Page 27 - Constellation Program News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Criticizes the decision to scrap nasa's constellation program to send americans back to the moon, writing: without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operations provide, the u.s.a. is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity. and tomorrow we'll be joined by gene sirnin, the cosigner of the letter to the president and we'll ask his take on the future of the space program and what may be lost if we don't invest heavily in that. bill: a great guest. martha: he is a great guest. bill: check in on that tomorrow. >> a one year pay freeze for the year and pay 1.5% of t...

Mediocrity." vick, we know some long time fas sa supporters who are upset that u.s. sponsored manned space flight is going to be put on hiatus for a few years. the obama administration's pushing back. tell bus it. >> that's absolutely right. this all comes on the eve, chuck, of the president's trip down to the space center down in florida where he's going to make some announcements. what they're basically telling everybody is hold your fire, wait till you see what the president says tomorrow. there's going to be new programs, new monies allocated towards the space program. in the meantime, wha...

Under right now, defend your position. >> yes, i think it's shortsighted because we've spent over 6-7 billion dollars in trying to get the constellation program going can. now, i understand that the president is saying, okay, build the arecent capsule and then we'll go out to commercial interests and let them build a booster to put that capsule up into space to support the space station. but they don't realize that by doing that that the people who will build the booster will be new entrepreneurs, they will not have the expertise for being rated, and consequently@going to cost us billions not ...

I want you to see what it says. while the president's plan humans traveling away from earth and perhaps towards mars at some time in the future, the lack of developed rockets and spacecraft will assure that ability will not be able for many years. he says without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides the usa is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to immediate at krimmediate citi. it will give us the very best chance of achieving that goal. now, to be fair to the president, the president says, i share that goal. he wants to get people back into space. that...

Us. i guess the russians understand the law of supply and demand. >> reporter: yeah, this is simple economics, jane. if you're an airline and you have the only plane going to a destination, you can pretty much charge whatever you want. the russians have doubled the price to $51 million per astronaut because we're retiring the shuttle system later this year. the russians will soon have the only system capable of delivering astronauts to the international space station. we don't have anything to replace the shuttle, and with the cancellation of the constellation program, we don't even have anyth...