econ degree and he makes $60/hr for the same level of position, WITH benefits even though he is also a contractor.

I can’t IMAGINE why our youth would be passing science by in spite of education’s best efforts.”

/end aside

I was extremely disappointed in this decision. The lack of vision in our political process makes a cynic of me. My livelihood doesn’t depend on the space program the way yours does, but as a lifelong fan of space exploration, I can’t excuse this. Not to mention that as an astronomer and planetary scientist, I know good and well there is only so much that can be accomplished with probes- to really get into the guts of a planet, you need something/someone who is able to discern on the ground. It’s just bad science, and anyone who knows me knows it is a quirk of my nature that nothing on this earth offends me more than bad science.

I haven’t talked to my father today, but he is going to be so sad when he hears this. He doesn’t work for NASA anymore, but he’s worked on the (many) shuttle replacement initiatives over the years and he was one of many who have fought long and hard to keep them alive. My dad IS a rocket scientist because he watched men walk on the moon when he was a kid- it’s been his passion all his life. And I’m an astronomer because of that same passion that he passed onto me over the course of my childhood.

I get the hand-off to industry- it’s been obvious a long time now that this is the final destination of manned spaceflight, like many technologies before it. But, preferably, that hand-off would be when industry is READY for it- which is most decidedly not the case right now.

Today is a very sad day.