Page 25 - Constellation Program News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

President kacalderone and first lady. she'll sit down with business leaders and then heading to san diego for a childhood obesity event. >> thank you. let's talk about what the president's doing today. >> reporter: yeah. >> what's the president doing today? >> reporter: well, yeah, he's going -- i'm like. i thought you were -- that was a really short question. i'm not used to that. he's going down to cape canaveral. as you know, back stateside there's a bit of a controversy over the space program and the cuts that the president has made, the constellation program, which was going to send u.s. ...

We had no way to get into earth. we have to hitch a ride on russians who are charging us extraordinary rates and are only going to increase that. >> bret: we should point out that astronaut buzz aldrin is supportive of president obama's plan. here is what neil armstrong said, juan, in the letter. "it appears we will have wasted the current $10 billion plus in constellation and equally lost the many years required to recreate the equivalent of what we will have discarded." say tag the constellation program would take them to the moon and then onto mars. what do you think? >> i think that buzz a...

Program. i believe $9 billion. although critics say that was not enough money, it was always unfunded, not properly funded, not feasible, it's still, in a sense to some, throwing away those billions in the constellation program, and they object to that, what do you say to that argument? >> well, here's the deal with constellation. constellation was a program that harkened back to the "apollo" days and it perhaps was never funded correctly. we're at the point now where we can do more. so let's not really sort of throw good money after bad. let's say that we can start to develop more sophisticat...

International space station construction is complete. so we need a different vehicle to allow us to take this -- these heavier materials up that are going to build the spacecraft that take us out to the asteroids or take us on to mars. >> the other specific in here, the constellation program, it was behind schedule, it was overbudget. was it right to essentially abonden it and does it mean we're going to give up hope for, say, the millennium, for returning to the moon? >> i don't think so at all. if you look at the program, let's ask the american taxpayer what would they prefer. would they pre...

This question has been around for decades since apollo 17 and all of the way back to 1972. i love looking at this video. i love it. >> yeah. >> so many people wondering when the united states will ultimately put people back on the moon and then in more recent years, you've had another question on top of that. how long, how far in the future before we can get people all of the way out to mars and as we know, the nation that leads the way in space can be the critical piece of the future, but it is, of course, very expensive. here's what happened. this was weeks ago and i was talking to you about...