UPDATE: The Huffington Post picks up the story.
We certainly hear a lot of talk from Republicans these days about how Barack Obama is a socialist and very similar to dictators like Joseph Stalin, but somebody in Todd Akin's office needs to get up to speed on world affairs. From a official press release responding Obama's NASA policy speech:
The decision by the Obama administration to gut NASA’s manned flight program does more than jeopardize the long term goals of solar system exploration, the cancellation of the space shuttles replacement will effectively leave the United States reliant upon the Soviet Union to grant us access to low earth orbit. As a member of the Armed Services Committee I am very concerned with that possibility, and as an American I am disappointed by the prospect.
I may be mistaken, but it's my understanding that the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/austin80s/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
