I didn't make it to Houston for the Exploration Conference, but Keith Cowing did, and is live blogging it.

"The event opened this morning with a lavish (and no doubt expensive) series of videos, a childen's choir, and a military colorguard."

Wow!

Less spending in Aeronautics is a good thing, because the spending there is primarily for special interest? As opposed to what? Manned Spaceflight?

Last I looked, more people were traveling by plane than rocketship. Instead of spending $30 million for a one-time spaceflight, I rather buy a few tickets on an improved Concorde like vehicle that flies me up to 60,000+ feet on a regular basis along with a few hundred others.

In addition, if the special interest is the military, then I'll take those benefits as well.

Surely Ms. Porter was just trying to put a positive spin on the topic, but she would have done better to talk about the shrinking aeronautics budget as a good thing towards smaller government.