Bush: per 2005 opnieuw maanlandingen?

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'Bush moet naar de maan'
Politieke adviseurs van Bush hebben hun oog laten vallen op de maan, als belangrijk speerpunt in de campagne die moet leiden tot de herverkiezing van de president. Dat meldde The Washington Post op gezag van goed geïnformeerde bronnen binnen het landsbestuur.

Sinds afgelopen zomer zoekt een team onder leiding van topadviseur Karl Rove naar grote thema's die de verkiezingscampgane van de huidige president moeten dragen. Verscheidene overheidsagentschappen zijn daarbij ingeschakeld om de kosten en mogelijkheden van dergelijke megaprojecten te becijferen en in te schatten.

Met dergelijke superthema's willen Bush' adviseurs de president een aura bezorgen van een doortastend leider die niet terugdeinst voor grote beslissingen en ambitieuze plannen. ,,Irak was groot, aids is groot. Grote werken krijgen grootschalige aandacht'', vatte een hoge regeringsfunctionaris het samen. Het team heeft evenwel nog geen definitieve programmapunten vastgesteld en voorgelegd aan de president.

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Bush Set to Announce Return to the Moon, Permanent Base?
reliable sources write that as soon as December 17, Bush may announce a broad initiative to return to the moon. Although some would undoubtedly note that it appears Bush is already on the moon, the idea of picking up where the Apollo program left off is tantalizing and important, if true. A permanent base on the moon would be a huge step towards becoming a spacefaring species and would also increase the odds of the human genome surviving the next 100 years by getting it permanently off of our present ecological niche. A moonbase would also be a tremendous launch pad for a future Mars mission and could lead to lunar mining and untold new resources (Bush's industrialist friends should be salivating over this! Now the question is, how much of the Moon will be awarded to Halliburton and Bechtel? I predict a huge Bush-Cheney Lunar Mining empire by 2020). In any case lunar mining is essential in making the Moon Base a self-sustaining colony. From there, by gathering lunar ice and other resources, manufacturing and supply lines can be created offworld and railguns can shoot supplies to orbital stations around other planets etc. There is also incredible potential for microgravity manufacturing -- this is especially important for making nano-scale devices where gravity is a real obstacle to manufacturing (microgravity can reduce defects and enable smaller devices, perfect ballbearings, etc.). A range of new economic opportunities ranging from space launch technology, space tourism, lunar/orbital solar power collection, space shipping, space communications, space manufacturing, space medicine, etc. would all be enabled by this. So if true, it would be very exciting. I think a real commitment to space exploration and development that leads to an actual colony on the Moon could be the Bush administrations' most (only?) valuable long-term legacy. Of course, that depends on whether their effort is focused on the militarization of space (The war against "space terrorism" could be just around the corner!), or on scientific and economic development of space (a much loftier and more beneficial goal in the long-term).

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Op 17 december wordt verwacht dat hij mogelijk eea gaat aankondigen, in de hoop op zijn herverkiezing, wat vindt men hier?

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zoekt een 'Kennedy-plan'
STEVO AKKERMAN

AMSTERDAM - De kalkoen die George W. Bush presenteerde aan de troepen in Bagdad, blijkt een decoratiestuk te zijn geweest, een Thanksgiving-gerecht van plastic. De beelden van een stralende president met een enorme vleesschaal tussen dankbare soldaten verliezen daarmee veel van hun propagandawaarde. Maar de zoektocht naar een overdonderend en onverslaanbaar verkiezingsthema gaat door.

Werkgroepen buigen zich over plannen waarmee Bush alle Amerikanen achter zich kan krijgen. Een van de ideeën: een terugkeer naar de maan.

De oorlog tegen het terrorisme, die tot dusver de vlag vormde waarachter George Bush zijn land probeerde te verenigen, voldoet daarvoor steeds minder. Terwijl de troepen vastlopen in de hinderlagen van het Iraakse verzet, verliest de president almaar meer terrein in de peilingen.

Hij heeft dringend behoefte aan een nieuwe agenda, en volgens The Washington Post van vandaag wordt gezocht naar spectaculaire initiatieven. Een nieuwe maanexpeditie behoort tot de mogelijkheden, aldus de krant. Of anders een campagne om de honger uit te bannen of de algehele levensverwachting te verhogen. Alles is goed, als het maar het 'Kennedy-moment' creëert waarnaar Bush op zoek is.

Daarmee verwijst een medewerker van het Witte Huis naar de rede die JFK in 1962 hield om aan te kondigen dat de VS binnentien jaar 'een man op de maan' zouden zetten. De ruimtevaart is, zo weten de Bush-getrouwen, zeer geschikt als katalysator van nationale geestdrift - en er is in het buitenaardse genoeg te doen om nog jaren vooruit te kunnen.

''Een werkgroep van het Witte Huis is sinds augustus bezig plannen te maken voor menselijke vluchten tussen verschillende planeten,'' aldus The Washington Post. Samenwerking tussen ruimtevaartorganisatie Nasa en het Pentagon zou ook deel kunnen uitmaken van een 'nationale ruimte-missie', zodat het ruimte-defensie-systeem (voorheen Star Wars) kan bijdragen aan de patriottische inspanning.

