Shuttle Program Ending News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity. america must decide if it wishes to remain a leader in space. the white house position has been, look, these are tough times, we have to make tough budget choices. they want to do all they can for nasa, but right now they feel that they've got to make some drastic changes, privatize some of the operations. that's not going over too well, jim. >> and this is a painful time, obviously, for the country. i mean, the president is under pressure to do something about the deficit. as you noted, i mean, this is an increase for the nasa budget that t...

Cnn's john zarella's joining us from the kennedy space center in florida. john, tell our viewers what's going on. >> reporter: yeah, well, wolf, it's still uncertain as to how the president's new vision will affect the workers here at the kennedy space center and workers elsewhere in the aerospace industry, with the nasa contractors. a lot of folks i talked with right up until today are saying they don't know. they're going to be watching the president to see if 2,500 new jobs are added, if there's additional jobs, retraining programs for workers here that the president is talking about adding...

If we want to go to space we'll have to pay big dollars to russia. our old space rival. how times change. brian wilson has more. >> reporter: right's a case of supply and ded it's a case -- it's a case of supply and demand. soon the russian will have the on system to deliver them so they have the supply. they more than doubled the price her astronaut to $51 million. the shuttle program ending after leading the way in space. we are a country that soon will have no system to send people into space. so now the on way we can get into space is to go hat in hand to the russians. u.s. tax dollars sen...

And rick were very professional and they got it down so we'll fix it up tomorrow. >> what do you think is the future for america's space program now with the shuttle program ending and of course the president canceled the next program. >> it's time to look back and reflect about the great things the space shuttle has brought us over the last 25 years. i think we're going places. we're doing a lot of interesting stuff up here. it's great to be here as well. i'm hopeful for the future. i think the leadership and the folks who make policy decisions will do the right thing and we'll be able to get...

Tarix, would be on the line if this thing goes through if the programs are scrubbed? >> several thousand jobs are actually on the line. both with the ending of the shuttle program later this year as well as those that were invested in the program overall. nasa was cutting several hundred jobs over the last few years with the shuttle program ending, but they had something like 4,000 jobs with one contractor alone that are going to be done gone with the shuttle program ending. >> which is crushing news to a lot of these people who are relying, of course, on the jobs for their livelihoods, but at...