His bold statement might have been more of a publicity drive for Energia rather than a clear commitment to a program, but China, which has committed itself to a space program to land men on the moon by 2017 has also stated its interest in helium-3.
Obama "has put the space program on a path where we are conceding our global position as the unequivocal leader in space, " Ryan added.
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This plan extended the space shuttle program, put in place a robust commercial space initiative and has put us on track to send American astronauts further into space than ever before.
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Of particular interest about this white paper is a definite focus on moving the Chinese space program past just orbital concerns.
However, what I still could do was work on the Space Shuttle program as a scientist where my work developing food for astronauts involved a project to send the first can of Coca-Cola into outer space.
On a more earthbound note, the space program's money could be put to other uses.
Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 program, relies on a modified miniature version of the same rocket motors the space shuttle uses to reposition itself in space: hydrogen peroxide is burned in the presence of a catalyst to produce pure steam, which is then used to move the arm.
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Right now, NASA is dependent on Russia for manned flights to the International Space Station until a new manned program is completed.
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Rafael San Miguel began his career at NASA working on the Space Shuttle program, and has spent the past 23 years as a scientist for The Coca-Cola Company.
It depends what question you ask and who you ask, but they did a poll recently that showed that people were - more than 50 percent of the taxpayers supported the space program, yet on the space shuttle, they were split, 48 for, 48 percent against.
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