From the Orlando Sun:

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.

There will also be funding for private companies to develop capsules and rockets that can be used as space taxis to take astronauts on fixed-price contracts to and from the International Space Station — a major change in the way the agency has done business for the past 50 years.

The White House budget request, which is certain to meet fierce resistance in Congress, scraps the Bush administration's Vision for Space Exploration and signals a major reorientation of NASA, especially in the area of human spaceflight.

"We certainly don't need to go back to the moon," said one administration official.

Everyone interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity, either because they are not authorized to talk for the White House or because they fear for their jobs. All are familiar with the broad sweep of Obama's budget proposal, but none would talk about specific numbers because these are being tightly held by the White House until the release of the budget.

But senior administration officials say the spending freeze for some federal agencies is not going to apply to the space agency in this budget proposal. Officials said NASA was expected to see some "modest" increase in its current $18.7 billion annual budget — possibly $200 million to $300 million more but far less than the $1 billion boost agency officials had hoped for.

They also said that the White House plans to extend the life of the International Space Station to at least 2020. One insider said there would be an "attractive sum" of money — to be spent over several years — for private companies to make rockets to carry astronauts there.

But Obama's budget freeze is likely to hamstring NASA in coming years as the spending clampdown will eventually shackle the agency and its ambitions. And this year's funding request to develop both commercial rockets and a new NASA spaceship will be less than what was recommended by a White House panel of experts last year.

That panel, led by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, concluded that to have a "viable" human space-exploration program, NASA needed a $3 billion annual budget hike, and that it would take as much as $5 billion distributed over five years to develop commercial rockets that could carry astronauts safely to and from the space station.

Last year, lawmakers prohibited NASA from canceling any Constellation programs and starting new ones in their place unless the cuts were approved by Congress. The provision sends a "direct message that the Congress believes Constellation is, and should remain, the future of America's human space flight program," wrote U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., last month.

Nevertheless, NASA contractors have been quietly planning on the end of Ares I, which is years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget. NASA has already spent more than $3 billion on Ares I and more than $5 billion on the rest of Constellation.

In recent days, NASA has been soliciting concepts for a new heavy-lift rocket from major contractors, including Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Pratt & Whitney. Last week, a group of moonlighting NASA engineers and rocket hobbyists proposed variations on old agency designs that use the shuttle's main engines and fuel tank to launch a capsule into space. According to officials and industry executives familiar with the presentations, some of the contractor designs are very similar to the one pressed by the hobbyists.

Officially, companies such as Boeing still support Constellation and its millions of dollars of contracts. Some believe that in a battle with Congress, Ares may survive.

"I would not say Ares is dead yet," said an executive with one major NASA contractor. "It's probably more accurate to say it's on life support. We have to wait to see how the coming battle ends."

Few doubt that a fight is looming. In order to finance new science and technology programs and find money for commercial rockets, Obama will be killing off programs that have created jobs in some powerful constituencies, including the Marshall Space Flight Center in Shelby's Alabama. But the White House is said to be ready for a fight.

The end of the shuttle program this year is already going to slash 7,000 jobs at Kennedy Space Center.

One administration official said the budget will send a message that it's time members of Congress recognize that NASA can't design space programs to create jobs in their districts. "That's the view of the president," the official said.

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....... Instead of building heavy lift rockets to go to the moon and beyond, and support human expansion into the great unknown, the money is now going toward global warming.

I've always tried to be nice, vocally, with Obama, but he is retarded if he is the one proposing to can constellation in favor of climate change. I do understand that the strategy will include more private companies, which is good, but given international law and how hamstrung they can get at this time, I really doubt the government's resolve (especially Obama's) to ensure that private companies can grow and become major players in space via better treaties for mineral acquisition in outer space.

I read about this a few days ago. I was sad to hear that they're canning the program, especially since they've put a ton of money into it already. I've met many people who have spent the last few years of their lives designing, building, and testing the Ares rocket, and working on the crew capsule as well.

Still, I agree that getting private companies more involved in space travel is good, but I also doubt the government's ability to succeed in doing it. And when I found out that they're putting the money towards global warming... Well, I wasn't happy about that either.

BOOO!!!!

Makes sense to me. No point in wasting endless billions to find another planet when we could be working towards bettering the one we have.

I've been a fan of manned spaceflight, but i figure if you have to cut money somewhere, that's a good place to start.

While I don't mind to much getting rid of NASA if you want. I mean what it does is what a country with money should be doing, and we are not that country.

What bothers me the most about all this, is he is not taking the money and paying down debt. He is just spending it on something else... and in this case, something utterly pointless.

I don't approve of what the money is being spent on. However, I must ask you Stickball. What would be the benefit of space travel at this point? Why should this project have been continued? Seems utterly pointless, especially when the country is doing terribly economically.

I guess China and India will be the top space powers 30 years from now and one of them will go back to the moon eventually.

I agree with Obama, honestly. Studying and fully understanding climate change is much more important than going back to the Moon.

What is the point of land or sea travel? Was there a benefit to the colonization of the Americas? After all, Eurasia had plenty of room for population expansion, right?

In a nutshell, space travel and the development of business and industry outside of Earth can and will become the largest point of economic growth in the mid to late 21st century. There are many resources available in space that are not available on Earth, or are in very rare quantities.

Some examples:

• Solar energy. Much more available and usable via solar arrays vs. Earth-bound arrays. Due to production and transmission techniques, space-based arrays will be much more efficent than on earth.
• Helium 3. I've always been saying it and will continue to say it, but HE3 is very important for the development of fusion reactors, as well as other products such as HE3 refrigerators (which are the most efficent refrigeration systems in existence). HE3 costs $20 million USD a pound.
• Titanium. The moon contains this material in much more abundant quantities than the Earth does. Couple this with metal foam, and it would be very valuable to produce titanium metal foam in-situ and ship back to Earth
• Rare earths. Currently, rare earth productions are dropping from Western producers and China holds control of 90% of all rare earths, worldwide. These are used in many of high-tech applications from lasers to nuclear batteries. With them having control over such a dominating, critical number of resources, acquisition from non-earth sources would ensure a balance of power. 
• Metal foams. They cannot be produced easily on Earth, as they require nanoparticles to ensure proper expansion. In a zero-G environment, it is much more economical to produce these materials. Primarily, metal foams are derived from aluminum, which is very abundant on the moon (Lunar regolith is comprised of approximately 15% aluminum,

Those are just a few non-scientific reasons for space industry off the top of my head. In the end, whomever decides to make strong pushes to space will open up great economic opportunities for their nation. We can argue that there are so many problems in America, which I agree with, but at the same time, we are losing our manufacturing and basis of actually producing products for consumption. Acquiring resources outside of Earth can help that by creating an American industry in space.

And one should note the cost of NASA and other space-based endeavours. The federal government spends 0.5% of its budget on NASA which provides a decent number of jobs. Don't get me wrong, I dislike the government and what they do, but wouldn't it be better to invest the stimulus money, or other things the govenment wastes, on projects that may actually yield returns for Americans?

And as stated, if Obama really wanted to cut the budget, I am fine with that, even if it meant not going to the moon. What I have a problem with is that he is spending more money on NASA. But its going to climate change. That is where the atrocity is. You take something that could return great results and benefits, and put more money into something else everyone else is working on. Way to go NASA! NASA could separate themselves from every other Space agency and put forther great project to help America, and yet they're getting stuck on the whole climate change debate.