I haven't read the rest of the article yet, but I'm guessing we have some union payoffs in there somewhere. Lord, if this administration had been around in the early 1900s they'd be finding a way to artificially keep the horse-drawn carriage industry afloat.
I watched 2001 the other day, and continue to be amazed at how spectacular the visual effects were for a 1968 film. But even more than that, I felt a bit depressed because the depiction of space travel in the first part of the film should be almost within grasp, yet it's not. Something else noteworthy in the film, it depicted space travel by Pan-Am. That shows you something about the mindset when the film was made. There was an assumption that it would soon get beyond this very bleeding-edge undertaking (that arguably requires the resources of the State) and become something pursued by private interests using their own capital, implementing the sort of efficiencies not possible in large public projects.
I just feel like with Obama at the helm, he's throwing the match. For the first time since we became a spacefaring country, we no longer have a completely in-house ability to reach low Earth orbit.