Bij de Nasa wordt al enige tijd gedacht aan een terugkeer naar de maan, eventueel in de vorm van een permanent bemande basis. Daar zouden astronauten kunnen trainen voor verdere ruimte-expedities en er zou wetenschappelijk onderzoek kunnen worden gedaan. Zolang het maar 'grote doelen zijn voor een grote natie' - want dat is het vergezicht dat George Bush zijn volk blijft voorhouden.

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Milky Way Days
Returning to the new frontier.

By Dennis E. Powell

When President Bush delivers a speech recognizing the centenary of heavier-than-air-powered flight December 17, it is expected that he will proffer a bold vision of renewed space flight, with at its center a return to the moon, perhaps even establishment of a permanent presence there. If he does, it will mean that he has decided the United States should once again become a space-faring nation. For more than 30 years America's manned space program has limited itself to low Earth orbit; indeed, everyone under the age of 31 more than 125 million Americans was born since an American last set foot on the moon.

The speech will come at a time when events are converging to force some important decisions about the future of American efforts in space. China has put a man in orbit, plans a launch of three Sinonauts together, and has announced its own lunar program. The space shuttle is grounded, and its smaller sibling, the "orbital space plane," may not be built. The International Space Station, behind schedule, over budget, and of limited utility, has been scaled back post-Columbia.

The content of the speech does not appear to be in doubt; the only question is timing. While those who have formulated it have argued that it be delivered on the anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first powered flight, there exists a slight possibility that it will instead be incorporated in the State of the Union address at the end of January. This has its own, less triumphant, significance, which is in the form of a chilling coincidence. Every American who has died in a spacecraft has done so within one calendar week: The Apollo 204 fire on January 27, 1967; the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986; and the loss of Columbia on February 1, 2003.

If the president goes ahead with the plan to announce an ambitious new program to carry Americans beyond Earth's immediate gravitational pull, he will argue that the new lunar explorations are justified not only for what they themselves might produce but also as a means of developing the technology and skills necessary for a mission to Mars, which is expected to be mentioned, though in less-specific terms, in the address.

Observers might note a familiar ring to the proposal. On July 20, 1989, President George H. W. Bush marked the 20th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing with a speech at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington in which he called for a permanent American presence on the moon and, ultimately, a mission to Mars.

That address led to the formation of a group called the "Space Exploration Initiative," headed by Vice President Quayle and NASA Administrator Richard Truly, which in the spring of 1991 released a report, "America at the Threshold." It set a long-term goal of landing Americans on Mars, with space activities in the interim leading up to that goal. First, it recommended, would be "Space Station Freedom" now the ISS followed by a return to the moon, in large measure to develop and test systems for keeping people alive on a Mars journey. The development of rocket boosters more powerful than the mighty Saturn V that lifted Apollo astronauts to the moon would be necessary, the report said, as would development of nuclear systems for providing power aboard in-transit spacecraft, and nuclear-powered rockets, to be employed outside Earth's atmosphere, where they could be used on long missions without the need to carry enormous supplies of conventional rocket propellant. None of the recommendations was carried out as envisioned at the time; the only one that got off the ground at all is the space station.

The president's speech could breathe new life into a moribund space program whose recent history has been beset by disappointment and failure. The space shuttle proved neither as reliable or as inexpensive as its proponents had promised. In 18 years of flight (the shuttle was grounded for 30 months following the Challenger disaster, and has been grounded since the loss of Columbia February 1), half of the original shuttle fleet has been lost to catastrophic failure, along with 14 astronauts. The cost of a shuttle mission has hovered around $500 million despite early claims that it would be much less and would allow payloads to be carried aloft for as little as $50 per pound. The launch schedule has been unreliable, with many space customers wondering if their satellites would ever get to orbit; in some cases satellites have remained on the ground so long that their power supplies ran down and had to be replaced before launch. The shuttle program has been so frustrating to scientists that it was characterized by Bruce Murray, former head of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as "a giant WPA in the sky."

Some critics say the space station offers little or nothing more, with a far-higher price tag. It is "international" as to the origin of some of its parts and some of its crew and, while the shuttle is grounded, the craft used to ferry the maintenance crews and supplies, but most of it is paid for by the United States. Some critics have argued that it is less a space station than an extension of the State Department.

Charles Krauthammer has noted that an orbiting United Nations is unlikely to be any less foolish than one fixed on planet Earth. "The moon and Mars are beckoning," he wrote in January, 2000. "So why are we spending so much of our resources building a tinker-toy space station? In part because, a quarter-century late, we still need something to justify the shuttle. Yet the space station's purpose has shrunk to almost nothing. No one takes seriously its claims to be a platform for real science." Establishment of a permanent moon base and research and engineering work toward a flight to Mars would certainly replenish the idea of a space program engaged in real exploration.

