Bush Looking at 'Bold Agenda' Space Effort

Yahoo News ^ | 12/7/03 | Reuters - Washington

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) is considering ideas for "a bold agenda" announcement as he faces re-election, including a possible new U.S. space mission, his chief of staff said on Sunday.

"We have lots of suggestions that are being made by members of the president's Cabinet and administrators, like Sean O'Keefe of NASA (news - web sites). And the president will make a decision," said White House chief of staff Andrew Card.

"But I guarantee he will have a bold agenda for this country," Card said when asked about a possible new moon mission on the Sunday talk shows.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that a new lunar exploration program was one idea Bush's top aides were considering as part of a fresh agenda for the final year of his term.

Such an effort could cost billions of dollars at a time when the United States is running a substantial budget deficit.

The Post said plans call for Bush to issue an ambitious new national vision for space travel by early next year, as part of a White House effort to develop "big ideas" for the president's 2004 agenda.

In 1962 President John F. Kennedy issued a stirring call for the nation to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Apollo 17 astronauts landed there in December 1972.

"The president understands that we do want to continue to explore space after the disaster with the space shuttle. The president said that we would not give up on space exploration," Card said on CNN's "Late Edition" program.

Bush ordered an interagency review of U.S. space priorities in the wake of the Feb. 1 disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia but Card said he would not discuss "specifics on what we might be looking for." "We are very interested in space flight," he told CBS' "Face the Nation." "...We want to make sure that America has dreams and this president will be providing lots of opportunities for dreams."

Card indicated, however, that any major effort might be well into the future, stating the administration first must "address the challenges that are here at hand," including funding defense and homeland security needs, and economic programs in the face of burgeoning budget deficits.

[Huck]

$$$

[thepitts]

Just great, another way to spend billions to help re-election.

[demlosers]

Start to build a large space faring infratructure including the moon, then to Mars and beyond.

[Momaw Nadon]

[Tennessean4Bush]

NASA needs a mission or it needs to be scrapped. Are you in favor of scrapping the agency?

[Tired]

If not us then we might as well cede it to those commie heathen bastiches over in China. I say roll the bones baby and go for it. Hell if we are going broke lets do it with style.

[Momaw Nadon]

[zarf]

What are you a dinosaur? Better this than sex ed in schools.

We need national goals....what else besides taxes and skyscapers collapsing bind us together?

[ARCADIA]

Just great, another way to spend billions to help re-election.

No doubt, that is a part of it; but, in case you haven't noticed, the country is in trouble. The US is at risk of becoming a has been super power. Our industries are dying, our technological lead is gone, and our only job growth involves emptying bed pans.

If this can somehow reinvigorate our technological interests then by all means lets do it.

[Momaw Nadon]

[rmmcdaniell]

What are you a dinosaur? Better this than sex ed in schools.

What stupid comment. It would be one thing if Bush was slashing and burning wasteful government spending like sex ed. to fund the space mission. He isn't! He's too craven to do anything about the ubiquitous waste and now plans to add another bloated space program on top of everything else. It is amazing how many on this site are oblivious that Bush's real legacy will be the astronomically higher taxes that are going to have to implemented to pay for all of this.

[rmmcdaniell]

No doubt, that is a part of it; but, in case you haven't noticed, the country is in trouble. The US is at risk of becoming a has been super power. Our industries are dying, our technological lead is gone, and our only job growth involves emptying bed pans.

If this can somehow reinvigorate our technological interests then by all means lets do it.

You are a Socialist! We are at risk of becoming a has been superpower because of the enormous tax burden we all bear. If the goverment would get off our damn back, we would have all the reinvigoration we would need.

[ARCADIA]

Socialist?!?

Perhaps it is you who should ask your "capitalist" icons why they have decided to deliver 100% of our hard won technology to our communist/socialist enemies. The best way to reduce the tax burden is to boost the size of the underlying economy; as long as it continues to deteriorate the tax burden will continue to rise. Go take a chill pill and buy a clue.

[Willie Green]

Anouncing this bold new initiative, President George W. Jetson made the following statement:
"R&D in our NASA space program will spinoff many benefits for our future, hydrogen-based economy."

[Moonman62]

We need national goals....what else besides taxes and skyscapers collapsing bind us together?

Closing the borders to illegal immigration.

[alloysteel]

And what might we find if we return to the Moon?

If we dither around too long before we undertake this new exploration of space, it may very well be the Red Chinese.

But if we turn this proposed expansion back into space into a race, we could very well bankrupt the Chinese, much as we caused the Soviet Union to spend themselves into oblivion.

There are many ways to assert supremacy. Taking control of the highest hill around, by whatever means, generally establishes the the winner.

[The Westerner]

"Bush's real legacy will be the astronomically higher taxes that are going to have to implemented to pay for all of this."

Further driving us into socialist oblivion. With the coming retirement of the baby boomers, just who is going to fund the government's largesse?