In an article by the Washington (AP), the White House panel on NASA's return-to-the-moon plan will not happen at current funding levels. Current NASA's budget is $18 billion per year. It would require an additional $3 billion to go back to the moon by 2020.
And thats with retiring the shuttle in 2010 and shutting down the International Space Station in 2015 (which would be very stupid since we just spent the better part of 20 years building the damn thing!).
The panel suggested the following, "Space exploration would work better by including other countries and private for-profit firms." They also suggested that if NASA continues its current moon plans, in order to save money, it should kill plans to make a smaller Aries I rocket to carry astronauts and go right to the bigger Aries V."
$7.7 billion have already been spent on the Aries I so far and a test of its first stage is about to take place soon. A test launch may even happen by Halloween.
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Ref. Yahoo.com (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Obama-space-panel-says-moon-apf-2656818175.html?x=0&.v=4).
photo of Aries I on launch pad rendering. I do not remember where I came across this picture so cannot credit it correctly.
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