New U.S. Plan for Space Exploration

Jan. 9, 2004 -- -- The president is set to announce next week that he wants to send astronauts back to the moon around the year 2013, and to make a flyby of Mars by around 2020, sources say.

To help pay for the program, the sources say the space shuttles would be retired as soon as they have finished building the International Space Station. The White House would also ask Congress to increase NASA's budget by $800 million next year, and keep increasing it by 5 percent for several years after that.

Currently, NASA's budget is about $15 billion a year.

Astronauts last walked on the moon in 1972. This time, it is believed the presidentfavors a permanent station.

A new multipurpose ship, called a "Crew Exploration Vehicle," would be built as NASA's future workhorse. It would consist of different components that could be combined as necessary for different missions, whether they are to orbit Earth, the lunar surface or beyond.

Keith Cowing and Frank Seitzen, writing for Cowing's Web site, NASAWatch.com, say the plan began to take shape in the months after the loss of the shuttle Columbia last year. A small task force, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, worked on it through the fall.

The president got involved in the late stages, they say, and made the plan broader.

NASA had a major success this week in the landing of the Spirit rover on Mars, but the plan does not call for astronauts to land there anytime soon. A flyby would be easier and less expensive.

Bush did not answer questions about space when he returned to the White House from a trip to Florida last night. However, White House spokesman Scott McClellan confirmed that Bush would be making a speech at NASA headquarters in Washington next week, but provided no other details.

Bush's father, on the 20th anniversary of the first manned moon landing, made a similar call for lunar colonies and a Mars expedition. But the plan, which would have cost hundreds of billions of dollars, went nowhere.