Obama Cancels Return To The Moon

The Ares I-X launches during its test flight in Oct. 2009. The program to develop the rocket may be canceled by the Obama administration. NASA

President Obama is planning to cancel NASA’s return trip to the moon due to tough economic times but is planning on boosting NASA budget 5.9 billion dollars, according to Discovery News.

“We are canceling the program, not delaying it,” Obama’s budget chief Peter Orszag told reporters.

President George W. Bush began the Constellation program in 2004 with the hope of having humans one day return to the moon. Since that time NASA estimates to have spent over nine billion dollars on not only this project but also  on the component Ares 1 program (3.5 billion) and the Orion program (3.7 billion on).

Obama’s cancellation decision means that NASA will be constrained to low-Earth orbits for years to come. This combined with the planned retirement of the space shuttle fleet in September will transform the aspirations of the U.S. Space Program.

Obama is hoping that commercial rockets and other vehicles will ferry U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station (IIS). But at the same time, Obama plans to hike NASA’s budget by 5.9 billion dollars over five years to boost commercial development, with the goal of a first commercial flight to the ISS launching by 2015, according to Obama advisers.

Until the new infrastructure is in place, and after the space shuttle program retires, NASA will rely on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to carry U.S. astronauts to the space station.

The last hurtle for Obama to get this passed will be Congress, which, in my opinion, I hope is a hard one, since lawmakers from Florida and other states with close ties to the space program are likely to oppose moves that could threaten local jobs.

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