To me, it's not that crazy to suggest that education receive funding at the expense of just one NASA program. The reason Obama put this in the plan is probably that he knows the first GOP objection to any education reform plan is "how are you going to pay for it." Now he can say "well here's just one way we can pay for it if we make this program a priority.
As for "pork"--it really is harder than you think to eliminate pork--though you'd think military spending would be an easy target. (how many 100,000 dollar ashtrays would it take to pay for this program?
) One area's pork is another region's "economic incentive program"--and I think Obama wisely does not want to get into a nationwide debate on which region's third rails and sacred cows should be cut.
But on that topic, Obama has also called for an end to earmarks. If he's successful (and that's far from certain, since it's really not up to the President), that would in and of itself eliminate the lion's share of so-called "pork." After that, the U.S. needs to get its fiscal house in order (a staged withdrawal from Iraq might start to help with that) and then they can consider re-investing in money-starved programs like NASA.
So... it may partly reflect taking a politically easy road, but as a plan it's really not all that crazy.