Being a transplanted Florida nerd, I can't tell you how disheartening it was in the 80's to watch NASA's budget constantly get dorked with like a political football by both parties.
The space station was a perfect example. They'd have a budget for it, have a plan, the budget would get cut, they'd have to delay and replan. Time and time again. Of course, the damn thing ended up costing a ton more because of this and the pols would point ot that the thing was oodles and boodles of dollars over the line. *Sigh*
When you combine that with the public's perception that NASA gets too much money cause they think it receives a whopping ~24% of the federal budget. (For reference, the DOD receives ~21%). No wonder this sort of stuff happens. Ugh.
I want my badass science and feeling of "woo, I can't believe we did that!"