THINK AGAIN MR PRESIDENT

President Obama, has gone and done it, as part of his new vision for space exploration as part of his $3.8 trillion (£2.4 trillion) budget proposal to Congress yesterday, he has called for a halt to Constellation, the project that aims to send astronauts back to the Moon by 2020 and has already cost $9 billion.

One immediate side effect of this proposal is that the International Space Station, which would have been scrapped in 2016, will now get a five-year extension to its working life. Additionally the business of getting US astronauts there and back again will be effectively privatised, with a subsidy of some $6 billion of funding, while NASA continues to work on developing new technologies for longer-term space exploration.

In the wings stands China, which will not be unaware of how things will look if China beats America back to the Moon. US President George Bush when he vowed to return Americans to the Moon by 2020 was acknowledging that it was important not only for manned space flight to flourish; but also important for those humans in space to include a healthy number of Americans.

The Europeans have a space programme of sorts (admittedly largely French, Russia has retained (by the skin of its teeth) a space programme. What about the UK? well the Conservatives finally finished that dream off in the early 1970's when a Tory Minister saw no future for private satellite launches...which brought the remnants of the Blue Streak programme (originally cancelled in 1960) to an end.

The next historic landmark may well be that of the Peoples Republic of China putting a man on the Moon, which may help to rundown America’s technological supremacy. China, already produces more engineering graduates than America. If congress approves the budget then we may be seeing the moment when Washington’s sense of international supremacy begin to decline, as its global political and scientific stature also begins to diminish.

Manned space flight programme which can be viewed as an expensive luxury when the economy is on rocky ground, but, it is not. NASA needs to do more that merely to focus on long-range research and development. This would be a grave mistake, with financial, economic and political consequences.

The PRC has the ambition, the money and the determination to take the traditional Chinese long view. With its sights firmly set on the stars, the PRC, the world’s newest superpower is planning to put a man or woman on the Moon by 2020. Close behind is India, which launched its first unmanned mission to the Moon in 2008 and now aims to put an Indian astronaut into orbit within five years.

The curse of the modern political world may well be short-term thinking US President Obama needs to deal with the financial crisis and he also needs to be able to show the world that America knows where it wants to be several decades from now, and that the USA has the vision and will to get there.

While the proposed budget and NASA cuts will greatly irritate Congress with politicians from both sides of the political divide who see NASA’s manned space programme as vital component of US national pride, they are also important to the rest of us.