Barack Obama has scraped plans to put Americans back on the Moon. Here’s a round up of reactions.
“It’s a lamentably short-sighted plan for a politician who does a lot of talking about the future. Under the president’s policy, the United States would surrender its leadership in manned space exploration without firing a rocket” – Orlando Sentinel.
The Orlando Sentinel says it agrees that there are problems with the planned Ares rockets which – until Obama’s announcement – were to replace the aging Space Shuttle. But it notes that a presidential panel last year suggested building one type of Ares instead of the current two as part of the Constellation human spaceflight programme.
“Instead, Mr. Obama is proposing to throw out not just Ares, but the entire Constellation program,” says the paper. “Think of Ares as the bathwater, and Constellation as the baby.”
Congress must fight the proposed cancellation of Constellation, it adds.
“In the drive to economize, NASA must not forfeit the international leadership hard-earned through the lives and labors of our astronauts and billions in national treasure” – Houston Chronicle.
The Houston Chronicle sees both “pain and the potential for long-term gain”. On the one hand there is the potential loss of over 5,000 jobs from the Johnson Space Center as the Space Shuttle programme winds down and its planned successor Constellation is cancelled. On the plus side, there is some more money to back commercial launches and the International Space Station will be extended.
“Today I wish to endorse strongly the President’s new direction for NASA” – Buzz Aldrin.
Perhaps surprisingly, space legend Buzz Aldrin has come out in favour of Obama’s plans. Aldrin says the new plan will put NASA in the best position for sending humans to Mars “and other exciting destinations” in the future.
“The truth is, that we have already been to the Moon – some 40 years ago,” says Aldrin. “A near-term focus on lowering the cost of access to space and on developing key, cutting-edge technologies to take us further, faster, is just what our Nation needs to maintain its position as the leader in space exploration for the rest of this century.”
“A giant leap for budgetary finance, a backward step for science” – The Times.
Across the Atlantic, Obama’s plan also has its critics. The Times says it is “easy, but also wrong” to think of manned space flight as an unaffordable luxury.
It points out the US is basically giving the space-advantage to China. An accompanying cartoon features a Chinese taikonaut on the Moon saying, “That’s one small step for China, one giant kick in the goolies for America.”
“Imagine that there was an Internet in 1967 and you had to erase the Apollo program” – NASA Watch.
Keith Cowing, of the NASA Watch blog, points out a more practical problem: someone is going to have to remove all the space agency websites about the old ‘Vision for Space Exploration’.
“Seriously – this is not an insignificant task since there is an immense amount of VSE-related material that NASA has put online since 2004 that will now need to be modified or deleted,” he notes.
Image: launch complex for tests of the Orion crew exploration vehicle, part of the Constellation Programme / US Army.