New NASA Vision Likely Means Dramatic Changes in Programs

摘要

By pledging to return astronauts to the moon by 2020, and possibly as early as 2015, and eventually go on to Mars, U.S. President George W. Bush set in motion a dramatic shift in NASA's spending priorities and a broad transformation of the 45-year-old space agency. Bush has proposed boosting NASA's $15.4 billion budget by $1 billion over the next five years and reprioritizing $11 billion in NASA spending over the same period to get started on the agency's new space exploration goals. "This increase, along with the re-focusing of our space agency, is a solid beginning to meet the challenges and the goals we set today," Bush said in a Jan. 14 speech before a capacity crowd at NASA headquarters here. "Future funding decisions will be guided by the progress we make in achieving our goals."