Obama Addresses NASA at Cape Canaveral

"Nobody is more committed to manned space flight, to human exploration of space, than I am. But we've got to do it in a smart way."

That's a rather bold statement.

"Stop treating NASA like a jobs program and start doing real stuff."

Paraphrased from something I was told by a wise man.

This is a plan to end manned space flight. Obama is manipulating the Congress. The US budget last year cut $3.4 billion(New York Times quote) in the five-year projection for the Constellation. This year Constellation gets canceled, saying that it's under funded and not on schedule. While NASA gets a $6.1 billion increase with 2 billion more for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. So, after 5 years NASA would get 8.1 billion an escape pod and maybe a design for a heavy-lift rocket that may or may not be built by the 2020's. I didn't go to Harvard but this makes no sense. Why can't we finish Aries I and Orion and slow the schedule on Aries V.

>Why can't we finish Aries I and Orion and slow the schedule on Aries V.

We can but we would have to cancel it, Aries I and Orion will cost 1.5 billion each launch! The thing was designed wrong from the start, we can do better by starting over.

Sometimes, the fastest way to get to the end is to throw everything out and start over.

Somebody's got to explain to me how we could go to the moon safely but it is not safe enough to go to Mars ( I mean besides the time factor). If they are willing to risk radiation to go to the Moon some body's got to me willing to risk radiation to go to the Mar...

I am.

@troybny: just guesses but: fuel, greater gravity issue on Mars, weather, oxygen, and time. Friction from atmosphere. So we would need a vehicle that can survive multiple entries and reentries or multiple vehicles inside of each other like a Russian Matryoshka doll. From earth to space, space to mars, mars to space, and space back to earth. That's a lot of physical stress. Much more than was required to land on the moon.

the radiation is the least of your problems with going to Mars instead of the Moon and the time that it takes, several months, is the issue bc with no gravity for that long even with working out 2 hrs a day, which is standard for extended stays in space will still cause our astronauts to have major issues with their bones and muscles basically you step off your lander take a step and your leg breaks from the weight of your own body, not to mention micro asteriods puncturing the craft on the way there, the list goes on and on....we need a whole new craft preferably one that can rotate so they will have artificial gravity

nasa's budget......is a HALF....thats a ½! A cent on the dollar, we need this , innovation or we can just sit back on watch China India continue to far surpass in every category that has to do with Math and science....we are 26th in the world right now behind countries i'm too ashamed to even mention, we used to be leaders....used too....this is a step in the right direction

Jono, all good points but I am not talking about landing on Mars so entry of the atmosphere, weather, air would not matter. Visiting Mars simply to orbit would be quite significant. Why wait 20 years?

The points made regarding integrity of the vessel and time factor are legitimate. I would hope we can develop technology to compensate sooner than 20 years.

Some of us do not have 20 years.