NASA is actually a fairly amazing entity... or it was. We did something awesome, simply to show that it could be done, and that we were the cool cats that could do it. We sent man to the moon... we brought him back safely.
All this low earth orbit crap is like going back to masturbation after having sex. Sure it's space (well sort of anyway) but is it really satisfying? NASA can send up the space shuttle to the International Space Fiasco, and 99 times out of 100 they don't kill everyone in the process. Who cares?
There are plans, drawn up by people far smarter than I am. Science fiction authors, and great thinkers of our time (some of whom are also science fiction authors). Stephen Hawking says we are at risk of eradication so long as we are on only one planet. So did Carl Sagan (in fact he said it billyuns and billyuns of times).
We must increase NASA's budget significantly. It's time for NASA to go to Mars, and if they cannot get there, they should not bother coming back.
$517 billion was spent in 2008 feeding people too damn lazy to work, clothing them, and putting a roof over their worthless heads. I'd like to take 1/10th of that and give it to NASA and take it away from those who produce literally nothing. In the event that that causes some of the people on these programs to starve or freeze to death then lets refund the rest of that money to the taxpayer, or pay down the debt. In fact lets make sure the budget cuts starve these people. While doing this, though... lets put man back on the moon, and send him to Mars. Lets send him not to visit, but to stay.
Voyager, in case it's ever encountered by extra-terrestrials, is carrying photos of life on Earth, greetings in 55 languages and a collection of music from Gregorian chants to Chuck Berry. Including "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" by '20s bluesman Blind Willie Johnson, whose stepmother blinded him when he was seven by throwing lye in is his eyes after his father had beat her for being with another man. He died, penniless, of pneumonia after sleeping bundled in wet newspapers in the ruins of his house that burned down. But his music just left the solar system. *
If you understand the greatness of this grand gesture, you understand the imperative to spend this money, and to fix NASA.

*stolen from The West Wing