Obama didn’t decide not to go to the moon. He decided (correctly) that we shouldn’t use an “Apollo on steroids” architecture to do so. We should use propellant depots; consider non-chemical in-space propulsion; and we should do robotic precursor missions to preposition surface hardware in advance of manned landings.

The Apollo program was designed to land men on the moon as quickly as possible. “Flag and footprints”. That’s all it could do, and after we did it a few times, there was nothing left to do but cancel it. It was never designed to be expanded into something more capable. In other words, we couldn’t use it to establish semi-permanent lunar outposts, or land men on mars. Apollo had no built-in evolutionary design path.

The Constellation program was a rewind to the 60’s with exactly the same program limitations. Only this time, the lander was to be a 45-ton behemoth that could support a 14-day surface mission. After which, it would have to be launched back into lunar orbit and jettisoned into space. The lander itself was canceled a year ago because of cost overruns, but the rest of the program continued as if we could land on the moon without a lander. It was lunacy, literally.

If that weren’t enough, the GAO (under Bush) reported in April of 2008 that the Constellation launch vehicle “might not have enough power to reach orbit with a capsule full of astronauts”, and that the program was “flawed” and “dangerous”.

Yes, we should return to the moon. But this time, we should to it in such a way that we don’t have to pick up and leave after 2 weeks with the strong possibility that we may not return for decades.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2008-04-03/news/nasa03_1_space-shuttle-constellation-program-constellation-project