Bush to Seek Unmanned Mission to Moon This Decade

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - President Bush will call on Wednesday for landing an unmanned spacecraft on the moon this decade to lay the groundwork for humans to return to the lunar surface and eventually visit Mars, administration officials said.

Under fire from Democrats for proposing a costly new initiative at a time of record federal budget deficits, Bush said he would make the case that the nation's space program can be revamped affordably.

He will propose increasing NASA's budget by 5 percent a year over the next three years. Other resources would be reallocated, including $3.5 billion a year for the space shuttle, once it is retired on completion of the International Space Station.

"This is a long-term vision," one senior administration official said on Tuesday, previewing an initiative aimed at giving NASA a new mission a year after the shuttle Columbia tragedy and injecting something new and ambitious into Bush's re-election campaign.

Aides said Bush's plan calls for replacing the aging U.S. space shuttles with a new-generation spacecraft to get Americans back to the moon and to Mars.

An unmanned mission to the moon would come later this decade. Humans would return to the moon's surface in the middle of the next decade, establishing a presence there as a stepping stone to an eventual manned mission to Mars.

Democratic critics say the initiative is too costly. They point to a growing federal budget deficit, which is already expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone.

Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the moon/Mars initiative will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, possibly as much as $1 trillion.

Bush's father, former President George Bush, had proposed a Mars mission that was scuttled because of concerns over its high cost.

Asked on Tuesday if the United States could afford a major shift in the space program, Bush told reporters in Mexico, "Yes, I'll be saying that tomorrow."

"The spirit (of the initiative) is going to be one of continued exploration ..., seeking new horizons and investing in a program that ... meets that objective," Bush said on Tuesday at a two-day summit in Monterrey, Mexico. Officials said Bush would urge Congress to approve development of a new capsule-type spacecraft, called a crew exploration vehicle, capable of performing a variety of missions, including trips to the moon and the International Space Station.

Launched using conventional rockets much like the Apollo capsules of the 1960s and 1970s, it would have an escape system that the shuttle does not have.

The new spacecraft would replace a planned orbital space plane that had been expected to follow the space shuttle.

Bush Sees Moon As Test for Mars Mission

Mon Jan 12, 9:11 AM ET

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP)- The Bush administration is looking to the moon as the perfect launch pad and testing ground for future space flight, a place where communication with Earth is easy and low gravity makes for lighter launches.

The moon is the centerpiece of the space initiative Bush will make public in Washington on Wednesday, his senior advisers say. A long-term station there would pave the way for manned missions to other, more remote destinations such as Mars and even asteroids. It also would make the costs of such explorations lower than they would be from Earth, administration officials said.

Still, the president doesn't foresee a settlement on the moon for 10 to 15 years, and on Mars for 25 to 30 years.

The architects of Bush's long-range space plan cite several advantages to setting up camp on the moon. Its gravitational field is about one-sixth that of Earth's, meaning it would take less energy — and money — to launch spacecraft from there.

The moon would be an ideal place to assemble equipment such as housing that would then be transported farther afield. It is close enough to Earth that communications with the planet would be easy. Its poles may contain frozen water.

And astronauts could develop new technologies and perform simulated exercises on its surface.

"The moon is the proving ground and that's where we need to be going," said Don Nelson, a retired NASA (news - web sites) engineer whose career spanned Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle. He helped calibrate the necessary propellant, lights, gas and water for the lunar landers.

To make way for the next generation of space exploration, the president will call for retiring the space shuttle program by the end of this decade, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The shuttles are the only way to haul much of the equipment to the International Space Station (news - web sites), but by then, the United States would have completed its commitment to the orbiting facility, the officials said.

Current government planning calls for modest increases in NASA spending in the next few years, and Bush does not plan to call for a dramatic hike, administration officials said.

The new space proposals will not undermine Bush's goal of cutting the federal deficit in half within five years, Treasury Secretary John Snow said.

Snow said the new space proposals, which include a permanent settlement on the moon and setting a goal of sending Americans to Mars, will be undertaken "within a framework of fiscal responsibility."

Snow said the administration's budget, which will be sent to Congress on Feb. 2, will outline the new space proposals plus a plan that will accomplish the goal of cutting record budget deficits in half through a combination of stronger economic growth and spending restraint.

"We can do both. We really can," Snow said in an interview on ABC's "This Week." "This is a country of enormous resources, and we have the capacity to pursue a number of priorities at one time, but we have to do so within the framework of fiscal responsibility. I think you'll see that reflected in the budget."

Snow's Cabinet colleague, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, agreed that Bush's space ideas are audacious. But he rejected the suggestion Americans might consider the plans' probable huge cost wasteful at a time with millions of people unemployed and the country facing other expensive needs.

"America has always needed a challenge of a big and bold idea," Evans said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"I can also tell you that this program will be within a responsible fiscal budget because the president knows, once again, the basic ingredients to growing an economy and creating more jobs are cutting taxes and controlling spending."

In previewing Bush's official announcement, White House aides did not discuss costs. Bush's father proposed during his presidency a more muted project, which would have aimed at putting Americans on Mars without mention of a moon base. The cost of that enterprise was projected at $400 billion to $500 billion in 1989 dollars, far too rich for Congress to consider.

Democratic contenders to take Bush's job said Sunday the president's moon-Mars ideas appeared to be misplaced priorities.

"I haven't looked at the numbers lately, but I don't know that we can go off on a new moon mission or Mars mission, if that's the suggestion, and just have the money to do something in addition to completing the space station," said Rep. Dick Gephardt (news - web sites), D-Mo., interviewed on CBS' "Face the Nation" from Des Moines, Iowa.

"We're pretty far down the road on the space station, and we need to complete it and have the success from it that we need," he said.

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