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Budget Woes for NASA

One might wonder what woes an agency with a $16.2 billion dollar budget and $800 million increase from last year might have. Well for starters, NASA has $4.3 billion slated for shuttle return to flight, solely to finish construction of the International Space Station. Station is taking up another $1.8 billion this year, and a Hubble rescue mission, robotic or not, may take up to $2 billion more. That's half the budget before even thinking about the President's vision for the Moon and Mars. Most of this effort is going into completing 20 years of pyramid building in space; to complete an orbital platform with no clear mission, enormous costs, and uncertain scientific worth. Given NASA's history of cost overruns, how can we justify spending most of the budget on programs with small returns and big cost uncertainties?