I guess they wanted a successful mars landing before going ahead with this announcement... this is certainly good news. Bush to Announce Missions to Mars, Moon By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - President Bush 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. 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. addition to a returning trip to the moon for the first time since December 1972, the president also wants to build a permanent space station there. 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. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Bush's announcement would come in the middle of next week. 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. 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. 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. House Science Committee spokeswoman Heidi Tringe said lawmakers on the panel "haven't been briefed on the specifics" but expected an announcement. 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. "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. This week, 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. ed 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 — kind of an advance team — 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." 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." one, least of all members of Congress, knows how NASA would pay for lunar camps or Mars expeditions. The last time a president pushed such ambitious ideas — the first President Bush on the 20th anniversary of the first manned moon landing — the estimated price tag was $400 billion to $500 billion. 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. 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. An interagency task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney has been considering options for a space mission since summer. 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. 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. http://space.com/missionlaunches/bush_mars_040108.html
Don't hold your breath. Apparently we're paying for it by ... cutting taxes! Then there's more jokes by Iraqis, the Americans put more men on the moon and still can't provide gasoline to a country in OPEC.
cool idea, but where the heck is the money for all this gonna come from when we are already going to be running HUGE deficits the rest of this decade?
If you read neocon literature, it basically calls for invading Iraq, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and militarizing outer space. I am not making this up. Do a search for "Rebuilding America's Defenses" on google and read the document. So this space initiative could just be the sheep in wolf's clothing. And how to pay for it?
I would love to see this happen, but I'm guessing it won't happen unless Bush gets re-elected. In which case, I'm willing to wait another 4 or 8 years for it to happen, because another 4 years of Bush can only be disastrous.
It's more than eight years in the future. Anyways I have a feeling it's going to be funded like the Bushies No Child Left Behind program - as in a mandate for NASA to create a base on the moon and land on Mars without funding any of the program. A sound bite without any substance. re: Kennedy and a man on the moon comparison - some people argue that the reason this happened was a.) competition with the Soviet Union, and b.) to honor Kennedy's legacy. Nothing comparable now.
OK, they forgot to mention this to the Bushies: This could be a potentially one way trip with our current generation of tech. http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/03/14/mars.odyssey.ap/ . . . Mars is continuously bombarded by radiation from the galaxy at large, as well as by periodic bursts from the sun. The radiation would expose astronauts in orbit to an effective dose 2.5 times greater than that received by humans in low Earth orbit aboard the international space station, Zeitlin said. A three-year mission would expose astronauts to the radiation limit considered safe by NASA over the career of an astronaut, he added. . . .
If Junior funds this like No Child Left Behind was funded, our brave Astronauts will be hitchiking to Mars.
Come on guys. You have to admire the vision. But I must stick with my principles and demonstrate consistency: no unilateral invasion of Mars! No blood for soil!
I applaud our President for this remarkable proposal he has made. Landing on Mars will be one of the greatest accomplishments in history. Too bad the angry liberals (except for GreenVegan) are once again blinded by their hatred to join in this historic moment.
What a shock. A thread about space exploration turns into yet another Bush bashing thread. Who would have guessed... I can't wait until November.
BigTexx...I would love to see our nation commit to exploring the outer-reaches of our universe. It is a noble and worthy goal. Sadly, given the track record of this particular administration, their "space" plans will more than likely not accomplish anything but to provide space agency contracting companies and their well-compensated top-level executives lucrative, no-bid deals laden with tax breaks that middle-class Americans will never see. This administration is beyond mere corruption. George W. Bush is the biggest corporate w**** that has ever occupied the White House. He never met a federal tax dollar that he didn't like to either (1)spend or (2)dole out as corporate welfare. It's truly sad that you and your ilk are so oblivious to reality.
1. I like the idea of the space program. I want us to go to Mars. I want more science. But I want it done right. 2. Undertaking an ambitious agenda like this without first completely reforming NASA to curtail the insidious influence contractors and political pressure has on decisions is bad policy, bad economics, and will lead to bad science and unnecessary mission complexity. 3. As oppossed to No Child Left Behind and a host of other well-sounding programs, it wouldn't surprise me if the Bushies actually fund this one. The NASA appeal is still strong in the populace, the contractors are spread out through many Congressional districts, and many of the major contractors will be handsomly rewarded. 4. Doing this now, given our debt and economic instability is foolish. We're in no race with the Soviets, we have no compelling reason to do it now, and there are, in my view, many other priorities.
When George Sr. first proposed all this mars business the cost was est. at 400-500 billion. I wonder what it would be today a trillion or more? That's just insane - my bet is we will be sticking to moon for quite a while if we can even make it back there in 20 years... This thread did get heavy on the bashing quickly didn't it?
Uh, bigtexxx/smalltaxxx/loudshilll, Is that comment not clearly a joke? The winking smiley is the main clue. I applaud more space exploration, but as I've posted numerous times, manned spaceflight is foolhardy, in my professional opinion. The bit Woofer posted about radiation in space is an excellent case in point. We could spend billions to get astronauts on their way to Mars, only to have them absolutely roasted by one mild solar flare. FOIL-WRAPPED MEAT.
Oh, sorry, ima_drummer2k! Those are all for bigtexxx. I should be more generous with my snotty nicknames. ima_drummer_for_the_GOP. Just kidding. Actually, I hereby renounce making fun of posters' handles... except those newbies who have things like: 2eXtrem4u_893467383
