NASA program: Ares I backers work to save rocket despite White House wishes, Orlando Sentinel

"The day after President Obama visited Kennedy Space Center last week to unveil his new vision for NASA, the manager of the moon program that Obama wants to kill told his team to draw up plans in case Obama fails to win congressional support. In an e-mail sent April 16, NASA's Constellation program manager, Jeff Hanley, instructed his managers to "prioritize" all the resources they have at their disposal under this year's budget to plan for test flights of prototypes of the troubled Ares I rocket that Obama aims to cancel. Hanley also orders them to look at ways to shrink the Constellation program in such a way that it can fit in a tighter rocket-development budget backed by the White House. The move comes as some members of Congress have pledged to stop Obama and save Ares. "This direction," Hanley wrote in the e-mail, "remains consistent with ... policy to continue program execution and planning in the event that the program or parts thereof will continue beyond [this financial] year."