This undated photo provided by SpaceX shows the DragonLab in orbit. In its new budget released on Feb. 1, 2010, the Obama administration proposed spending billions of dollars to encourage private companies to build, launch and operate spacecraft for NASA and others. (AP)

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New marching orders for NASA, as one of the last scheduled space shuttle flights took off from Cape Canaveral this morning.

No more American return to the moon. The new Obama administration budget would scrap that. And no more NASA flights shuttling astronauts to the space station and low-Earth orbit. The new plan would hand that taxi work off to private companies.

And NASA? The plan is for it to look deeper into space, with new technologies.

Some say it’s really a retreat. Others say it’s just right.

This hour, On Point: charting a new American way in space.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Merritt Island, Florida, is William Harwood, space analyst for CBS News. He’s been covering the American space program for more than 15 years.  He blogs at CBS’s Space Place.

Joining us from Bethesda, Maryland, is Howard McCurdy, a space policy expert and a professor of public affairs at American University.  His latest book is “Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program.”

From Alexandria, Virginia, we’re joined by John Pike. A space and security analyst, he’s founder and director of GlobalSecurity.org.

And from Los Angeles, we’re joined by Buzz Aldrin. The second man to walk on the Moon, after crewmate Neil Armstrong, he was the lunar module pilot on the Apollo 11 mission.  

Left: Buzz Aldrin on the moon. Right: An artist's rendition of humans on Mars. (Photos courtesy of NASA.)

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Forty years ago today, July 16th, 1969, mankind blasted off for the Moon, on its way to “The Eagle has landed” and “one small step.” Ticker tape parades and the American flag planted proudly on the lunar surface.

Forty years later, we have problems closer to home. But space still beckons. The US has competitors on the high frontier. And American space enthusiasts are debating where the next big push should be. Back to the Moon – maybe to build a giant solar energy station? Or straight on to Mars – maybe to create a second Earth.

This hour, On Point: Moon versus Mars, and what comes next in space.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace research and design company. He previously worked as an engineer at Lockheed Martin. He is the author of “The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must” and “How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet.”

David Kring is Senior Staff Scientist at Universities Space Research Association’s Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, TX. He is the former director of the NASA Space Imagery Center at the University of Arizona.

Harrison Schmitt is a crewmember from the 1975 Apollo 17 lunar mission, and a former New Mexico Senator.

Refurbished photo of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planting the U.S. flag on the Moon. (NASA)

Listen to NPR’s report on the missing Apollo 11 tapes and watch restored videos of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon and planting the U.S. flag.