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Barack Obama has abandoned the NASA moon program. / February 2, 2010 /

U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to abandon the moon program of the American space agency, reports BBC News. In his view, the budget for this project will greatly overstated, although there is nothing innovative about it. In addition, the lunar program is already behind schedule. Obama added that suffer from it other projects NASA.

NASA Chief Charles Bolden has reported Roscosmos to abandon the space program "Constellation» (Constellation), as well as the cessation of the development of the spacecraft Orion and the launch vehicles Ares I »and the Ares V». It is reported by the Interfax agency, citing the statement by the head of manned programs Roskosmos Alexei Krasnov.

It is reported that in lieu of the lunar program NASA is planning to allocate funds to private companies to build a manned spacecraft. At the same time, journalists reported that U.S. space agency has already spent on the «Constellation» of about $ 9 billion.

It is known that the NASA budget for 2011 will be about 19 billion dollars. At the same time in the next five years, his plan to raise an additional six billion dollars. The decision to close the lunar program has already condemned members of Congress, representing the interests of people involved in work on the project.

New space program was launched in 2004 on the initiative of George Bush, the then president of the United States. It was assumed that Americans will replace worn-out shuttles with new ships, as well as get to the moon and build a habitable base.

First flight of the new spacecraft to the ISS was to be held in 2015. By 2020, experts of NASA expects to complete construction of bases on the Moon, and then begin preparations for an expedition to Mars. However, the project was complicated due to lack of funds and failed tests, with the result that he became severely behind schedule.

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