Obama to scrap the Return to the Moon initiative

Here is a LA Times story reporting that in Obama's FY 2011 budget he will zero out funding for the Constellation program that was developing the Ares I and Ares V launch vehicles. No word in the story on whether development of the Orion spacecraft would continue or not. It talks about providing more funding for climate change research (like we really need that) and has some encouraging bits about ultimate development of a heavy-lift launch vehicle and a program to "enable human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system". I guess we'll wait and see what all the details are when the actual budget comes out.

Update: Rand Simberg has a great post here on this topic with several links to other stories.

While on the face of it this Obama decision is a retreat from going back to the Moon, by getting commercial firms to ferry astronauts to Low Earth Orbit and, if he follows through, getting a heavy-lift launch vehicle program going, we could be in good shape for getting to the Moon and a whole host of other inner solar system destinations.