Page 24 - Constellation Program News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Am. we have to do it in a smart way. >> reporter: to visit asteroids and eventually land on mars by 2035 or so, the president believes nasa should begin development on heavy lift rocket technologies, build an orion space capsule for the space station and support space taxis like one he looked at today. in the meantime we hitch expensive ride with russians to the space station. it has supports like buzz aldrin the second man to set foot on the moon. he felt the constellation program was too much been there, done that. >> i think going back to the moon and getting there 40, 50 years after we wer...

To leave. in just about 30 minutes president obama will leave for florida. the president's remarks according to the white house have been revised to say the plan will actually create jobs which has been one of the criticisms even before we've all heard the president's speech. nbc's tom kos sell lcostello is the kennedy space center. you have been great in pointing out there have been many levels of conversation, the workers, the constellation program, whatever it is, the president has a tough sell. >> reporter: yeah. well, he does here. and the reason is because there are thousands of jobs, ...

The atlantic ocean. i'm sure there's one in the pacific, too. we begin with president obama's call, however, for the most significant change in u.s. space policy since nasa was created some 50 years ago at cape canaveral today, the president urged congress to approve a plan to shift some responsibility for sending u.s. astronauts into space from nasa to private companies. >> by buying the services of space transportation, rather than the vehicles themselves, we will also ak sccelerate the pacf innovation, as companies compete to design and build and launch new means of carrying people and mate...

But here are the very quick highlights. the shuttle program will be retired this year. that's not the president's plan. that's been the plan for years. the russians will carry astronauts to the space station for the next five years. again, that's been the plan for years. the plan then was to go with a new rocket program called constellation. however, an outside panel that the obama administration brought in concluded that that program, constellation, had been dramatically underfunded. and by the way nobody argues with that. the bush administration and the previous congress never funded constel...

They were canceling the constellation bram that wcon s l constellation program that was going to be the program. the president is coming down here today in about 4 1/2 hours and to restate this policy and the changes of what it was a few months ago. they are going to decide in the next few years on a heavy-lift vehicle that will take humans to perhaps mars to asteroids. they're going to do a downsized capsule that is going to be used in case that's ever needed. they're going to pour $40 million into the kennedy space center to use that as retraining money for workers here who are displaced bec...