Constellation is to replace the space shuttle, set to retire next year the agency hopes to reach the moon again by 2020 and Mars by mid-century.īut Barack Obama has shown little enthusiasm for the project, and instead is focused on terrestrial ambitions like overhauling healthcare and the financial system, tackling climate change and reducing the US federal budget deficit. "Replaying the glory days of Apollo will not advance the cause of American space leadership or inspire the support and enthusiasm of the public and the next generation of space explorers," he wrote.Īldrin's comments come as Nasa, the US space agency, makes a big show to re-energise public interest in manned space exploration, in the hopes of attracting massive public investment in a new moon programme, dubbed Constellation. "A race to the moon is a dead end," he wrote.Īldrin wrote the US should instead join an international coalition in establishing a scientific outpost from which to test technology that the US could then use to reach Mars and establish "homesteads", a term that for Americans evokes the 19th century westward expansion. "Like its Apollo predecessor, this plan will prove to be a dead end littered with broken spacecraft, broken dreams and broken policies," Aldrin, 79, wrote today.
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