Turning America's Back to the Moon (2/2/2010)

February 2, 2010 Astronaut Gene Cernan weighs in on Obama eliminating funds for manned lunar missions. Follow UFO Report on Twitter @ twitter.com Barack Obama to drop Nasa moon mission in budget cutbacks Reports say planned human flights to the moon and Mars likely to be ditched in effort to rein in US deficit Sam Jones and agencies guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 February 2010 - www.guardian.co.uk Nasa's plans to send a manned mission to the moon and launch the US into a bold new era of space exploration are likely to remain on the ground today when Barack Obama unveils his budget. The president wants to cut back or abandon 120 government programmes to help rein in the US deficit among them the funding of the US space administration as part of the $3.8tn (£2.4tn) budget. According to the Washington Post, Obama will seek to shelve the $81bn Constellation programme, which called for a return to the moon by 2020 and human landings on Mars by the middle of the century. The plans were laid out by his predecessor, George Bush, in 2004. The budget could also spell the end for Nasa's successor to the space shuttle, the Ares 1 rocket, which has already cost billions of dollars to develop. The government will instead call for $6bn to be spent over five years to develop a commercial craft to transport astronauts into orbit. Such a move would mark a sea change in how Nasa works, forcing it to rely on a private company to design and manufacture a spacecraft. Michael Griffin, a former Nasa ...



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