I'm all for space exploration and settlement, just NOT NOW. It seems like a really bad time to be focusing a lot of attention on that. It'd be like Hoover proposing a moon shot (or something equivalently grandiose and long-term) in 1932. It seems solely politically motivated. Also, what little I heard about the plans included scrapping the International Space Station, which sounds kind of ridiculous to me. Let's keep going with that, and rehabilitate our shuttle program, and then maybe 20-30 years from now we'll go to Mars for fun.

Also, I'm surprised a Republican wouldn't want to encourage privatized space flight. Or maybe that's too much of a security threat?