A Mission to Nowhere

Space: The pull of gravity, Financial Times
“Three elderly American heroes have been touring US military bases in Europe and Asia this month, telling inspiring tales of space adventures that took place before most people in the audience were born. But the Apollo astronauts – Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan and Jim Lovell – were not just living on past glories. They looked at the future of manned space flight and lamented President Barack Obama’s decision last month to cancel the Constellation programme under which Nasa would have taken Americans back to the moon by 2020. “We will go back to the moon, notwithstanding our president and his outlook for the future of space,” said Mr Cernan at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The man who in 1972 was the last to walk on the lunar surface added: “Under the president’s proposed budget, it is a mission to nowhere.”