Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, one of the last men to walk on the moon, has nothing good to say about President Barack Obamaâ??s plan to all but ground the Constellation program, which calls for a return to the moon by 2020 and human landings on Mars by the middle of the century.
â??Iâ??m afraid what the president and his administration want is for the United States to no longer be preeminent in space flight,â? Schmitt, an honorary fellow in the UW-Madison College of Engineering, says in a phone interview from Albuquerque, N.M., where he lives. â??And that has very, very serious consequences.â?