Page 239 - Lunacy and the Age of Deception

Constellation Program Logo

The three blue arcs of the Constellation logo represent the three stepped goal of the program. The
first step was to complete the International Space Station. The second step was to return men to the
Moon by 2020. The third step was to launch a crewed flight to Mars. In recognition of this third step,
NASA began development of the Ares rocket, Ares being the Greek equivalent of the Roman god
Mars.

It seems with every new President of the Unites States comes a new set of space exploration goals.
The one thing they have in common is that they keep pushing back the date to return men to the
Moon and to send them beyond that distance. In a 2010 article in the Los Angeles Times, we find the
following statements.

President Obama outlined a dramatic new mission for NASA on Monday, getting the agency out of
the rocket-launching business in favor of an aggressive expansion of research and development that
would steer the agency away from the launch pad and instead put its engineers in the laboratory,
where they would design futuristic vehicles capable of going beyond the moon.

As expected, his budget plan would cancel NASA's Constellation program and its goal of returning
astronauts to the moon by 2020. The troubled rocket program, crippled by funding shortfalls and
technical problems, ultimately would cost taxpayers at least $11.5 billion as it is, including $2.5
billion to terminate it.

Instead of pursuing Constellation, NASA would pay for commercial rocket companies to resupply
the International Space Station over the next decade while its own workers develop new engines and
rockets that NASA officials hope will enable a vast expansion of its future manned-space efforts.

"Imagine trips to Mars that take weeks instead of nearly a year, people fanning out across the inner
solar system, exploring the moon, asteroids and Mars nearly simultaneously in a steady stream of
firsts," said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.

It would be a decade or more, however, before NASA again sends astronauts beyond low-Earth
orbit...

Bolden said ending Constellation was necessary to ensure NASA had the money to spend nearly $11
billion over the next five years on new technologies, including $3.1 billion to develop heavy-lift