Obama Slashes Funding For NASA: Move to Private Sector

President Obama has cut out funding for NASA’s moon project, which was scheduled to place men on the moon in 2020. The President hopes to move space travel into a private industry business by removing the government controls and funding. This budget cost will cost thousands of people their jobs. The private sector could potentially create more jobs in the future but with the economic crisis today that is not much a consolation.

Obama was elected on a science political platform, and it appears that is shifting dramatically. Cutting the Constellation program virtually pulls the US out of the Space Race. The Constellation program has already spent billions of dollars developing the space shuttle replacement, Ares 1 rocket. Obama prefers to allocate 6 billion dollars over the next 5 years to the creation of a commercial spacecraft. NASA would be responsible for creating the spacecraft and training private business how to make it.

This essentially means NASA will lose control over the space industry in the US. Private companies will make decisions on structure, materials, and maintenance, similar to the airplane industry. The new budget is expected to get held up in Congress. Politicians across the US are shaking their heads and wondering what is next.