I also heard: 2008 - Robotic missions to moon 2015 - Extended missions to moon - which I think are the first manned (back to the moon) missions. I think 2020 was a permanent human presence on the moon. I heard the $1 billion earlier as a YEARLY increase. So, I think its unclear whether that is each year or spread out over five years. He welcomed international involvement - but it didn't sound like a main driver.

-----Original Message----- From: Cynthia Blue [mailto:cynweb@cynthiablue.net] Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 2:16 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] President Bush's speech

Okay so nutshell he has 3 goals (correct me if I got it wrong):

Goal 1: to finish ISS by 2010 and to retire the shuttle in that same year

Goal 2: to create this Crew Exploration Vehicle. Get it developed by 2008 and then flown by 2014 (brief overview provided by NPR) The main pupose of this CEV is to have it travel beyond orbit, so it'd be like a Moon to Earth and back shuttle craft.

Goal 3: Return to the moon by 2020. The Moon would then become a sort of a launching point for further space exploration including putting humans on Mars. One of the reasons is because the Moon has less gravity and it'd be easier to build, provision, and launch spacecraft from the Moon than from Earth. This would include humans living and working on the Moon.

Budget Info: So currently NASA's budget is $86 Billion. Bush wants to reallocate $11 Billion to his new plan, and increase NASAs budget by $1 billion over the next 5 years. Sounds like he may not want to get too much more money.. ( $1 billion is a tiny figure compared to...)

My Input: I heard on... oh was it the Nova? That it might be a good idea for Nasa to have more research funding, for things such as propulsion, as our current propulsion is just not all that great yet. Also, my own personal question, would it be advantageous to have more research into gravity? I might sound silly here but it seems that it'd be a huge advantage to determine how to get off of Earth (and all other planets) fighting less with gravity.

It sounds like a pretty good plan to me. I still have my doubts that it'll actually happen. I look forward to other input from yous guys. ;) Cyn

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