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 prefer that we throw dollars away, throw good money after bad in a program that really could be retrofitted to do better work for us? or is it better to cut it off now when you look at what the annual budget of the united states is anyway, if we can save some money, let s save some money and put it where it really can be put to good use. i think the rest. program as being described, once it really gets
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 this on this show that president obama talked about plans to cancel this. this is from nasa s website and it is the constellation program that aims at getting people back on the moon and studying the possibility of establishing a moon colony. nasa spent $9.5 billion on this, and the project was way behind its goals and it was not adequately efficient. so what he did is he promised a
so you re looking at nearly 40 dwrae years. as we know it was before that that the united states had the first touchdown and that was when neil armstrong was the first human being to set foot on the moon. it was absolutely amazing to have historic pictures right here on the website behind me. nasa has tons of them and everyone remembers what a powerful moment it was. and right now what we re seeing what s happening as you know is president obama is talking about his vision for how to handle space exploration in the future. and one thing that he wants to do is drop this program, which is called the constellation program. and that was designed to bring people back to the moon after all this time. also look into the possibility of creating a colony on the moon which will be a huge new step. so the president said, look, this program, looked at it, it s not efficient, it s not doing its job. he said he still supports it. well, some people disagree with his decision, including neil armstrong
nitrogen tapg. problem is not putting the astronauts in dame, but if it isn t fixed in the next few days, nasa could be forced to turn off some of the station s electronics. jon: the first man to walk on the moon slamming the obama administration s plans for the future of nasa just one day before the president visits florida to deliver a space policy speech. neil armstrong and fellow astronauts signing an open letter criticizing the decision to scrap nasa s program that would have sent americans back to the moon. joining us now, one of the signers of that letter, captain jim lovell. he was the apollo 13 commander and navigator for apollo 8. also a signer, as i mentioned, of that joint letter to the president. captain lovell, it s good to tuck to you again. you say, in essence, you think this decision to cancel the constellation program was shortsighted given the budget constraints that our country is
megyn: those words from the day america changed the world. now the first man to walk on the moon is blasting the obama administration s plan for nasa s future. neil armstrong, along with two other heros of the apollo program, co-signing the following letter to the president which reads in part: megyn: former astronaut is also in charge of the constellation program that s been canceled by the president. allall right, doc, so you re a rocket scientist, astronaut, smart guy, and you re in charge of the program that just got the axe under in few administration the new administration policy. why is this so bad? we re in a recession, we ll have ongoing problems, why is this not the solution? there well, megyn, first of all, i was in charge of the program. i have since retired for the last couple years.