Everyone, I think NASA is in trouble again.  I tell you, if JFK were listening he would probably turn over in his grave. 

Here is an article from the Washington Post on the Blue Ribbon Panel on NASA's future.  It is my understanding that the basics of the report is as follows:   the 10-person committee says that we must either add a LOT more money to NASA or forget about manned flight right now.

Here are some of the highlights: 

On the Ares 1 Rocket and the Space Station--

"It's a very expensive vehicle," Augustine said after a news  conference in Washington. Under current budgets, Ares 1 won't be ready  to take astronauts to the International Space Station until 2017 at 
the earliest, the committee estimated.   Instead, the committee reported, NASA could pump billions of dollars into a public-private partnership to build a simpler, cheaper,  no-frills spacecraft that could ferry astronauts to orbit by 2016.  Such a "commercial" program would be a break with tradition at NASA  and controversial in the aerospace industry. But NASA should be  devoting its money and skills to building spaceships that can travel to distant destinations "rather than running a trucking service to low  earth orbit," Augustine said.

Suggestions on where we should go--

"Going to Mars, the most attractive target for exploration, would be cost-prohibitive given today's technology and plausible NASA budgets, the committee found. "Mars is the ultimate destination for human exploration of the inner solar system, but is not a viable first destination beyond low-Earth orbit," the report states.

 The committee said a Moon-first option is a viable strategy, but the report cites the advantages of what it calls the "flexible path" approach, in which a heavy-lift rocket would blast astronauts millions 
of miles into space, perhaps to a near-Earth asteroid or even to one of the moons of Mars.  "It is likely that the Flexible Path approach would engender more Public Engagement than the Moon First approach. In every flight, the  Flexible Path voyages would visit places where humans have never been  before, with each mission extending farther than the previous one, potentially leading to a full dress rehearsal for a Mars landing," the report states."

I want you to read it for yourself.  Here's the link:  http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/science/documents/HSF_Cmte_FinalReport102209.pdf

A nation without exploration is a nation mired in its past.