An end of something means the beginning of something else, and I don't think that something else is going to be the death of the manned space program.

There was a space program before there was integrated circuits.

The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program.

The single simplest reason why human space flight is necessary is this, stated as plainly as possible: keeping all your breeding pairs in one place is a retarded way to run a species.

The space program needs a goal, and the goal should be humans to Mars.

I think even in bad times it's good to keep some money going into research. And that's the purpose of the whole space program. It's not just exploration and going to see how far we can go out into space and keep people alive and bring them back, although exploration certainly has its place.