Keith's note: Reliable sources tell me that all of the arm waving and negative stories (many sourced directly from within NASA BTW) that have been flying around do not constitute the entire picture of what NASA is going to get and what it is going to be asked to do. Indeed this is only part of the story. This back and forth is going to continue - all from folks inside NASA - until the actual budget with the full picture is released.

As the picture continues to emerge, not only is the push for commercial crew and cargo to the ISS going to expand in the new budget, but that push for commercialization will cover all aspects of American human spaceflight - LEO and beyond, cargo and capsules, and even the development of HLVs. This will all be done as part of an overall agency budget increase of $5.9 Billion over the next 5 fiscal years.

Notice below that NASA only saw fit to talk with some - but not all - of the media before the budget release while details of the budget are still under Administration embargo. Yet another example of how Morrie Goodman seems to be trying to parse access to the agency by the media. Update: I have now learned that these media briefings were set up directly by the White House - not NASA PAO. Looks like the White House decided to take NASA PAO out of the loop. Not a good sign. Sorry Morrie.

Obama To Abandon Return To Moon, Extend Iss, Florida Today

"President Barack Obama will propose $6 billion in new funding for NASA over the next five years, administration officials said Wednesday. The proposed increase, which will be part of the president's fiscal 2011 budget request on Monday, aims to encourage the use of commercial rockets and extend use of the International Space Station until at least 2020 as the agency switches priorities away from sending astronauts back to the moon."

Obama officials: NASA to get $6 billion for commercial rockets, Orlando Sentinel

"The news teleconference at which the officials and astronaut spoke was organized for reporters at two Florida newspapers in response to the Orlando Sentinel's report on Tuesday, which said the White House budget next week would kill NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon and scrap the rockets being developed to take them there. On the teleconference was an administration official, a NASA official and Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. ... But the NASA official stressed that just because the Constellation program to return humans to the moon and its Ares I and Ares V rockets were going to be canceled did not mean that the Obama administration was abandoning exploration and human spaceflight."