- WASHINGTON (AP) - President
Bush (news - web sites) will announce plans next week to send Americans
to Mars and establish a permanent human presence on the moon, senior administration
officials said Thursday night.
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- Bush won't propose sending Americans to Mars anytime
soon; rather, he envisions preparing for the mission more than a decade
from now, one official said.
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- In addition to proposing the first trip to the moon since
December 1972, the president wants to build a permanent space station there.
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- Three senior officials said Bush wants to aggressively
reinvigorate the space program, which has been demoralized by a series
of setbacks, including the space shuttle disaster last February that killed
seven astronauts.
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- The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
Bush's announcement would come in the middle of next week.
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- Bush has been expected to propose a bold new space mission
in an effort to rally Americans around a unifying theme as he campaigns
for re-election.
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- Many insiders had speculated he might set forth goals
at the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' famed flight last month
in North Carolina. Instead, he said only that America would continue to
lead the world in aviation.
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- Earlier, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters
traveling with Bush in Florida that the president would make an announcement
about space next week, but he declined to give details.
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- It's possible Bush could make the announcement in his
State of the Union address later this month, painfully close to the anniversaries
of both the Challenger and Columbia tragedies.
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- It was the Columbia tragedy that helped force a discussion
of where NASA (news - web sites) should venture beyond the space shuttle
and international space station. The panel that investigated the Columbia
accident called for a clearly defined long-term mission ó a national
vision for space that has gone missing for three decades.
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- House Science Committee spokeswoman Heidi Tringe said
lawmakers on the panel "haven't been briefed on the specifics"
of the plan but expected an announcement.
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- Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas, a member of the House Science
Committee, said he welcomed the move because he has tried to get the president
more interested in space exploration.
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- "I had the feeling the last 2 1/2 years people would
rather make a trip to the grocery store than a trip to the moon because
of the economy," Hall said. "As things are turning around, we
need to stay in touch with space" and the science spinoffs it provides.
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- On Saturday, NASA landed a six-wheeled robot on Mars
to study the planet. However, the Spirit rover is stuck because the air
bags that cushioned its landing are obstructing its movement. A second
rover named Opportunity was sent in its wake and should land on Jan. 24.
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- Asked Wednesday whether the success of the Mars rovers
could lead to a human mission to Mars, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe
said, "The rovers are a precursor mission ó kind of an advance
team ó to figuring out what the conditions are on the planet, and
once we figure out how to deal with the human effects, we can then send
humans to explore in real time."
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- While answering questions on the White House Web site,
O'Keefe said interplanetary exploration depends on "what we learn
and whether we can develop the power and ... propulsion capabilities necessary
to get there faster and stay longer and potentially support humans in doing
so."
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- On the 20th anniversary of the first manned moon landing
in 1989, his father, then-President Bush, called for lunar colonies and
a Mars expedition: "I'm not proposing a 10-year plan like Apollo;
I'm proposing a long-range, continuing commitment. ... For the new century:
Back to the moon; back to the future. And this time, back to stay. And
then a journey into tomorrow, a journey to another planet: a manned mission
to Mars."
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- The prohibitively expensive plan went nowhere.
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- No one, least of all members of Congress, knows how NASA
would pay for lunar camps or Mars expeditions. When the first President
Bush proposed such a project, the estimated price tag was $400 billion
to $500 billion.
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- The moon is just three days away while Mars is at least
six months away, and the lunar surface therefore could be a safe place
to shake out Martian equipment. Observatories also could be built on the
moon, and mining camps could be set up to gather helium-3 for conversion
into fuel for use back on Earth.
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- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, among others,
has called for an expansion of the U.S. space program, including a return
to the moon. The United States put 12 men on the moon between July 1969
and December 1972.
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- An interagency task force led by Vice President Dick
Cheney (news - web sites) has been considering options for a space mission
since summer.
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- Former Ohio Sen. John Glenn, the first American to orbit
the Earth, has said that before deciding to race off to the moon or Mars,
the nation needs to complete the international space station and provide
the taxi service to accommodate a full crew of six or seven. The station
currently houses two.
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- At the same time, Glenn has said, NASA could be laying
out a long-term plan, setting a loose timetable and investing in the engineering
challenges of sending people to Mars. The only sensible reason for going
to the moon first, he says, would be to test the technology for a Mars
trip.
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