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OUR VIEW: U.S. needs to maintain moon program

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March 14, 2010

Another of President Barack Obama's initiatives may be in trouble. Legislators from states with a heavy NASA presence are beginning to push back against his plan to kill a Bush era lunar-landing program.

The president's budget proposal for next year calls for pulling the plug on the Constellation program, with its heavy-lift Ares rockets and Orion spacecraft, in which the space agency already has $9 billion invested. The Constellation program to the moon was to be the first step toward an eventual manned mission to Mars.

Although there has been talk of extending its life, the shuttle program is set to expire after four more trips to the space station, leaving us dependent on an increasingly mercurial Russia to get heavy payloads into orbit. Meanwhile, the Chinese have made no secret of their determination to push ahead with an ambitious manned space program.

Obama's budget does include an increase in NASA funding to $19 billion, including $6 billion to encourage the private sector to develop commercial spacecraft and for NASA to pursue new technology. Just hoping a private company will come along and build a moon rocket is more of a hope than a program.

The White House has announced plans for Obama to host a high-level conference in Florida, in the Cape Canaveral area, on the next step in space exploration. The White House says the president will unveil an "ambitious plan" for NASA. One hopes it is considerably more ambitious and visionary than hiring the Russians or Chinese to explore space for us.




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