Obama end U.S. manned space program

By the end of this year there will no longer be a manned space program. Our fearless leader has ended its funding because, at three billion dollars a year, it is just to expensive. The Shuttle program is scheduled to end this year and the United States had previously agreed to allow Russia to be responsible for getting American astronauts to the international space station until we can replace the aging shuttle with the Constellation program consisting of the Ares booster, the Orion space capsule and the Altair Lunar Lander.

The Obama budget for 2011 kills the Constellation program. For decades now the United States has dominated low-Earth orbit. No more. For the first time since the early 60s the United States will have no way of putting American astronauts into space either in imediate future or in the forseeable future.

Obama has kept the Mars program intact, but so what? The Constellation program was supposed to be a stepping stone to achieving a Martain landing. The point is he has ended an achieveable, short-range program for which we have the technology now, in favor of one that is far, far off and for which the technology is still in its developmental stage. If we can't afford Ares and Orion to get us to the moon, how in the world can we afford to get men to Mars?

Obama has hailed this abdication as progress because he claims responsibility for manned exploration of space will now be turned over to private enterprise. But that is not very likely. Space exploration is just too experimental and expensive for private enterprise to handle not to mention the enormous safety requirements involved.

To end such a critical program because we cannof afford the three billion dollars is ridiculous. It is a fraction of the stimulus spending that has accomplished nothing. The truth is that Obama has no commitment to space exploration. Since his inauguration he has not made a single space in favor of it; has not committed an ounce of political captial towards it. Space exploration is the future. But Obama has decided to look inward rather than outward. The American space program began with a bang when President Kennedy committed the United States to landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade "not because it is easy, but because it is hard." What began with a bang now goes out with a whimper.

Well, we wanted change.

 

Obama effectively ends U.S.-manned space flight | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

 

we dont need to be spending money on space.

 

i am right here, screaming about government control. nasa is expensive and wasteful.

 

Space is HUGELY important. I doubt this means we're disengaging from space exploration, R&D, etc.

If it does - it would be catastrophic.

 

I agree, people should stick to their beliefs.
There is no doubt that Nasa's space program is sentimental to most and I think that is what is going on here.
I just hope they change the name of Nasa to global warming warning center or something because Nasa no longer is Nasa.
I don't like what Obama is trying to make it though.
We don't need another corrupt organization out there with no spending limits supposedly researching global doom.

 

I would say that Obama is catastrophic to the country.
He is trying to remake the country into his image!opcorn:

 

Now we will never know if ants can sort tiny screws in space.

 

You are so dead on this. The Republicans are always about privatizing and making government smaller unless it is proposed by a Democrat.