Neil Armstrong is one of many former astronauts who have come forward to criticize the Obama Administration’s curtailing of the Space Program. He said that the President’s plan to overhaul the human space program would see the U.S. lose its place as the leader in space exploration.
Armstrong , the first man to walk on the Moon and Eugene Cernan who was the last man to do so, expressed their opinions at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing. They said that the Obama Administration plan lacked ambition. Among their grouses was the fact that the move to have a permanent base on the Moon, put in motion by the Bush Administration, would now not happen at all.
Cernan also voiced the fact that he, Armstron and James Lovell (Commander Apollo 13) believed that the new plan had now focus and presented no challenges. In fact he went on to call it “a plan to nowhere”. However, Obama claims otherwise and his Administration is quick to point out that the Bush plan was not feasible due to budgetary limitation.
In a speech last month at Cape Canaveral, the President said that he was committed to manned space flight. He also said that he expected astronauts to land on an asteroid in the near future as well as sending a manned mission to orbit Mars within thirty years.
Not all ex-astronauts are against Obama, Armstrong’s space buddy Buzz Aldrin supports Obama’s space policies. However, Armstrong was not overly critical of the President; he said that the decision was influenced by poor advice from a small group of people.