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Bush's Mars Proposal Stirs Mixed Reaction

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

The prospect of sending astronauts back to the moon and maybe on to Mars is stirring a mix of excitement and skepticism.

"I'll believe it when I see it," said Nadine Barlow, a Mars expert at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

"We've heard these things before and they never pan out," she said Friday.

Senior administration officials say President Bush is planning a permanent science base for astronauts on the moon and, more than a decade from now, human voyages to Mars. The White House has confirmed Bush will describe his ideas for long-term direction of the space program next Wednesday, but no details were disclosed.

Barlow said the biggest question among scientists is how Bush's proposals would be funded, because "that's what has driven the stake in the heart of the previous proposals to get humans to the moon and to Mars."

Barlow said she'll be convinced of the bold plan "when I actually see money being put into the program and people start working on it, and we actually have a schedule that we're driving for."

"I would be absolutely thrilled to see it happen, even if we just stop at the moon," she said, because a lunar base could be a big step toward continuing solar system exploration.

But Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society, which advocates exploring other worlds, said the program shouldn't stop at the moon.

"We had to do the moon first, but we've done it," he said. "So the value of any permanent presence on the moon is not clear to me."

"If it becomes a detour on our road outward into the solar system, I think that would be bad. If it becomes a step that would enable us to do it (further exploration) better, that would be good," Friedman said.

To marshal public and political support, he said, "Mars has to be the thing that pulls us, or drives us, to send humans outward."

Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, agreed the moon should be a milepost toward the bigger mission. If Bush proposes a return to the moon and an expedition to Mars - "someday" - then Mars may well lose out.

But for the moment, he said he is "happy and preparing for battle."

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert of New York, the Republican chairman of the House Science committee, said he believed the nation "needs a new vision for human space flight and that the human space flight program should be continued."

But any decisions on the future of manned space flight must be made "in the context of budget realities," reforms called for by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, and the need to continue productive unmanned space exploration like the landing on Mars this week by a robotic rover.

At Mars Mission Control in Pasadena, Calif., the chief scientist for the rover Spirit, which landed a week ago, said he's all for human expeditions.

"There's no greater fan of robotic exploration than me. But the best exploration, the most complete exploration, the most comprehensive exploration is going to be done by humans," said Steven Squyres of Cornell University.

There was also jubilation at the National Space Society in Washington.

"This is probably the most excited I've been about our prospects for a long time," said the society's executive director, Brian Chase.

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