Bob Coggins 'Constellation is dead'

Bob Coggins

"Constellation is dead," an external White House advisor told AFP on Friday, referring to the program that envisioned using the Moon as a base for manned expeditions to Mars. Under a new plan, Obama will propose boosting the development of commercial rockets and other vehicles that can ferry US astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). NASA is estimated to have already spent a little over nine billion dollars on Constellation, including 3.5 billion on the Ares 1 and 3.7 billion on Orion.

The Obama administration plans to hike NASA's budget by 5.9 billion dollars over five years to boost commercial development, with the goal of a first commercial flight to the ISS launching by 2015, the advisor said.

In the meantime, NASA will rely on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to ferry US astronauts to the orbiting space station after the shuttle program is retired. (Source: AFP news service)

This means the White House does not care about jobs here in Florida, nor does he care
about keeping America the leading space nation. Cancelling the Constellation program would allow the Chinese and Russian space programs to catch up and surpass the United States in Space exploration. The thought of spending billions of dollars on a noble endeavour only to kill it halfway through is not the American way I remember.

I find it odd, and more than a little suspect that the Obama administration suddenly started caring about jobs and the budget deficit once Scott Brown won Sen. Kennedy's vacant seat in Massachusetts. The whole agenda of our new president's first year was the Stimulus Bill, Cap and Trade, and Socialising Health Care. Interestingly enough, now that the democrats are feeling vulnerable due to their poor governance, they have switched gears and are pretending to care about the people instead of their own legacies. I don't buy it for a second. And as your Senator I will continue the fight to keep America the leaders in space, and to keep jobs here in Florida.

TEXT CREDIT: Bob Coggins for Senate

PHOTO CREDIT: Bob Coggins on Facebook