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Bush aims to put a man on Mars; President sees US space programme as vote winner

Posted on: Saturday, 10 January 2004, 06:00 CST

George W Bush is poised to rejuvenate America's ailing space programme with a bold plan to establish a permanently-manned lunar station as a stepping stone for landing an astronaut on Mars, perhaps within the next 10 years.

White House officials confirmed yesterday that the president is to make an important announcement about space travel next week. Although no details were revealed, he is expected to confirm rumours of an aggressive new multi-billion dollar proposal to keep the US at the forefront of space exploration and discovery.

Nasa, still affected by last year's Columbia disaster, desperately needs a tonic and the president is determined to look heavenwards to provide it.

Space scientists regard the moon as a vital testbed for the equipment and techniques needed to send astronauts to - and bring them back from - Mars.

The more visionary among them predict manned colonies and observatories on the moon. Others, however, believe that the space programme should bypass the moon and make a beeline for the Red Planet.

Mr Bush, who has shown no great enthusiasm for Nasa's efforts in the past, appears to have discovered a sudden interest in the nation's space programme. This may not be unconnected with the fact that he is up for re-election this year.

Like JFK before him, he knows that space exploration captures the imagination of the (voting) public.

Although Kennedy privately confessed that he was not remotely interested in space, he famously launched the Apollo mission in the early 1960s with the declaration: "We choose to go to the moon . . . not because it is easy, but because it is hard." The lunar race was a cynical cold war political maneouvre.

Mars is the new moon; the holy grail in the twenty-first century space race. With several other nations playing catch-up, the US is determined to stay well ahead by training its eyes on the fourth rock from the sun.

However, some estimates suggest that America will have to spend a staggering trillion dollars to have an astronaut set foot on Mars.

It was the Columbia tragedy and the deaths of its seven astronauts which forced a public discussion of where Nasa should go beyond the three surviving space shuttles and the international space station.

The expert panel which investigated the disaster called for a clearly defined long-term mission, a vision that had been missing for almost 30 years.

Astronauts last walked on the moon in 1972. In total, 12 men have placed their footprints on the lunar surface.

Not everyone is convinced about Bush's men-on-the-moon plans. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Douglas Osheroff, of Stanford University, and a member of the panel which investigated the Columbia accident, said that he would rather have robots exploring both the lunar and Martian surfaces.

"The cost of a manned enclave on the moon is going to make the space station look cheap. That's the only good thing about it," he said. "In any event, I think we're still 30 years from going to Mars."

However, Ralph Hall, a Texas Republican and member of the house science committee, welcomed the plan. He said he has long been trying to make the president more interested in space exploration. Mr Bush never went to the Johnson Space Centre in Houston while he was Texas governor. Last February's memorial service for the shuttle astronauts was his first visit.

Earlier this week, he called to congratulate officials in charge of Nasa's latest Mars Rover. He called the Spirit's landing a "reconfirmation of the American spirit of exploration." Another Rover is due to touch down on Mars in two weeks.

Nasa administrator Sean O'Keefe said the Rover robots represented an advance guard charged with assessing the planet's conditions.

"Once we figure out how to deal with the human effects, we can then send humans to explore in real time," he said.

If the space agency does decide to aim its sights on a human landing on Mars, it will have to go back to basics.

The rockets, equipment, and engineers that put American footprints on lunar soil have long been lost, dumped, or retired.

Nasa would need to design and build a large mother ship. A colony on the moon would need an atomic reactor for power.

For Mars, everything required by a moon voyage would have to be multiplied many fold. A manned expedition would last at least three years.

All fuel, water and other supplies would have to be carried along or sent ahead on robot craft. The crew size would have to be expanded to allow for sickness or death that is likely for such a risky expedition.

Soon after he took over as NASA administrator, Mr O'Keefe said the techniques used on the Apollo missions were simply too slow for exploration beyond earth's orbit and that a new propulsion method would be needed.

Two further attempts to contact the Beagle 2 Mars probe have failed, scientists said last night. The British craft's mothership, Mars Express, flew over the landing site twice but heard no signal.

Mars Express was in its most sensitive "listening-only" mode for Thursday's flypast. Hopes of finding the lander, which has been missing since Christmas Day, are now fading rapidly .

More Mars Express contact attempts will be made today at 2.04pm and on Monday at 2.02am.

Orbital routes Russia might have sent the first man into space but, ever since it lost the race to put a man on the moon, things have never been quite the same. These days, Russia has largely abandoned its great space dream.

China became the third nation to send a man into space last October when "taikonaut" Yang Liwei did the business. China is now making plans for an unmanned landing on the moon.

India's space programme is well advanced, with a number of geo- stationary telecommunications satellites in situ.

Europe's space programme has no ambitions for a manned space flight to the moon, preferring to concentrate on satellites, space probes, and other research projects.

Japan has a modest space programme with its own satellites in orbit.

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