Obama Faces NASA Backlash

President Obama is launching a political counterattack to fend off angry congressmen who hate his proposal to outsource space missions, which they argue would make NASA obsolete. Obama is expected to make a personal appeal to try to overcome the bipartisan opposition to his approach at a conference in Florida on April 15. Officials say 9,000 jobs would be lost in Florida alone if NASA space missions were canceled and outsourced to private industry. Obama also wants to replace technology construction programs with a program to develop new technologies, which could delay manned space missions for decades. The White House says the existing programs are backward-looking.