WISE launch

From its inception a half-century ago, NASA has been a can-do organization. Its many successes--most notably the Apollo moon missions--showed that the government-funded agency had, in the immortal words of journalist-novelist Tom Wolfe, the right stuff.

In recent years, however, NASA's star has faded. On Monday, President Obama drove that latter point home with his $19 billion budget proposal for fiscal 2011, which, among other things, would put an end to the big-ticket Constellation program.

Even more significantly, the budget proposal looks toward the burgeoning commercial spaceflight industry, with an emphasis on its entrepreneurial spirit and mounting activity, as well as a reduced burden to taxpayers.

Not that there would be no taxpayer involvement: the government plans to direct $6 billion over the next five years toward developing commercial manned spaceflight capabilities.

(Photo shows a Delta II rocket, supplied by the commercial United Launch Alliance, lifting off in December with NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite.