There was a time when NASA was a source of national pride and inspiration. Ask anyone over 45 where they were when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon and they’ll likely recall exactly what they were doing and thinking during that momentous feat. Ask anyone under 30 what NASA means to them, and the story is about a big telescope, a robot on Mars and a pair of tragic shuttle explosions. Instead of steering the space program in a bold, new direction, President Obama has decided to take it back behind the shed and put the poor thing out of its misery.

In the 2011 budget proposed by Obama, NASA would lose all funding for the constellation project designed to replace the aging space shuttle. In addition, former President Bush’s initiative to return to the moon by 2020 is completely scrapped.

By all accounts, the programs put before the death panel were over budget and under performing. There was serious doubt as to whether NASA could pull a repeat of President Kennedy’s ambitious goal and make it back to the moon by the end of the decade. Obama was well advised to kill these programs.

But he went wrong in his decision to divert funding to the private sector. With the shuttle program scheduled for retirement next year, America will be entirely dependant on other nations to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Current projections conclude that private initiatives will have viable space vehicles available before the now-cancelled NASA projects would have delivered a successor. Is that a valid reason to mothball our government space program? Commercial space flight is a practical stopgap while NASA recovers from wasted decades of foot dragging, but it should only be a temporary fix until a new official space vehicle gets off the ground and into the heavens.

It’s difficult to defend something as starry-eyed as sending people back to the moon (and eventually Mars) in such a tough economy. Consider, however, that when the shuttle program shuts down, Texas and Florida stand to lose a combined 7,000 jobs. The new budget will actually provide slightly more funding to private programs expected to create only 1,700 new jobs. Thus, the government will spend even more money while shedding over 5,000 jobs.

Also consider what makes space exploration so special. Delving into the unknown and exploring beyond our borders aren’t just romantic ideals; they’re universal human ambitions. But is it profitable? It seems dangerous to take space exploration away from those interested in science for its own sake and give it to those looking to monetize the final frontier. When space is reduced to little more than a new place to make a buck, how far away is Lunar Disneyland?

NASA made more than its share of mistakes over the years. It’s been an unambitious and misguided program during the entire lifetime of most college students. In fact, no human has ventured farther than low Earth orbit since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

It is rational and responsible to kill programs that are not performing. It is uninspired, however, to not replace them with new initiatives. The government is essentially saying they can’t figure out, let somebody else do it.

Raise a glass of Tang to the once-great NASA. Let’s just hope when we tell our grandchildren about the first person on Mars, we won’t have to tell them it was only on pay-per-view and the astronaut was covered in more endorsement patches than a NASCAR driver.