Newt Gingrich supports White House's new vision for NASA

Newt Gingrich and Robert S. Walker wrote an op-ed in the Washington Times today extending support for the White House's new plans for NASA, which is a fairly important step considering that one of the potential roadblocks to the new plan would be opposition in Congress, especially by those who represent people that are afraid of losing jobs in their district as a result of any shifts in priorities that NASA makes as a result. But once again, keep in mind that NASA is actually getting a $1 billion increase with the new plan, so besides the Constellation program there aren't really going to be any cuts.

For some more debate on the new plans for NASA, you can watch This Week In Space.

Spaceref has an op-ed here about the new plans as well, including James Cameron and VASIMR funding.

New Scientist's article here is encouraging in that it stresses that manned missions to near-Earth asteroids and/or the Moon are not off the table, there just has to be a different way to carry them out (e.g. SpaceX) before they can proceed.

Remember the rumours that Google might double the prize amount for the Google Lunar X Prize? Though maybe just a rumour, if they are actually planning to do that then now would be a good time to make the announcement.