President Obama will spell out his vision for the future of American astronauts in space at a conference that the administration is sheduling for Florida next month.
That pleases Florida lawmakers, who have criticize the administration’s desire to eliminate NASA’s program to send astronauts back to the Moon.
“The president’s upcoming space meeting here in Florida provides a chance for meaningful progress,” said Representative Suzanne M. Kosmas, whose district includes the Kennedy Space Center. She requested a conference when she and others in the state Congressional delegation met last month with Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, and John P. Holdren, Mr. Obama’s science adviser.
The conference will be held April 15. A White House spokesman said Monday that other information, including the agenda, the location and who would be attending, were not yet available.
NASA spent five years and $9 billion on the Constellation moon program. The president’s 2011 budget could cancel all of it. The budget also seeks to nurture the commercial space industry by turning to private companies for transportation to the International Space Station and and to invest in new technologies to make outlook exploration of the solar system easier and cheaper. The budget request would raise NASA’s budget by $300 million, to $19 billion. Mr. Obama, however, has said little publicly about the future of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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