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Bush Seeks to Boost NASA's Budget

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 January 2004, 06:00 CST

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush will seek to boost NASA's budget by 5 percent annually for the next three years to help pay for his plan to put a base on the moon and to mount a manned expedition to Mars later in the century, a senior administration official said Tuesday.

The plan calls for establishing a permanent presence on the moon within two decades and to put astronauts on Mars sometime after 2030, the official said.

Congressional negotiators have previously agreed to a NASA budget of nearly $15.5 billion for fiscal 2004, which began last Oct. 1. That's a $90 million boost over the previous year. The measure, part of a broad-based spending bill, was passed by the House and awaits approval by the Senate.

A 5 percent boost, as proposed by Bush, would increase the budget by an additional $775 million.

The official said part of the funding for the moon-Mars initiative would come from reallocation of money already in the budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

In a speech planned for Wednesday, Bush will talk of establishing a moon base that would be used as stepping stone to deeper space exploration, to Mars and perhaps beyond.

Part of the funding for the ambitious projects would come from phasing out of the space shuttle and quickly concluding the U.S. obligations to the International Space Station. The shuttle now costs NASA about $4 billion a year and the station about $1 billion.

Bush's plan, the official said, calls for sending exploring robots to the moon by 2008, landing humans there by 2020 and then launching a Mars expedition after 2030.

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