TIMES ONLINE: When he spoke 41 years ago, the world listened — hanging on every word as he uttered one of the most inspiring phrases of the 20th century.
Neil Armstrong earned himself a lifetime of respect with his one giant leap for mankind, but he has for decades refrained from exploiting it, turning down opportunities in politics and avoiding controversy.
Now the space gloves are off. The first man on the Moon has teamed up with the last man, Gene Cernan, to confront President Obama over his “devastating” plans for Nasa’s $108 billion (£70 billion) Constellation programme. Mr Obama wants to scrap Constellation, which was meant to develop new space ships to replace the shuttle, take astronauts back to the Moon and ultimately to Mars.
The death of the project would set America’s space programme on a “long downhill slide to mediocrity”, Armstrong declared yesterday. “It appears that we will have wasted our current $10-plus billion investment in Constellation and, equally importantly, we will have lost the many years required to re-create the equivalent of what we will have discarded,” he said in a statement. >>> Jacqui Goddard | Thursday, April 15, 2010
