Barack Obama is set to promote his vision for the nation’s human space flight program – including putting a human on Mars – just two days after three Apollo astronauts called the new plans ”devastating”.
In an announcement to be made at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida today, the President will talk for the first time about the upheaval of NASA’s human spaceflight program outlined in his 2011 budget request in February.
It involved cancelling plans to return astronauts to the moon, investing in commercial companies to provide transport to orbit and developing new space technologies.
A senior administration official said Mr Obama would describe a vision ”that unlocks our ambitions and expands our frontiers in space, ultimately meaning the challenge of sending humans to Mars”.