When he spoke 41 years ago, the world listened — hanging on every word as he uttered one of the most inspiring phrases of the 20th century.

Neil Armstrong earned himself a lifetime of respect with his one giant leap for mankind, but he has for decades refrained from exploiting it, turning down opportunities in politics and avoiding controversy.

Now the space gloves are off. The first man on the Moon has teamed up with the last man, Gene Cernan, to confront President Obama over his “devastating” plans for Nasa’s $108 billion (£70 billion) Constellation programme. Mr Obama wants to scrap Constellation, which was meant to develop new space ships to replace the shuttle, take astronauts back to the Moon and ultimately to Mars.

The death of the project would set America’s space programme on a “long downhill slide to mediocrity”, Armstrong declared yesterday. “It appears that we will have wasted our current $10-plus billion investment in Constellation and, equally importantly, we will have lost the many years required to re-create the equivalent of what we will have discarded,” he said in a statement.

Determined to regain the high ground in the increasingly embarrassing dispute, the White House wheeled out a big gun of its own: Buzz Aldrin, Armstrong’s Apollo 11 crewmate and second man on the Moon.

In a statement, Aldrin said that the President’s new vision for Nasa would leave America’s space programme better off. “It will allow us to again be pushing the boundaries to achieve new and challenging things beyond Earth,” he said.

Mr Obama will elaborate on his agenda during a visit to Kennedy Space Centre in Florida today. He will argue that America could get humans to deep-space destinations including Mars faster, cheaper and more efficiently than Constellation by outsourcing new spacecraft development to the commercial sector.

The first man on the Moon will take some convincing. “For the United States, the leading space-faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low-Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third-rate stature,” he said.

Mr Obama’s proposals contained a funding increase that will allow more research and technology development at Nasa and a four-year extension to the International Space Station. The development of spacecraft to get astronauts to low-Earth orbit will be outsourced to commercial rocketeers while Nasa focuses on developing a new heavy-lift rocket, that could one day speed man to Mars and beyond.

“This new strategy means more money for Nasa, more jobs for the country, more astronaut time in space, and more investments in innovation,” Mr Obama will say today, according to excerpts leaked before his speech.

Armstrong countered: “Although some of these proposals have merit, the accompanying decision to cancel the Constellation programme, its Ares I and Ares V rockets, and the Orion spacecraft, is devastating.”

He added: “America must decide if it wishes to remain a leader in space. If it does, we should institute a programme which will give us the very best chance of achieving that goal.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7097868.ece

Maybe YOU forgot to count all the "jobs","saved "or "created". Isn't that the USUAL LIE the Obama administration uses here.

Btw, socialist and tax-paying hater, just how will this huge government space program be paid for?

Forum, are you intimating that The Big Mao is intending on cutting Nasa? He just said, yesterday, that we should forget the Moon since "we've been there, done that", and are now focused on Mars. Is that what we call "cutting spending", now?

SD

Outsourcing is never cheaper in the long run!!!!
As to the moon, far better place to stage deep space missions from than earth, simply because you can lift 6 times the payload for the same energy cost....or conversly the same payloads with 1/6th the thrust. Thrust equates to fuel, fuel equates to weight so staging from the moon makes a lot more sense!!!

You conveniently forgot to include input from another American Hero, Random.

Obama announced a revised plan yesterday, which was greeted positively. So much for deep-sixing another Obama smear.

Btw, socialist and tax-paying hater, just how will this huge government space program be paid for?

In statements e-mailed to the Associated Press and NBC, Armstrong and other astronauts took exception with Obama's plan to cancel NASA's return-to-the-moon program, dubbed Project Constellation.

Armstrong, in an e-mail to the AP, said he had "substantial reservations." More than two dozen Apollo-era veterans, including Lovell and Cernan, signed another letter Monday calling the plan a "misguided proposal that forces NASA out of human space operations for the foreseeable future."

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2010-04-14-armstrong-moon_N.htm