Barack Obama cuts Nasa funds to send men back to moon

President Barack Obama has cancelled plans to send American astronauts back to the moon by 2020.

He will also turn space transport over to the private sector, as part of his budget blueprint for next year, encouraging private companies to develop a human mission to Mars.

Nasa, which receives about $18 billion a year, has been working on a replacement for the space shuttles, which are being retired this year after five more missions to complete construction of the orbiting International Space Station, a $100 billion project involving 16 nations called Orion. Nasa has already spent $9 billion on Constellation, the moon programme.

"We are proposing cancelling the programme, not delaying it," said Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House.

Funds earmarked for Constellation will now be used for research projects including robotics and other technologies needed to prepare for an eventual human mission to Mars, Mr Orszag added. A space advisory panel, created by Mr Obama to review Constellation, said that without a $3 billion-a-year boost, it was doomed.

The panel also recommended that Nasa should help commercial firms to develop space taxis to ferry crews to and from the Space Station, a service which America now pays Russia to provide at $50 million a seat.

Michael Griffin, a former head of Nasa, said the US would be abandoning "its leadership on the space frontier" to China or Russia if it halted Constellation.

"A Nasa investment in the commercial spaceflight industry is a win-win decision," said Bretton Alexander, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "Commercial crew will create thousands of hi-tech jobs in the United States, especially in Florida, while reducing the spaceflight gap and preventing us from sending billions to Russia."

But Senator Bill Nelson, from Florida, home of the shuttle fleet, said: "I, for one, intend to stand up and fight for Nasa, and for the thousands of people who stand to lose their jobs."