A clever ploy to restore the "Terrestrial Planet Finder" mission >:}

[Alondro]

I've been disappointed for over a year now at the cancellation of the important research and exploration missions NASA had planned... and apparently replaced with PC crap like Muslim outreach projects and a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with NASA.

The most compelling project to get the axe was the Terrestrial Planet Finder, an interferometer-based mission which would have allowed us to directly image planets as small as Earth-size.  One would think that such a mission would be given high-priority, given the potential for world-changing discovery.  But it was given the boot.

So, I've been thinking about how to get it back... and I've come up with a brilliant and evil plan using reverse psychology!

See, we all need to get together and pretend to be uber-right-wing religious radicals, and run around preaching that GOD made sure the mission was cancelled so humans could never find heaven on their own!  We must cry from the hilltops that no such mission will ever be allowed by God, and all will fail.  And it's important to add that the lack of any such mission is PROOF that God's power is at work preventing humans from finding heaven.  Then, we'll have a rally in Tennessee with tens of thousands of supporters, all talking on camera about how God is forceably keeping humans stuck and isolated on this planet to keep our sin from spreading into the universe.

We'll need a few atheists to spur the rest of them into frenzied rage at the Zionist propaganda and then protest that the mission be restored, if for no other reason than to silence us crazy religious fundamentalists.  George Soros will end up funding the entire project himself (to further increase his standing with the left) and thus we won't have to put any additional tax money into it!  And once the mission is up and running and planets are being found, THEN we can reveal the truth of our plan and mock everybody who fell for it!  We'll get the sweet, sweet taste of vengeance as a bonus!  BWAH HA HA HA HA!!! 

(This plan comes courtesy of Benadryl.  With Benadryl, your crazed delusions sound perfectly reasonable every time!)   

[VAE]

Alondro, you are my hero now.
Apparently a similar approach was already used on the bush administration where a project (somebody has borrowed the book i read this fun bit in) of scientific and practical importance got approved by emphasising it's 3rd degree remote consequence - a help to the mars human mission which was the political goal

[Vidar]

You could also taunt NASA that 'it's no big deal: ESA will do what you, apparently, can't.'

Europe has the LHC, and now ESA will overtake NASA. That's what you get when you underfund your science programs.

We'll need a few atheists to spur the rest of them into frenzied rage at the Zionist propaganda and then protest that the mission be restored, if for no other reason than to silence us crazy religious fundamentalists

Bah. If there'a one thing that atheists know about fundamentalists, it's that fundamentalists will never be silenced. Real fundies are too busy ignoring evidence and believing in their faith to be quiet for just a bit.
Case in point: FSTDT. (google it, if you dare) 

The thing that most atheists do when confronted with loud fundies is the same as what everyone does in response to the Westborough Baptist Church: annoyance and much facepalming.

You need something better to get the government to invest in space science, like a new Cold War. The wiki article on the NASA budget clearly shows a great increase in NASA funding during the 1960s. Maybe we can make China the new 'red scare'...

[Drayco84]

(This plan comes courtesy of Benadryl.  With Benadryl, your crazed delusions sound perfectly reasonable every time!)   

If you're taking that for your allergies, may I recommend Chlor-Trimeton instead? (It helps that I didn't get crazed delusions, but got irritability instead...)

Anyway, it was probably bound to happen anyway. The rest of the world are the only ones pushing the boundaries of known science and engineering anyway. Wait until the LHC or ESA makes an actual space ship rather than shuttles, and then NASA will get turned around. (Maybe... Possibly...)