Whether a return to the moon would spark the public's imagination as it did in the 1960s is unknown. The world was transfixed July 20, 1969, as Apollo 11 landed and Neil Armstrong became the first man to stand on a celestial body other than Earth. But public and political enthusiasm for the moon soon waned. There were five more landings; the final three lunar shots were canceled. The last moon flight was in December 1972. No human has achieved escape velocity since.

A new space initiative would face numerous hurdles, including congressional Democrats who in the present political climate would be likely to challenge a presidential declaration that the sky is blue. Additionally, congressional distrust of NASA is vigorous on both sides of the aisle following the Columbia accident. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R., N.Y.), and Rep. Ralph Hall, (D., Tex.), recently asked that NASA stop work on the $13 billion "orbital space plane," a smaller, cheaper space shuttle, until Congress and the president agree on NASA's goals. Others in Congress have argued that the space shuttle should remain on the ground permanently. The fact that a revamped space program would employ many people especially in places such as Silicon Valley, where unemployment among engineers is high might blunt much criticism, however.

There are ideas and proposals that could offset concerns as to the value of returning to the moon and, perhaps, traveling beyond. Geologists are eager to take lunar-core samples, which could tell much about the solar system's past and how the moon itself was formed. It has recently been suggested that sunlight collected on the moon and beamed to Earth could provide a no-pollution source of power. Bill McInnis, a leading NASA engineer before he resigned in despair over shuttle-safety issues and ultimately took his own life, long lobbied for a return to the moon and talked of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and the folly of putting our antennae on Earth. "The signals we're looking for are so weak that the effects of somebody turning on a light a hundred miles away are stronger," he said. "The place to do it, the place to be free of Earthbound interference that's the other side of the moon. The moon is the ultimate space station, it is where we can really learn things." Certainly, long-term lunar experience would facilitate a trip to Mars.

NASA's budget has been far short of lavish since the last time the agency was aiming for the moon. The president has remarked to members of the White House space group that he does not favor a huge increase in spending for NASA projects. Whether he has changed his mind, and the extent to which he is willing to sell an ambitious new program of space exploration remains to be seen. If Bush does deliver the speech as planned, it would be another opportunity for him to finish business left pending when his father left office a decade ago.

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U.S. EYES RETURN TO THE MOON

Saturday, December 6, 2003 Posted: 0015 GMT ( 8:15 AM HKT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It has been 31 years since a U.S. astronaut last walked on the moon, but China's space ambitions have signaled a possible American return to the lunar surface as part of a renewed space program.

Aides to U.S. President George W. Bush say he is on the verge of calling for a return to the moon as part of a dramatic new mission for NASA.

Sources tell CNN the target for returning to the moon is about 15 years from now. But a lunar date is not yet embraced by a White House still debating key policy and multibillion dollar budget questions.

It remains to be seen if any of the plans actually lift off or if China and the United States embark on some form of a "space race". But on the table of American ideas is a permanent presence on the moon and even a manned mission to Mars.

Certainly, Bush wants to set bold new goals in space, but has not made key decisions, aides tell CNN.

"There are no plans for any policy announcements in the immediate future, " White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan confirmed.

China's first manned space flight in October and its talk of a future landing on the moon within the next two decades may end up being the spark to re-ignite the U.S. space program.

That program has been hit by cost cutting, budget restrictions and a stall in the wake of the Columbia space shuttle disaster.

"You've got the Chinese saying they're interested -- we don't want them to beat us to the moon. We want to be there to develop the sweet spots," Republican Senator Sam Brownback says.

Some analysts say a Chinese-American space rivalry may prove healthy and lead to other benefits such as new drug products, but other White House hawks see Beijing's space program more as a warning.

They say China could use a space base to test new rockets or other technology that may prove threatening to the United States at some later date.

Though the White House is not pleased some of the proposals have been leaked out -- possibly by NASA officials keen to push forward the space program -- it has given cause for enthusiasm among space visionaries.

Shortly after February's Columbia disaster, Bush quickly committed to resuming shuttle flights with NASA's latest target for a launch set as early as fall of 2004.

The Apollo 17 lunar module "Challenger" liftoffs from its landing site at Taurus-Littrow.
"Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on," he said in February.

Among the administration's review of the space program:

Setting a target for retiring the shuttle fleet

A plan to phase out the International Space Station

Picking a new space vehicle for manned flights

Debating the costs and benefits of a permanent moon base

Developing a proposal for a mission to Mars.

NASA has been urgently refining its space proposals and Vice President Dick Cheney is consulting key members of Congress.

Some are expecting Bush to make a pronouncement during a December 17 speech to mark the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight.

But the new space initiative is unlikely to be ready by then as many critical decisions remain.

Some top advisers tell CNN the proposal might not be completed by the time Bush delivers his State of the Union address in late January.

One thing is for certain. For at least another 15 years or so, astronaut Eugene Cernan's bootprint from December 1972 will remain the last legacy of man on the moon.

CNN Senior White House Correspondent John King contributed to this report

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