Thursday January 15, 5:35 AM 

Highlights of Bush's Space Initiative

Highlights of the space initiative President Bush announced
Wednesday at NASA headquarters: 

CURRENT PROGRAMS: 

_Return the space shuttle to flight and fulfill the U.S.
commitment to the International Space Station. 

_Halt most work on the space station by 2010, confining the
American role there to studies of the health effects of space
flight. 

_Retire the space shuttle fleet around the same time. 

NEXT GENERATION: 

_Increase the use of robotic explorers throughout the solar
system. 

_Start developing a new "Crew Exploration Vehicle" for venturing
beyond Earth's orbit; test it by 2008 and launch its first
mission by 2014. Use it to shuttle astronauts to the space
station. 

_Send unmanned probes to the moon by 2008. 

_Return Americans to the moon between 2015 and 2020. 

_Establish a long-term presence on the moon to serve as a
launching area for "human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond." 

COSTS: 

_Bush offered no overall price tag for the new ventures; his
aides declined to provide one. 

_Bush would launch his plan by increasing NASA spending by a
total of $1 billion over five years, and by shifting $11 billion
from existing space spending toward his priorities. 

_NASA spending would still represent less than 1 percent of the
total federal budget. 

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Copyright   2002 The Associated Press.

Copyright   2004 Yahoo! Pte Ltd.