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As the Mars rover Spirit prepares to drive off its platform tonight and into
the martian terrain, President Bush prepared the United States to send humans
to the red planet and beyond. The president announced today that he would increase
NASA's budget in order to forward human space travel, increasing the agency's
budget slightly and reorganizing its priorities and programs for space exploration.
"Today we set a new course," Bush said to an audience that included
former and current astronauts and members of the press gathered at a news conference
held this afternoon at NASA's Washington, D.C., headquarters. "We will
give NASA a new focus."
Calling on the spirit of exploration that led Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
across the western half of the then-unknown U.S. territories, the president
outlined goals for the next two decades. In order to establish sites with potential
for human stations and future launches from the moon, he stipulated that NASA
will send robot explorers to the moon by 2008. The current Space Shuttle program
will be retired by 2010, and by 2014, he charged NASA scientists to develop
a new "crew exploration vehicle," which "will be capable of ferrying
astronauts and scientists to the International Space Station." Further
challenges include moderating the effects of space living on humans.
Bush also pledged to help finish the construction of the International Space
Station and invited other countries to partake in the United States' new space
initiative. "The vision I've outlined today is a journey, not a race,"
the president said.
NASA's current budget is $86 billion. "Most of the funding we need for
the new endeavors will come from re-allocating $11 billion from within that
budget," the president said. He will call on Congress to add approximately
another $1 billion over the next five years. President Bush directed NASA administrator
Sean O'Keefe to review all programs, and he established a committee to report
in the next four months on how to retool the organization.
The president ended by invoking the memory of the lost Challenger and
Columbia astronauts (the one year anniversary of the explosion of the
Columbia is approaching next month, Feb. 1st). "The legacy of Columbia
must carry on for the benefit of our children," Bush said. "Mankind
is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn to unknown lands
and across the sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our
lives and lifts our spirit."
Naomi Lubick
Links:
NASA
Web site
White
House press release
New
York Times coverage
Other
news stories through Google
transcript from Los Angeles Times
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