Misconceptions swirl around Obama space plan

Since its announcement earlier this year, President Barack Obama’s new space exploration vision for NASA has met with a firestorm of outcry, confusion and misunderstanding.

Some of the most common misconceptions are that the plan would take NASA out of the business of human spaceflight, that the President has introduced an untenable gap in U.S. spacefaring ability, and that NASA’s budget has been slashed. There have also been claims that the new plan was a secret political scheme designed by hidden architects behind closed doors.

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Killing the space program?

For now, misunderstanding and confusion about the plan remain common.

“The new administration didnt come in and kill the space program, but that’s what you’re hearing a lot,” said Leroy Chiao, former NASA astronaut and member of the Augustine committee, a blue-ribbon panel President Obama put together last year to review NASA’s plans.

In fact, the new proposal for NASA would increase the agency’s budget slightly, to $19 billion in 2011, a slight uptick from its 2010 budget of $18.3 billion.