The Obama Administration has no interest in America going back to the moon, even as China and India rush to plant their flags on Earth’s only natural satellite. White House insiders say President Obama intends to kill the moon program altogether, focusing on global warming and a more distant program instead.

NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

NASA will continue to focus on a new heavy-lift rocket that might, just possibly, take humans and robots deeper into our solar system. One day. At an unspecified point. Assuming the Obama Administration doesn’t kill that program to fund its big government agenda, too.

The White House budget request, which is certain to meet fierce resistance in Congress, scraps the Bush administration’s Vision for Space Exploration and signals a major reorientation of NASA, especially in the area of human spaceflight.

“We certainly don’t need to go back to the moon,” said one administration official.

Really? Why? Global warming has been shown to be a fraud, but the administration continues to invest countless man hours and taxpayer dollars on that issue. Yet we can’t return to the moon even while our economic and political adversaries are seeking to plan their flags on the lunar surface? Disgraceful.

Congress isn’t likely to be happy. Last year the legislative body banned NASA from cutting its Constellation program without consent from lawmakers. Southern Democrats, including Senator Ben Nelson (D-FL), are least likely to be thrilled with this news. Hopefully they’ll help put a stop to this stupidity.