Save Constellation!

On February 1, 2010, President Obama submitted a budget request to Congress which called for the cancellation of the Constellation program, which is the program intended to return humans to the Moon and later to go to Mars.  The Constellation program employs hundreds of thousands of Americans, and has already cost $9 billion.  Harware has been developed, including a prototype of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, and the Ares 1X rocket, which was successfuly test launched in 2009.

This program is vital to our nation's future if we are to remain competitive in the world marketplace.  The Moon is an unlimited source of free energy in the form of solar power, which could be beamed to Earth as microwave radiation and reach receiving stations on Earth's surface even on a cloudy day, and can be stored up for later use, as well as Helium-3, a highly fusionable helium isotope which could lead to cleaner, safer, and more powerful nuclear reactors.  In addition, colonizing the Moon will help us to become proficient in deep space flight, deep space procedures, and living off the land on another world, steps which are vital if we are to attempt manned flights to Mars.  President Obama's plan increases NASA's budget, but at the cost of terminating manned space flight and paying the Russians to ferry our astronauts to the International Space Station, and hoping private companies eventually develop vehicles to take our astronauts into low Earth orbit.  There is no room in the budget for a heavy lift booster, only a vague statement that a heavy lifter is to be chosen by 2015, and that the ultimate goal is to orbit an asteroid and orbit Mars.  There is no lander in this proposal, hence no landing on Mars.  And Obama has flat-out said that we will not be returning to the Moon, "because we've already been there."  This sets a very dangerous precedent, establishing in effect that there is to be no exploitation of space, because we cannot return to a site we have already visited.

This issue has received virtually no media attention, yet it is vital to our future.  Be assured, the Chinese will not give up their lunar landing efforts, and if we surrender the Moon to them, in a few decades we will be paying them for our electricity, and we will be looking up at the lights of the lunar cities on the Moon, remembering that that was once OUR Moon, and that we surrendered it.

Despite overwhelming Congressional opposition to the Obama plan, Obama and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden are forcing the termination of Constellation contracts, already putting thousands of Americans out of work.  But there is still time to save Constellation.

This is not a partisan issue.  Our nation's future in space is important to Republicans and Democrats, and equal numbers on both sides of the aisle oppose the Obama space policy.  Please tell our government that we do NOT support Obamaspace, WE WANT FULL FUNDING FOR THE CONSTELLATION PROGRAM AND ALL OF ITS ORIGINAL OBJECTIVES!