Based largely on existing technologies – was based on a vision of returning astronauts back to the Moon by 2020. However, the program was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies. Using a broad range of criteria an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA’s program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives. Furthermore, NASA’s attempts to pursue its moon goals, while inadequate to that task, had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations.
On February 1, 2010, President Barack Obama announced a proposal to cancel the program, effective with the U.S. 2011 fiscal year budget but later announced changes to the proposal in a major space policy speech at Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010.
source:factsheetdepartment_nasa;
Recommended reading
Lunar Outpost (NASA): Moon, NASA, United States Congress, Neil Armstrong, Lunar Architecture (NASA), Vision for Space Exploration, Exploration Systems Architecture Study, Constellation Program.
2008 NASA Technical Reports on the Moon and Mars Human Exploration Program, Constellation, Ares Launch Vehicles, Orion Spacecraft (CD-ROM)
Constellation Program: Human spaceflight, NASA, Exploration Systems Architecture Study, Vision for Space Exploration, NASA Authorization Act of 2005, Spacecraft, ... Space Shuttle, Astronaut, Moon, Mars, Ares I
Recommended viewing
60 Minutes - A Bigger Leap For Mankind (April 6, 2008)
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