Obama kills plans to return to the moon by 2020: thoughts?

I realize that space exploration is not at the forefront of most people’s minds right now with the economy suffering as it is.

Obama announced today that plans to return men to the moon by 2020 have been scrapped (Details here, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-01/obama-kills-nasa-moon-plan-farms-out-space-ferry-update3-.html, if you want them). Apparently, it’s simply too expensive. Your thoughts?

I’m a huge astronomy enthusiast and hope to maybe work at NASA one day, so I can’t help but be deeply saddened by this news. I mean, I know logically that we have many more immediate things to spend money on right now, but I still feel that this is a big step backwards for science. This was the mission that was supposed to ultimately lead to sending men to Mars. Without a timeline and a distinct goal, it is difficult to imagine that we’ll make many strides any time soon.