Apollo astronauts decry Obama space plans
 

Washington (CNN) -- The Obama administration's vision for the future of manned space flight will bump the United States to "second or even third-rate" status as a space-faring nation, the commanders of three U.S. moon missions warned Wednesday.

The letter was signed by the first and last men to walk on the moon -- Neil Armstrong from Apollo 11 and Eugene Cernan from Apollo 17 -- and James Lovell, who commanded the heroic Apollo 13 flight.

"Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity," the letter said. "America must decide if it wishes to remain a leader in space. If it does, we should institute a program which will give us the very best chance of achieving that goal."

President Obama is scheduled to announce his space plans Thursday during a visit to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the White House announced. The White House said the five-year strategy involves a $6 billion increase in NASA's budget and additional support for new space technologies.

Armstrong, Lovell and Cernan praised Obama's increase in total funding for space exploration, which includes money for research, the international space station and a heavy-lift rocket. But the astronauts said the decision to cancel the Constellation program for manned space flight "is devastating."
"America's only path to low Earth orbit and the international space station will now be subject to an agreement with Russia to purchase space on their Soyuz (at a price of over 50 million dollars per seat with significant increases expected in the near future) until we have the capacity to provide transportation for ourselves," they wrote.

NASA's space shuttle fleet will be retired at the end of this year, leaving the Russian Soyuz capsules as the only avenue into space until commercial ventures are ready to do the job, expected to be years away. Obama's proposal to use commercial transport to reach orbit "cannot be predicted with any certainty, but is likely to take substantially longer and be more expensive than we would hope," the astronauts said.


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You know...as much as I love stories of space travel, we have problems going on here on Earth that space is a 2nd priority

I agree, and I say that as someone who is about to marry an aerospace engineer. For right now, we need to be spending that money in areas that will get us out of the crisis we are in. We owe an impossible amount of money to the Chinese, people are exhausting their unemployment funds, the housing market continues to fall, and the government is having to bail out everything from banks to big business to the american citizen (in the case of health care). The space program - at least the development of the new spacecraft for our astronauts - should be shelved for now, even for just a couple of years. It can be picked back up again when we have the money for it.

And frankly, as admirable and inspiring the three astronauts mentioned in this article are, they flew during a completely different era in our nation's history. Our politics have changed, and even the space program is radically different now than it was then. We didn't even have the space shuttle when these guys went up. I also don't expect astronauts to be very happy with any decision that would compromise the space program, just as I wouldn't be happy if suddenly my occupation became obsolete. I guess I'd be interested in hearing what others at NASA, who undoubtedly weighed in, have to say.

I would agree regarding space travel itself, however let's not forget that a lot of the high technologies we have today come from money invested in the space program. A lot of the technologies we enjoy today in medicine, military, and other areas of science comes from NASA innovations. My friend I went to high school with is actually a scientist at NASA. He goes on about this issue constantly!!

I don't really think we need manned space exploration, anymore. I mean, where can they go? Nowhere except right here. I don't mean that as a put down but I think NASA should rely more on unmanned spacecraft. They can explore what human beings can't by sending the images back to us so we can see what's out there. I can use Saturn as an example. We've seen a lot on that planet from the unmanned spacecraft that we've sent up there, like the geometric form over Saturn's north pole. We would've been clueless of what that was without them. That geometric shape is still there over 30 years after the first time we explored it. Come to find out, it's very similar to our own polar vortex, the only difference is Saturn's can fit four Earth's inside of it. What's interesting is now that we're going to other planets, is that in some ways, the moons are where the action is. We've already explored Titan and we've learned that it has an extended atmosphere and kinda like a watery based surface. Plus, its atmosphere is made up of Nitrogen and Methane, the same gasses that made up much of Earth's early atmosphere. That's just completely intriguing to me. I can't wait until we explore Enseladus because it might have water on it. If it does, I'd like to see something swim up and lick the camera.:p

We can't do any of this with manned aircraft, at least not in this lifetime.

Daemon, thanks for posting this.:)

I really would like to see us go to Mars...but...o well.

This discussion about NASA and all the recent interviews of the NASA heroes (Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell, Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan etc.) has re-sparked my interest and fascination with the space program.

When I was growing up, the CEO of Mcdonnell Douglas lived across the street from my family. Nearly everyone I knew had a dad, mom, brother, uncle etc who worked at Douglas, Westinghouse, Boeing, Lockheed, Gen Dynamics, Hughes etc. Those jobs were a major force in the California economy...today they are all gone. The universities were cranking out the best engineers in the world, and the technologies they developed for the space program and defense companies spilled over into the development of better building materials, packaging, medicine, information technology, agriculture etc. So the American investment in NASA not only created jobs, it inspired education, R&D and sustained communities that built schools, libraries and hospitals. Home values went up. People wanted their kids to excel in math and science and dream of becoming astronauts, not entertainers. Now those same communities are desparately trying to figure out how to pay for all the services that the taxes those employed people used to pay for, because our economy is now based on low paying service jobs.

I'm interested to see where we can go with NASA to develop new economic growth in the USA. And I'm reading up again on the Apollo missions. We've forgotten how to be creators and builders of our own great destiny.

With the exception of Douglas (purchased by Boeing), those companies are still around. I know Boeing and Hughes still have several campuses in California...don't know about the others. But yes, I've listened to my fiance go on about this for four years - this country produces actors, singers, lawyers and real estate agents. But there is a reason why we don't produce as many engineers and scientists as we used to - we've given those jobs to foreigners here on a visa! Of the kids who graduate from U.S. universities with engineering degrees, only some of them can get jobs. And I'm talking about good engineering schools, like Michigan, my fiance's alma mater. It took him 14 years to get into Boeing, whereas Russians and Indians and Chinese contractors can get in right away through the H1B visa program. Kids aren't going to major in engineering if they don't feel they can be guaranteed a job after graduation.

Obama talked quite a bit about this problem while he was campaigning, and it was one of the reasons why my fiance, who traditionally votes Republican, voted for him.