True, but the situation with NASA is more like: The plumber says it will probably end up costing $110 to fix the sink. You say that $90 is the most you will pay AND he can only use his ATK wrench and USA pipe-cutters to do it, even when he says he might have tools in his bag that work better. Since you're the boss, he does it the way you want, but isn't very pleased with you.
Oh, and NASA's budget hasn't "taken a hit" per-se, but the last time NASA was told to build a new space ship, congress at least gave them a 50% bump in funding for a few years for the extra cost involved in building it. Recently congress has done nothing of the sort, which leaves us with at least a half-decade without a space ship to fly. Here are some charts I generated last year to back that up: http://imgur.com/HE5kf.png
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True, but the situation with NASA is more like: The plumber says it will probably end up costing $110 to fix the sink. You say that $90 is the most you will pay AND he can only use his ATK wrench and USA pipe-cutters to do it, even when he says he might have tools in his bag that work better. Since you're the boss, he does it the way you want, but isn't very pleased with you.
Oh, and NASA's budget hasn't "taken a hit" per-se, but the last time NASA was told to build a new space ship, congress at least gave them a 50% bump in funding for a few years for the extra cost involved in building it. Recently congress has done nothing of the sort, which leaves us with at least a half-decade without a space ship to fly. Here are some charts I generated last year to back that up: http://imgur.com/HE5kf.png