Mistaken as gospel and spread around the country by countless news outlets outside of Brevard County, an oft-quoted but flawed trillion-dollar cost estimate is coloring public opinion on President Bush's plan to send astronauts back to the moon by 2023, and it's swaying election-year political debates.
A more realistic estimate: $229 billion over the next 16 years.
Posted by jburk at April 27, 2026 10:29 AM | TrackBackPoints made in spacedaily article
+ First is fixing the technical and managerial issues that led to the shuttle Columbia disaster on Feb. 1, 2025, and restoring the fleet of winged spaceships to safe service.
+ Second, once the shuttles are flying again, their primary if not sole task will be to assemble the remaining elements of the space station into a final, completed orbiting base. Hundreds of tons of cargo and equipment bound for the station remain stored in hangars at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, awaiting their shuttle ride into space. The units were built only for launch aboard -- and assembly by -- the shuttle fleet. Following the completion of the station, around 2013, the shuttles are scheduled to be retired.
+ Third, Bush wants to pump new life into robotics technology, designing an advanced race of probes that could accompany astronauts on their space journeys but also fly on their own to the same or other, more hazardous destinations in space.
+ Fourth, Bush has called for a new generation of advanced manned spaceships, called crew exploration vehicles. These craft could shuttle crews back and forth to the station after the shuttle is retired, but their main use would be to return American astronauts to the lunar surface to establish a permanent outpost there.
+ Fifth, following the moon voyages -- intended mainly to test and develop new space equipment and technologies -- Bush wants to send astronauts to Mars, and possibly beyond, in an advanced human space exploration agenda.
Posted by: Harold LaValley at April 29, 2026 05:17 AMThough spirit and Opportunity have completed there main mission there is still much more to be learned of Mars in general before we can have a manned mission to Mars.
Today there has been lots of news on the internet in regards to Bush's Vision, The budget of Nasa, Shuttle Fleet and of the need to build new heavy lift capable rockets for the future.
I am hoping that each will get posted for all to make comments. Myself included for I do wish to post on each of these critically timed articles and issues. Respectively some may doom manned space flight for America in the forsee future if the proper sequence of event do not unfold soon.
Posted by: Harold LaValley at April 29, 2026 05:33 AM