NASA's return to moon program being cut

US president Obama called to abort the lunar program that promised to send humans back to the moon in the announcement on Monday.

The Constellation program, begun under former President George W. Bush was not making its time targets.

NASA already has spent $9 billion on Constellation and likely would owe millions more to cancel existing contracts. But Obama's proposal hands over more space operations to the commercial sector, saying it will create thousands of new jobs and hold costs down.

NASA's chief administrator said the employees working on the program needed time to "grieve" after the program was being cut.

Charles Bolden, NASA's chief administrator, said, "You know when you have a program that's just going to cost a fortune to resurrect and schedules are getting harder to make without much more money, then wisdom says you pick a new course. And so that's what we've done."

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden speaks during a news conference, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010, at the National Press Club in Washington. (AP Photo/Bill Ingalls, NASA)