Barack Obama plan kills moon funding; NASA Constellation, Ares, Orion: RIP

President Barack Obama's administration is cutting NASA's moon mission funding. His budget plan for reducing the deficit kills the Constellation, Ares, and Orion programs, but opens the door to private enterprise. In it blogwatch bloggers wonder what it all means.

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Joel Achenbach summarizes:

The battle over space has begun. And it's likely to be brutal. ... Obama ... is attempting to kill NASA's ambitious back-to-the moon program ... The Constellation program had already run through about $9 billion. ... Instead of going back to the moon, the administration wants to invest $6 billion over five years in a commercial taxi to orbit. The idea is to let the private sector take over the routine flights into space. ... Where, exactly, are we going to go other than the ISS? Answer: TBD. But we're going to develop new technologies. We'll have orbital refueling. We'll have new propulsion. So we'll be all dressed up and ready to go -- somewhere.