Washington, February 02: The Obama Administration has moved to scrap NASA’s ambitious but over-budgeted back-to-moon programme citing its economic non-viability and indicated it wants the space agency to spend towards longer-range research.
USD 9 billion has already been spent on the Bush-era programme which the administration has proposed to scrap in the budget and has also proposed to invest USD 6 billion over five years in a commercial space taxi to carry astronauts into low Earth orbit.
“Let me be clear about what is happening at NASA. The Constellation programme, which is over budget and behind schedule, was intended to do what we’ve already done, which is return a man or woman to the moon,” said Peter Orszag, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, explaining why the Obama Administration decided to scrap this project.
“We believe in the future of human space flight.
–PTI