Big Labor Outraged Obama Dropped Moon Mission

(Orlando Sentinel) - Add organized labor to the voices angry at President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap NASA’s moon program.

In a letter sent to Obama on Feb. 4, R. Thomas Buffenbarger, international president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said the White House idea to outsource flying astronauts into low Earth orbit would cost jobs, not create them.

“At a time when the U.S. economy in mired in the worst recession in 70 years and is in desperate need of a jobs creation program, your Administration’s proposal to have NASA rely on the private sector to develop and operate manned space craft will contribute to the loss of several thousand well-paid domestics jobs,” he wrote.