To Boldly Not Go Where Man Has Gone Before

It looks like Obama has plans to turn NASA into the most expensive global warming research unit on earth. And on earth is where it will stay because they won't be conducting space missions anymore:

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.

Drudge calls Obama the "un-Kennedy". Very true.

Obama doesn't want anything taking funds away from his domestic social programs and NASA costs a lot of money when you start launching big heavy expensive things into space.

It's a crying shame that the leadership of the country that went from no men in space to putting men on the moon in the 60's has lost that desire to explore.