Family Life

05.12.10 | FL News Team

The first and last men to walk on the moon's surface are scheduled to testify before a Senate committee today on the future of NASA and the space program. Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan disagree with President Obama's plan to shelve NASA's Constellation plan. The program was to return men back to the moon by 2020, then would use the lunar surface as a launching pad for Mars and other space exploration. In a letter last month to the President and signed by Armstrong and Cernan, both astronauts said the decision to cut the program is "devastating" and would reduce America to a "second or third-rate stature in space." In contrast, Armstrong's Apollo 11 crewmate and the second man on the moon, "Buzz" Aldrin, has come out in favor of Obama's decision. A public appearance by the reclusive Armstrong is a rarity. He repeatedly refuses media interviews and almost never speaks on policy matters concerning NASA. Armstrong did serve on committees that reviewed the ill-fated Apollo 13 flight and the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.