President Obama will ask Congress to terminate funding for NASA's planned return to the moon, according to multiple reports.
The New York Times reported Thursday that an unnamed administration official confirmed that Obama will propose termination of the Constellation program, which was initiated by the Bush administration in 2004 with the goal of returning men to the moon by 2020.
NASA has already spent more than $9 billion on that project.
A review panel appointed by the White House concluded in October that budget constraints would preclude the nation's space agency from achieving its goal of returning men to Earth's natural satellite for the first time since 1972.
Obama requested and obtained a reduction of $3.5 billion from the human space flight program last year.
Space.com reported Friday that the president's fiscal year 2011 budget request, to be delivered to Congress Monday, would extend the space station program and commence financing of a privately-operated "space taxi" program.
Colorado's United Launch Alliance is expected to participate in any effort to embark on a private space transport system. ULA is already involved in handling rocket launches for the Air Force.
The proposed NASA budget would also assure adequate financing for the five remaining space shuttle missions. The program would end in 2011 after a 30-year run.
The budget on the way to Congress next week will propose that total NASA funding for the four fiscal years between 2011 and 2015 be $100 billion, including a $6 billion increase over last year's appropriation.
Comments
Nice. So the United States gives up space. This country is becoming more 3rd world all the time.
Investments in space transcend humanity. This is our ultimate destiny as a species.
l am angry with those who allowed this to happen. Nasa's budget is half of 1%. This is money well spent.
to JP please. i am very much a space fan but at the expense of earth? hey i got it. why dont we have a nasa charity? let them rely on charitable handouts for once. keep the money down here on the ground.
This is the best thing that could happen. NASA like most gov. agencies know how to waste billions of dollars with nothing to show for it. Letting private companies take over a job they can do themselves will save a lot of money and end up moving a human return to the moon actually faster than the government getting us there.
PlanetSpace.com
Note to all critics of spending money in/on space: Neither NASA nor the federal government spends a dime in space. All expenditures are spent here on Earth. All of them go to companies and programs whose employees are very much citizens of this planet.
Second note: What we lose--when we give up on human spaceflight--is a youthful vitality, a curiosity, a determination to go where no one has gone before. We become inward focused, risk-averse, and consumed by the problems of today. We give up on dreams, on storming the heavens on pillars of fire and smoke. We turn, instead, to creature comforts, to safety, to self-satisfaction.
To give up on human spaceflight... Well, let's just dim the lights, pull the shades, and wait for death to take us in our sleep.
Terminating our Moon base program would send a signal to the rest of the world that country that once sent men to the Moon is no longer capable of doing so! This will tell other nations that the US in a nation in decline and that the 21st century will be the age of China!
Constellation was already dead, and I don't care, commercial space travel is far more exciting to me. Human space flight is far from over, we will be opening a whole new chapter in human space flight. Come on, this is what we been waiting for, for so long. Let see what the commercial sector can do, I know I'm excited.
Damn right JP. The reason the US is in decline is that we have progressed over time to spend less and less in R&D across the board. Space is a strong example of this, which during the 60's we alocated 5% of the overall budget to NASA. Now it's .5%. I like the idea of using private launches, but they haven't even proven they can shuttle cargo to and from the ISS yet. Shouldn't we keep Ares I while we demonstrate the reliability of these rockets being developed by Orbital Sciences and SpaceX? And if we could half of the money to NASA that we used to spend we could build Ares V as well as develop the plasma rocket for a lunar tug and a tug to bring back resources like water to the ISS from all over the solar system. By doing this we would develop the most advanced defense capability of any nation on earth, as well as develop the most rapid commercial development for space of any nation.
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