No it is not and never will be. :l
NASA

Agreed. Of all the departments of the US Government, none gives the US more bang for its buck than NASA. THey might have their flaws, be weighed down by political pork and disinterest from Congress (who'd rather be more interested in another war with Iran), but they manage to do absolutely incredible things for all the crap they put up with.

and it's not jus tthe things a beancounter can see that NASA has done. How many young engineers and scientists, not just in America but around the world have been inspired to their careers by NASA's work? I know I was

The US used to dream back in the 50s and 60s. Back then, whenever NASA did something there were cameras and reporters there and it was breaking news. TV programs were interrupted to show routine rocket launches. These days, the only time people hear about anything NASA is when a major mission accomplishment is achieved, and even then it is only given a few minutes at max. Most Americans are more worried about which actor is having an affair with another actor. I despise the American culture of today.

Whatever, there's still 10% of the country that dreams big, and that 10% seems be able to haul the rest of the country on its back in acheivements

The 10% is there because the dream was still somewhat alive when they were growing up. In 25-50 years that 10% will be down to 1% and other nations will easily pass up the US. I hold this belief due to the public education of the US vs European and Asian countries. And while disbelief of the supernatural is on the rise, so is extreme biblical fundamentalism. The following decade will be the pivitol point in weither or not the US goes on to be a world leader, or just some backwards theocratic state.

You forget one big factor when you talked about that 10% Declining: Immigration. America's a supermagnet for Immigrants, it always has been, both skilled and unskilled. Hundreds of thousands fo the best and brightest highschool graduates around the world flock to the world's best universities (which are in America) and many of them will choose to settle, become American, and dreaming big things and making them a reality for the benefit of all Americans. NASA's apparently staffed by a large percentage of skilled immigrants from around the world, and they lend their knowledge and hard work to making things like the Curiosity Rover a reality.

Also, the best already skilled labourers from around the world flock to America's companies, adding to America's skilled workforce as those settled College Graduates do. So no, that 10% os not going to decline anytime soon. The percentage of local Americans will, however.

The sad fact of the matter is that our country is filled with complete idiots with the attention span of a goldfish and a sense of entitlement the size of the state of Texas whose idea of the bigger picture is who is going to be on American Idol next year. I say cut our defense budget by a third and give that to NASA. I guarantee that funding will put people on Mars within the next fifteen years if not sooner.

Why the Hell are we spending nearly a trillion dollars a year policing the globe when we can be so much more than what we are today?

We aren't, it mostly Defense Contracts and "Experimental" gear that never sees the light of day. Corporate interest has taken over National Defense, just look at how buddy buddy the US Army and Colt Mfg. have been for the past hundred years or so.

You have a point there. As much as I like big guns and cool tech toys, I think our future is in exploring rather than blowing each other up to line the pockets of a few faceless corporate board members. Ugh.

Thank you. My mom almost lost her job because of the cuts and layoffs they did to NASA, but she is still in there, and I plan to be a part of the Glenn Research Center once I graduate from college.

My uncle got laid off after the space shuttle program was canceled. He worked for the Johnson Jet Propulsion lab before transfering to Boeing to do pretty much the same thing. I haven't talked with him for a while to see what he is up to now.

I have heard over the years that there was efficiency issues within NASA, and that part of the Challenger debacle and the Columbia crash were tight ass middle level bureaucrats NOT wanting to make the judgement call and take the heat.

removing redundancy in the bureaucracy within NASA I think would free up more money For SCIENCE!
also, we need more money for space sex research. seriously. I VOLUNTEER for testing!

Agreed on this, I think its better spend money on Education, Healthcare and Science than on war, the military budget should be cut in half or by 2/3 at least, the Military budget of the US military was $300 billion in 2001 which was enough to maintain all of its equipment and training and such, now its like double or triple its size, we don't need any fancy stealth fighters that don't work(the F-22 turned out that it be a paper tiger and the F-35 would probably be as well), instead we can upgrade and overhaul existing combat proven equipment we have now which is a lot less money. But anyway, I say put more money into schools, hospitals, infrastructure and science institutions like NASA in my opinion.