Astronaut Linenger unhappy shuttle over

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (WOOD) - With the landing of Atlantis, the Space Shuttle program has also been grounded. And Michigan astronaut Jerry Linenger, who flew three shuttle missions, is not happy about it.

"The headline should have been, 'United States cancels manned spaceflight program. Unable to get a human being, a US citizen, into space for the first time since 1961. We hope that in five years we are able to build a capsule that we built in 1962.' That's what (the headline) should have read, but the spin is just unbelievable."

Linenger, who spoke with 24 Hour News 8 from his home in Traverse City the day before the final shuttle mission began, doesn't mince words. As an astronaut, a cosmonaut and a surgeon who graduated at the top of his class, he flew more than 50 million miles in space, once on Discovery, twice on Atlantis, and five months on Mir.

He said that at one time he thought it made sense to abandon the shuttle program for a chance to go deeper in space. But he said the Obama administration's plan to take billions from NASA and pump it to private companies to build the next space craft will cripple the space agency.

"What we are going to do for the ISS (International Space Station) is to go to the Russian government and get on our knees and say, 'Can you please, please take an American into space because we do not have the capability to do that any longer?'"

The plan is for the private companies to build the space craft that American astronauts would use to travel to the space station.

Linenger is not alone in his criticism. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon 42 years ago, and Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell are among those who asked President Obama to reconsider his decision.

"I just felt proud to be moving mankind forward," he said. "Marching out to that spacecraft is an honor."

Ending the program now, he said, may damage the country's ability to ever catch up again.

"The Chinese, the Russians for sure, and, pretty soon, India will have the ability to put a man into space and the United States will not," Linenger said. "What a waste of all of that sacrifice, all of that brain power, all of our investment in our space program, you know? It's a shame."