Bush unveils plans to send men to moon, Mars

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, January 15, 2004

Bush unveils plans to send men to moon, Mars

US President George W. Bush announced Wednesday bold plans for the future of US space exploration, calling for a return to the moon as early as 2015 andultimately human missions to Mars and beyond.

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US President George W. Bush announced Wednesday bold plans for the future of US space exploration, calling for a return to the moon as early as 2015 andultimately human missions to Mars and beyond.

"We will undertake extended human missions to the moon as earlyas 2015, with the goal of living and working there for increasingly extended periods of time," Bush said at the Washington headquarters of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

He noted that the United States will return to the moon no later than 2020, and will use the moon as the launching point for further missions.

"Returning to the moon is an important step for our space program. Establishing an extended human presence on the moon couldvastly reduce the cost of further space exploration, making possible ever more ambitious missions," he said.

"With the experience and knowledge gained on the moon, we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration: human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond," Bush declared.

Bush also outlined other goals and timetables for US manned space program, including finishing the US work in the International Space Station in 2010, and retiring the aging space shuttle fleet by the end of the decade.

The United States will develop and test a new spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, by 2008 and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2014, Bush announced.

"The Crew Exploration Vehicle will be capable of ferrying astronauts and scientists to the space station after the shuttle is retired," Bush said. "But the main purpose of this spacecraft will be to carry astronauts beyond our orbit to other worlds. Thiswill be the first spacecraft of its kind since the Apollo command module."

Bush said he will urge the Congress to increase NASA's budget by roughly a billion dollars, spread over the next five years, butstressed that most of the funding needed for the new initiatives will come from reallocating 11 billion dollars within NASA's current five-year budget of 86 billion dollars.

Bush is the third US president to announce a manned moon initiative. In 1961, John Kennedy challenged the nation to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth in a decade.

American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon in 1969 and the US manned lunar missions ended in 1972.

In 1989, the elder President George Bush announced plans for a permanent moon base and sending astronauts to Mars. But the plans died after NASA estimated it would cost more than 400 billion dollars.

A new mission to the moon and Mars will provide NASA with a clear purpose that may help reinvigorate the US manned space exploration program which is still smarting from the Columbia tragedy.

The space shuttle broke up on Feb. 1, 2003, upon re-entering the earth's atmosphere, killing all the seven astronauts on board.The remaining three US space shuttles have been grounded since.

The new initiatives could also help rally Americans as Bush campaigns for re-election, allowing the President to be portrayed as an inspirational leader whose vision goes beyond terrorism and tax cuts, analysts said.

Source: Xinhua

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