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Trip to the Moon Will not Happen in the Next 10 years, but Obama gives the Space Program $6 Billion

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

It has been rumored for a while that President Obama would be cutting funds to go back to the moon in an attempt to trim the budget. Today, President Obama did just that in a sense, as he ended the Constellation mission back to the moon with the submission of the 2011 budget, but at the same time gave NASA a $6 billion funding increase over the next 5 years.
So why did he really decide this when his replacement plan will have to go through the roads of Congress, and it seems as if the Republicans try and shoot down every plan that he has. Maybe he decided this because the 'Nasa Constellation program' would eventually return astronauts to the moon by the year 2020, while it was over budget, and not on schedule. Besides, new technologies that could apply to the space program have not been implemented, and there now were other objectives possible with outer space besides just landing a man on the moon. It is no longer feasible to just try and do that. Spending another 10 years to land on the moon 60 years later would be a waste of money, unless maybe we would attempt to colonize the moon, and there definitely would not be enough funds in the present budget to do such a thing. More funding would have to come in the year 2015 or 2016 to get a man on the moon by 2020. With global warming, and the need to help people live on this earth, along with the natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, it does not make any sense to keep the Constellation mission back to the moon on the drawing table at this time.
A project such as this that was introduced in 2005 by President George W. Bush. It was anticipated that it would have problems, but now it is known that it would just be too costly to fix the problems, something that the U.S. Government doesn't have at this time. Regardless, President Obama has given the space program $6 Billion in funds to continue for the next decade.
Within the last couple of days, George W. Bush visited President Obama in the White House for a very short visit, and now we can speculate that the two Presidents had a brief conversation on the project, as out of respect, most likely President Obama informed George W. that his project had to be axed.
So what is the Republican reaction? Of course it would be sour with the news, because President Obama disregarded a plan made by a Republican President, but also as stated by the Republican from Alabama, Richard Shelby whose district also includes the Marshall Space Flight Center, stated his dislike for the Obama cut. He claims that "Congress cannot and will not sit back and watch the reckless abandonment of sound principles, a proven track record, a steady path to success, and the destruction of our human space flight program." As an astronaut himself as he flew on the space shuttle four times, it is understandable how he may have these strong feelings about loosing such a program.
Now how about someone who may like the change. Surprisingly, it is the commercial spaceflight companies that are extremely happy regarding the Obama plan to add $6 Billion to the space program. Now there would be "robust competition in the marketplace that can reduce costs and generate innovation" as stated by Bretton Alexander, the president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

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