They blew that part of the budget on Muslim outreach...
I've been telling people for a long time that Space research is as important as the military. People foolishly think “how does blowing money up there help us here?” until a planet-killing or city-killing rock emerges from the depths of space and we lack the capability to do anything about it. With the current state of NASA, there is a good chance we won't even have a warning.
And yet, they laughed and ridiculed Reagan’s Star Wars. Think of what could have already been even more advanced capabilities than we have if the goons in charge could have imagined other applications of the technology..
The last time that happened was in 1908. And those events are very, very rare. They only happen once a century or so.
I think you are scaring people to be an alarmist.
Oh.... wait... 100 years...
/johnny
Unless things have changed in the last decade, there are far fewer amateur observers of Southern Hemisphere space than the Northern Hemisphere. We should subsidize a whole bunch of amateur astronomers especially in Australia and South America.