Bush to Mars.

Bush hopes to launch Men/Women to mars by 2020?

Oh my, and what tax cuts, health care...........................

www.sciam.com...

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In a speech at NASA headquarters on Wednesday, President Bush outlined his new space plan, which includes a proposal to return to the moon by 2020 and establish a base there for trips to Mars and beyond. Included in the blueprint are plans to return the space shuttle to orbit as soon as possible before retiring it completely around 2010, the same year Bush hopes to complete the International Space Station. New manned exploration vehicles will be developed and the first mission should occur by 2014, according to the President. To pay for the new initiative, Bush said he plans to ask Congress to increase NASA’s budget (currently $86 billion over five years) by $1 billion and to reallocate $11 billion from projects that have already been funded. Those funds represent a beginning, according to the President, with future funding decisions relying on whether the ambitious goals are met. Some of Scientific American's past stories about space exploration--including returning to the moon, some of the hurdles NASA faces and the logistics of a manned trip to Mars--are compiled below. -- The Editors
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Gotta love this man



Deep

I think this is the key part...



So, where is the billion coming from for the increase? Better still, where is this "reallocation" coming from of 11 billion? 11 Billion isn't exactly chump change, hell, its some nations' GNP!!! Do you think the 11 Billion is coming from people making over $100,000 a year? I'll bet not.....

While I'd love nothing better than to see the space program given new life...with WWIII looming on the horizon, I'm not so sure this is even realistic.... Then again, nothing about Bush is realistic, so I guess that makes sense.....

With renewed interest from other countries to go to the moon or Mars, the USA will not back down and let another country "take the lead" in the space race. Sure we have had setbacks, with the shuttle disaster, grounding the fleet. But with the Mars explorers and the Cassini, there are really some impressive strides being made at NASA. I'm all for returning to space!

I still don't understand why Bush is discussing this now when we're at war and spending billions on military defense. Where is he going to get the money to send us to Mars? IMO, Bush's goal is to rob every American blind of their money until we're all broke if he's serious about doing this because that's the only way to do it. Taxing us up the ying yang is all that's left. That's only explanation I can see.

Geez! You people can't give Bush an inch. Just because there is a War going on, does that mean he and the administration can't deal with other things? A manned exploration of Mars has been a dream of mankind forever, and now we have a president who is taking some serious steps to making that dream a reality. Come on people. There has to be some space nuts out there that can get a bit excited about this right? This will be bigger than the first manned mission to the moon and look what that did for mankind.

Someone please tell me I'm not alone here.

[edit on 17-6-2004 by mpeake]

[edit on 17-6-2004 by mpeake]

Exactely. Where do we hope to get with space exploration? By the time we have figured out how to get further than the two nearest planets humankind will have been destroyed by war/energy crisis/meteorite/friends re-runs

why not spend all this money on trying to stop the above from happening first?

War has been going on since the dawn of humanity. So has exploration. So why should we stop exploring just because of this war? The question of "Where do we hope to get with space exploration?" is a bit foolish I think. The exploration of space is very important!

[edit on 17-6-2004 by mpeake]

The exploration of space is important, you are right, however the technology to get us anywhere in space, anywhere of any use to us, is generations away. We don't have the time for this. There are more pressing issues here on Earth that should be delt with. However the money should be take n out of the military budget more of course..

ill be the first one to volunteer to go on these missions

well, I'm no rocket scientist but who knows, maybe we are closer than we think as far as the technology goes. Besides, the timeline is for around 2020. That's 15 years away. And just look at how far our technology has come in just that time.

Imagine how awesome our space program would be and how fast we could have got to mars if we had spent the 84 ++billion used in Iraq war on new Exploration agenda.

Makes me cry..

Short term huge investemnt could get us an awesome program and CEV whos cost would plumet after initial expenditures if the CEV's are made multi purpose solar system vehicles. We spend billions on Submarines if we take that concept and build a CEV that will be orbit based and reusable...

That would be one impressive space program!