Feb. 4, 2010: President Obama has announced a sweeping plan to freeze all non-security discretionary spending beginning in 2011. Administration officials have since worked hard to clarify the proposal, resurrecting the campaign language of the scalpel. But one of NASA’s most famed programs received the full axe. As a part of the budget changes, the White House declared it would end NASA’s $100 billion plans to send astronauts back to the moon. Constellation, the program on the chopping block, was the pet space project of President George W. Bush. The Obama Administration, which explained that it was not abandoning NASA, plans to redirect funds to rocket research. But some identified this measure as the end of our trips to the moon. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) lamented the move as the “death march for the future of U.S. human space flight,” though Congress has yet to approve the cut.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=130991