BUSH ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR SPACE EXPLORATION, COLONIZATION
14 January 2004

President Bush today announced that his administration will begin planning for a new revival of space exploration. The plans as outlined include enhancement of the International Space Station project, the creation of a new space-travel vehicle (the Crew Exploration Vehicle), designed to carry human beings into space, to the Moon, and eventually to Mars. The plan, while ambitious, employs a long time-frame, not inaugurating the new vehicle until 2014 and not seeking a Moon-landing until 2020.

The plan includes an ambitious strategy to build the first human colony on the Moon. From this colony, the President wants the space program to then gain the information necessary to carry human beings on to Mars. The Moon base would be used to conduct research for the creation of advanced propulsion and life-support systems required for long-distance, manned space flight. Mr. Bush noted that until now, no human being has ever travelled more than 386 miles upward into space, less than the distance between Washington, D.C., and Boston.

The President named the former Secretary of the Air Force, Pete Aldridge, to chair a public-private commission to investigate strategic planning for the new space exploration program. Bush noted that the plan is "a journey, not a race", and said he would invited other nations to join in the effort, and in the benefits of the program. "Future funding decisions will be guided by the progress that we make in achieving these goals", said the President, indicating that there would be room for scaling back the budget of the program if it is found to be wasteful or inefficient.

But many informed observers note that proposed funding is not adequate. Only $4 billion in new funding is proposed, with fully $11 billion coming from existing NASA programs. Former Senator John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth told CNN that the levels of funding offered were so low as to appear essentially "not serious". The President's father, during his term in office, commissioned a cost estimate for similar exploration, and was told it would cost some $400 billion (in 1989 dollars). His administration sought to revise those figures, but Glenn noted it would have been unreasonable to expect a cost below $250 billion in '89 dollars, suggesting some $500 billion today.

The Center for American Progress reports that Halliburton has been pressing for increased funding, or the redirection of funds, to a Mars exploration project. In February 2001, Petroleum News reported that Halliburton was already working with NASA to develop drilling technologies need to test for life beneath the Martian permafrost. It is thought that Halliburton would stand to benefit greatly from the proposed mission to Mars, but whether the funding will be there at all, with the need for Congressional approval and appropriations, remains in question.

By the time of the announcement, the concept itself had undergone a wave of intense criticism, in which observers speculated that the spacegoing strategy is more a political ploy for electoral attention than a viable or serious proposal to direct the nation's space program. Democratic presidential candidates have been severe in their suggestions that such a massive budget expansion would be inappropriate in the midst of record budget deficits, growing trade deficits and a weakening dollar.

Scientists, however, have applauded the idea as a boon for the fundamental human pursuit of knowledge and progress, and a sign that (electioneering or not), the US is still capable of uniting the world in a valuable humanist venture. [s]

• For more on the subject of Mars colonization: Slate