Major misunderstanding

Andy Marlette's cartoon on the Sunday Op-Ed page, "...one symbolic leap backwards for mankind" reflects a major misunderstanding of the president's intention to cancel the Constellation/Ares program. This needs to be corrected.

It may well be that no American astronauts will visit the Moon any time soon after being launched atop a cobbled-together piece of hardware using 60-year-old technology, and it may well be Chinese or Indian astronauts who get there next.

But so what? Cancellation of the Constellation project merely means that the U.S. government (meaning we taxpayers) won't be footing the bill for continuation of a multibillion dollar project that is already far over budget and far behind schedule.

We, meaning human beings, will get back to the Moon, but not just for flags and footprints. We humans will go there next to establish a permanent base or series of bases in which we will learn to live, work and play and develop our capacities to go on to Mars and wherever else we choose to go. We will learn to use the materials we find there instead of carting tons of Earth materials a pickup truck load at a time.

But more importantly, it will be private industry that accomplishes this, with NASA and other governments as customers, not dictators.

The Constellation project was, Mr. Marlette, the "leap backwards," and I hope people will see the future as stepping forward across the borders to the next frontier.

Gail B. Leatherwood

Spring Hill