Sending people to the moon and Mars is no longer just President Bush's vision. It's officially the United States' new mission in space. Congress voted Saturday to give NASA all of the $16.2 billion it sought for 2005, money not only to return the space shuttles to flight but also to start designing a replacement spaceship and planning moon missions. "This is a great day for NASA, and a great day for the Space Coast," said U.S. Rep. David Weldon, R-Melbourne, who sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee that controls the federal budget. The NASA budget got lumped in with everything else in a two-foot thick budget document that left some members of Congress complaining they did not have enough time to read it before they had to vote on it. Still, the House voted 344-51 to approve it Saturday afternoon. Senate approval was expected hours later. The 6 percent increase for NASA was remarkable in many ways. First, tight budgets forced the president and Congress to all but freeze spending for projects unrelated to fighting terrorism or national defense.

Also, Congress has grown cold to NASA's requests for big investments in new space projects. A similar proposal by President Bush's father was dead on arrival in Congress. Critics who argued that money spent on space could be better invested on Earth gained new political ammunition when NASA admitted in 2001 that the space station was more than$5 billion over budget. The agency's been on a sort of political and financial probation ever since.

View: Full Article | Source: Florida Today

i guess whats another $16 billion down the tube !!

toss in a few $100 billion for SDI !


but they will let social security go under when people are paying in to it ??-
arrg !!!

Its the only good thing about Bush government- space exploring gets more money. After the Cold War times have not been great for spacemissions.Now things are looking to improve:Chinas first taikonaut and now improved NASA budget with high visions.
When Bush first announced Mars mission as a new target i was sure that it was pure propaganda before elections, but no -its real! Question is how effectivly NASA and corporations will use this extra money and also how long NASA will enjoy bigger budget- during next elections situation might change.
The moon must have human base and Mars must have first human steps on its ground.

It'll be just a matter of time in the near distance future that we'll have a colony on the moon and have an astronaut land on Mars. But then again, that 16 mil sure does sound a lot considering the state that we're in....

Well thats great news for nasa and the future of space exploration and travel in the united states, lest hope NASA get more an dmore money of the next few years so they really can achieve something because unless we are willing ti spend billions upon billions of dollars on this, we will achieve little.
We need to all work together, share our resources, technologies, equipment etc........so we can successfully spread out into the universe!