In speech at Kennedy Space Center, Obama to outline proposals for returning U.S. to space

In speech at Kennedy Space Center, Obama to outline proposals for returning U.S. to space

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 13, 2010; 7:06 PM

President Obama will announce plans Thursday to revise and retain some aspects of the discarded Constellation rocket and space capsule system, will commit to selecting a rocket capable of carrying astronauts to deep space within five years, and will allocate $40 million to put together a job retraining program for Florida space workers who will lose their jobs when the space shuttle is grounded next year.

Addressing workers, astronauts and lawmakers in a much-anticipated speech at the Kennedy Space Center, Obama will flesh out the new NASA architecture for returning Americans to space that was first proposed in his 2011 budget announcement. Those proposals -- to kill the Constellation program and jumpstart development of a commercial space industry that could take its place -- were met with substantial bipartisan opposition.

Obama's new proposals will be his answer to critics and his effort to make more specific the plan to recreate NASA's human exploration program -- which the administration says will be cheaper than Constellation and get astronauts back into space more quickly. A senior White House official said the speech will show that Obama has a "bold and daring" vision for human space exploration.

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In addition, the official said, Obama will outline concrete plans to send astronauts to nearby asteroids, to the Earth's moon and the moons of Mars, and ultimately to Mars itself. The administration has already proposed spending $3.1 billion over the next five years to develop the "heavy lift" rocket needed for that task, and will now commit to selecting by 2015 which design will be built.

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