Source: USA Today
President Obama took on critics of his space exploration plans Thursday, vowing that his proposals will allow the nation to “reach space faster and more often.” The president said his space program would allow astronauts to visit an asteroid by 2025 for the first time and then orbit Mars by the mid-2030s.
“A landing on Mars will follow,” Obama said in a speech at NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center, “and I expect to live to see it.”
“Nobody is more committed to manned spaceflight, to human exploration of space, than I am,” he said. “But we’ve got to do it in a smart way.”
Obama’s plans to end the Constellation program, aimed at returning astronauts to the moon, have angered NASA’s supporters in Congress and others, including former Apollo astronauts such as Jim Lovell, who said the president’s vision would end the nation’s leadership role in space exploration.
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The president’s proposals could affect thousands of NASA workers who are likely to be out of work when the space shuttle soon retires.
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