On March 10, President Obama canceled the Constellation Program. With this decision, the United States will no longer be able to place astronauts in space once the space shuttle is retired later this year. Just as China is working on a space program and even Hugo Chavez wants to team with the Russians for a launch facility in Venezuela, the US is throwing in the towel. We must now hitch a ride on Russian rockets, which I expect will be increasingly more expensive as they realize they have a monopoly on space travel. What will happen if they refuse? Perhaps Virgin Galactic will be able to taxi American astronauts to the international space station.
Obama has said that the US cannot afford the expense of the Constellation Program. Funding for the next 15 years was projected to be $217 billion, a little over one fourth of the cost of last year's Stimulus. And who knows how much Health Care Reform will eventually cost. So, yes, we cannot afford it but that could be used as a reason to stop all of the spending that Obama hasn't canceled.
However, this change has allowed NASA scientists the free time to help Toyota figure out their brake problem. Ah, I can just image all the kids with dreams of being astronauts and rocket scientists.
No comments:
Post a Comment