Huntsville, AL – Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby is sharply criticizing the Obama administration's proposed NASA budget, which would discontinue a major program at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.
Shelby said Monday the budget plan would begin a ``death march'' for the future of human spaceflight. He says Congress shouldn't allow what he calls the ``reckless abandonment'' of the program.
The administration's budget doesn't include money for the Constellation program, which includes the Ares rocket being managed by the Marshall center at Redstone Arsenal. The goal was to return Americans to the moon and eventually send astronauts to Mars.
Hundreds of people are working on the project in north Alabama. NASA already has spent more than $9 billion on Constellation.
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