Just months after President Donald Trump hailed a new era of lunar exploration, scientists said they were stunned to learn the plug has been pulled on NASA’s last moon rover. The rover, which was being designed for lunar missions in the early 2020s, was killed as NASA revealed plans to cultivate “commercial partners” for moon exploration. But lunar scientists said they learned April 23 that the agency is abandoning plans for its Resource Prospector rover at the end of May. “I’m a little shocked,” Clive Neal, NASA’s emeritus chairman of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, told The Washington Post. Bridenstine said in a tweet: “We’re committed to lunar exploration @NASA” with “more commercial partners.”

Source: Huffington Post April 29, 2018 04:18 UTC