Ceilidh

Michael Zey
futurist3000@aol.com

Highlights of the space initiative President Bush announced Wednesday at NASA headquarters:

CURRENT PROGRAMS:
Return the space shuttle to flight and fulfill the U.S. commitment to the International Space Station.

Halt most work on the space station by 2010, confining the American role there to studies of the health effects of space flight.
Retire the space shuttle fleet around the same time.

NEXT GENERATION:

Increase the use of robotic explorers throughout the solar system.
Start developing a new "Crew Exploration Vehicle" for venturing beyond Earth's orbit; test it by 2008 and launch its first mission by 2014. Use it to shuttle astronauts to the space station.

Send unmanned probes to the moon by 2008.

Return Americans to the moon between 2015 and 2020.

Establish a long-term presence on the moon to serve as a launching area for "human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond."

COSTS:

Bush offered no overall price tag for the new ventures; his aides declined to provide one.

Bush would launch his plan by increasing NASA spending by a total of $1 billion over five years, and by shifting $11 billion from existing space spending toward his priorities.

NASA spending would still represent less than 1 percent of the total federal budget.
01/14/04 18:33 EST