nbcrusader
Blue Crack Addict
Bush Plans To Call for Settlement On Moon
Now, I know many of you would rather send GWB to the moon, but the benefits of such an initiative are far beyond what we can imagine today.
President Bush will announce plans next week to establish a permanent human settlement on the moon and to set a goal of eventually sending Americans to Mars, administration sources said last night.
The sources said Bush will announce a new "human exploration" agenda in Washington on Wednesday, six days ahead of the final State of the Union address of his term and just as his reelection campaign moves from the planning stage to its public phase.
The plans grew out of a White House group that was assigned to examine the mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration after the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on Feb. 1, throwing the future of the space program into doubt.
Officials were unwilling to provide cost figures or details and would say only that Bush will direct the government to immediately begin research and development to establish a human presence or base on the moon, with the goal of having that lead to a manned mission to Mars. That endeavor could be a decade or more away, the officials said.
The last humans on the moon, the crew of Apollo 17, landed in 1972.
Now, I know many of you would rather send GWB to the moon, but the benefits of such an initiative are far beyond what we can imagine today.