Obama checks in with astronauts
The Space Shuttle Endeavour lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images)
Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama held a video conference call with the astronauts aboard the International Space Station Wednesday.
During the video conference, the president congratulated the crew who traveled to the space station aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour and expressed his administration's commitment to NASA programs, according to a readout of the conversation released by the White House.
Obama said the work being done on the space station is "a testimony to human ingenuity, a testimony to extraordinary skill and courage that you guys bring to bear and is also a testimony to why continued space exploration is so important and is part of the reason why my commitment to NASA is unwavering."
His remarks came just weeks after the administration released its new budget, which plans to increase the NASA budget to 19 billion dollars in 2011 but cuts NASA's lunar exploration program and opens up space exploration to private companies. Several members of Congress have protested the proposed cuts to the space program.
I think he should have gone with them to supervise.Take Pelosi & Reid too.
ask them to pass the healthcare bill with a public option, or single payer please
Way to go Pres.Obama. We need to send life to Mars in a bubble of water which it has it own oxgen and see how well it suvive up there. What NASA think?
Nice job Mr. President. Now lets see some repo say you are wasting time talking to them. Repos are really scary people as you can tell from so many comments left on these different stories. Vote Democratic or suffer the results.
Considering that Obama just cancelled most of what was our space exploration program using NASA and Astronauts as a backdrop is pretty disgusting. In two years the only way for Americans to get into space will be on Russian or Chinese space vehicles.
"Hey, let me be clear that I think you guys are doing a terrific job, and that I wish we had more of you (especially Muslims). Now, as I have said before, YOU'RE FIRED".
What hypocrisy since Obama's budget kills manned space flight for the foreseeable future.
We, as a world, have only began our adventure into the unknown. Our resources on this planet is limited. It may last for a thousand years. I may last for a billion, but we have to think of where we want to go. We are a society that lives in two realms. One, we have the Star Trek era, that thinks there is a five year journey. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Trekkie, but also realistic. We do need to explore and start to think of where we can go. What we can become, but don't turn off something because it's out of our realm now. There's always our future. I believe that our past creates our path for the future. We learn from what we do, what we've been through, and how we can change that. We need the research that comes from our quest and that is something that shouldn't be changed. That's something that should never be argued. It's something we need to grow, to quest, and to learn from so that others, far later than me, can grow from.
Lets all HOPE the anointed one didn't jinx the crew the way he has the econocomy, stimulus, health care, the Olympics, campaining for other Democrats (to sum it up: everything he has done since swearing in)!!