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Barack Obama to unveil 'bold' space mission to send astronauts to Mars
London Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | April 15, 2010 | Alex Spillius

Posted on 04/15/2010 5:49:49 AM PDT by Schnucki

President Barack Obama will on Thursday unveil a "bold and daring" new space mission to send astronauts to Mars months after he scrapped a project to return to the Moon.

The president promised that the programme would pursue trips to "a sequence of deep-space destinations", buoyed by a Nasa budget that will be increased by $6 billion (£4 billion) over the next five years.

By 2015, the agency will determine "the specific heavy-lift rocket" needed to send astronauts to asteroids, the moons of Mars and eventually to Mars itself, details of the proposal published on the White House website said. It also allocates $3 billion (£2 billion) more to the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, a 60 per cent increase over previous plans.

The proposals also give private industry the role of building new "space taxis" to take humans to the international Space Station, after the space shuttle project ends this year.

But while the White House promoted the plans as "bold and daring", many retired astronauts and Nasa officials viewed it as just the opposite.

Mr Obama has faced fierce criticism from lawmakers and space enthusiasts since budget proposals in February revealed plans to axe the expensive and under-funded Constellation rocket project designed to return US astronauts to the Moon by 2020. The last manned trip there was in 1972.

A panel of experts appointed by Mr Obama decided that the scheme had been so poorly funded by the Bush administration that its goals had become unrealistic.

But in an open letter to the President, Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, and other pioneering astronauts criticised the "devastating" decision to axe Constellation, saying the US space programme risked becoming "third rate" as a result.

With the demise of shuttle

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: mars; nasa; obama
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1 posted on 04/15/2010 5:49:49 AM PDT by Schnucki
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To: Schnucki

Didn’t W do that in a SOTU?.............


2 posted on 04/15/2010 5:50:32 AM PDT by Red Badger (Education makes people easy to lead, difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.)
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To: Schnucki

Wow, no President has ever wanted to send men to Mars before!

/sarcasm


3 posted on 04/15/2010 5:50:56 AM PDT by GeronL (Entitlement Zombies will become real zombies when the money runs out)
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To: Schnucki

Astronauts response, “President Obama, you first.”


4 posted on 04/15/2010 5:50:56 AM PDT by sofaman ( "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government")
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To: Schnucki

On a four-year mission to boldly spread communism where no man has gone before.


5 posted on 04/15/2010 5:51:07 AM PDT by snowrip (Liberal? YOU ARE A SOCIALIST WITH NO RATIONAL ARGUMENT.)
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To: Schnucki

Better that Obammy should go to Mars.

Or as Ralph Cramden would say “to the moon”. “Bang, zoom!”


6 posted on 04/15/2010 5:52:43 AM PDT by garyhope (It's World War IV, right here, right now, courtesy of Islam.)
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To: Schnucki; xsmommy
after he scrapped a project to return to the Moon.

He's not totally stupid. We never went to the moon in the first place.

7 posted on 04/15/2010 5:52:50 AM PDT by CholeraJoe ("And the pony looked a little bored...")
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To: Schnucki

i would be supportive if we could send Obama to Mars


8 posted on 04/15/2010 5:53:34 AM PDT by DM1
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To: Schnucki

Lip service.


9 posted on 04/15/2010 5:54:46 AM PDT by screaminsunshine (i)
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To: Schnucki

Barack Obama to unveil ‘bold’ space mission to send astronauts to Mars

Been there. Done that. At least according to Sheila Jackson Lee...


10 posted on 04/15/2010 5:54:51 AM PDT by Common Sense 101
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To: Schnucki

Well, Barry, that sounds a whole lot cheaper than turning the moon into a death star, which is what China will probably do

sarc


11 posted on 04/15/2010 5:55:29 AM PDT by silverleaf (Karl Marx was NOT one of America's Founding Fathers)
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To: CholeraJoe

no, ceej, they came here and probed you. you’ve told me the story....


12 posted on 04/15/2010 5:55:36 AM PDT by xsmommy
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To: CholeraJoe

13 posted on 04/15/2010 5:58:32 AM PDT by kosciusko51
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To: Schnucki

I wish to G-d we could find a way to launch his arrogant islamic ass into space and leave him there.


14 posted on 04/15/2010 5:59:14 AM PDT by nolongerademocrat ("Before you ask G-d for something, first thank G-d for what you already have." B'rachot 30b)
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To: Schnucki

Yet without a Space Shuttle replacement the U.S. will have to rely on the Russian Soyuz to get to the Internatational Space Station. And there will be no way to service the Hubble Space Telescope which the Soyuz is not designed to do.


15 posted on 04/15/2010 6:01:20 AM PDT by NavyCanDo
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To: Schnucki

16 posted on 04/15/2010 6:03:03 AM PDT by LRS (Just contracts; just laws; just a constitution...)
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To: Schnucki
Less here than meets the eye. Much less...
17 posted on 04/15/2010 6:05:02 AM PDT by Cincinatus (Omnia relinquit servare Rempublicam)
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To: Schnucki

Apparently all is cool with Barry as long as it takes us to someplace red, eh?


18 posted on 04/15/2010 6:05:48 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: CholeraJoe
So how do you explain these recent picture from the Lunar Reconnaissance Observer taken in the last couple of years?

Apollo sites revisited
Apollo 15 and rangefinder
Shadows of Apollo Lunar Modules

19 posted on 04/15/2010 6:07:39 AM PDT by kosciusko51
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To: Schnucki
The president promised that the programme would pursue trips to "a sequence of deep-space destinations", buoyed by a Nasa budget that will be increased by $6 billion (£4 billion) over the next five years.

Obama had to reverse course due to the outrage and loss of jobs in Fl. I wonder how the $6 billion will be allocated during those five years and what is in this year's budget. Next year, the money may not be available. This is pure PR.

20 posted on 04/15/2010 6:08:44 AM PDT by kabar
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