most of the astronaut corps these days consists of scientists, not fighter pilots. Anyway, if the govt. builds a lunar base, I’m sure we’ll have companies selling tickets just as they are available to the ISS – if you have $20 million to spare!

Not that I would EVER say anything negative about the President of our Fatherland, er, Motherland, er Homeland, but as long as he was going to tell us an unfunded fairy tale, I wish he’d done it at Kitty Hawk a few weeks ago if he were going to do it at all. Waiting until the Homeland was all awash in feel-good vibes over the successful landing of Spirit on Mars makes it all seem like a (dare I say it) freebie election year ploy. Would Mr. Bush have made this announcement if Spirit had crashed due to a programminig error, Opportunity missed Mars entirely due to a slipped decimal point, and NASA had two more black eyes? I personally doubt it, nd that’s too bad. Going to the Moon and Mars is important enough to do even if you have failures that waste money and kill people along the way. I’ll vote in a heartbeat for the man or woman that has the guts to say so in the face of adversity.

Hey Ricky, thanks for the extra comment there. It definitely looks like a lot more of a sure thing than last month, since there are actual quotes from White House people this time around.

On the title here – I don’t usually put a whole lot of deliberate thought into article titles, but I do usually play around with half a dozen possibilities over a few minutes, before picking one. So, I wasn’t deliberately referring to the Bush-I SEI slogan, but probably some subconscious memory of that influenced the selection. Anyway, glad you liked it :-)

Jeez, the guy hasn’t even made the announcement and already mud is being slung as well as claims that mud is being slung. “Others, though, will no doubt disparage the president’s plan as a brazen election-year ploy — an attempt to stir up memories of a bygone era of American achievement just to boost the president’s poll numbers.”

Now I ask you…WHO would go on the record with a cynical comment like THAT? WHO, I say?

From the here in the home of Arrested Development, the Orange County Register had such a huge banner headline “TO THE MOON AND MARS” today that I thought we must have launched something! (It’s at least as big if not bigger than the headline when Spirit landed OK.) I was really puzzled when I read the article and it was not even a presidential announcement… just a leak of a possible future announcement. Maybe it’s because the paper is sorta local-business oriented and in this area there is a lot of aerospace, so it’s seen as a possible economic boost? This is the district of Dana Rorhabacher the congressguy who is chair of the space & aeronautics subcommitte, so maybe that’s why. Did other area’s newspapers give this such a big headline?

The timing weirds me out, too. Would this have been announced if Spirit had failed? Like apsmith points out, there was an indication that something like this was coming in December or January… but like rickyjames pointed out, the Kitty Hawk address would have been a very suitable time for it.

(Hmmm, maybe if the Wright Brothers flight re-enactment had succeeded at Kitty Hawk, there would have been an announcement at that time? One of the photos the Register published from the event was John Travolta holding up an umbrella for President Bush. There is definitely a conspiracy theory in here waiting to be posited!)

To answer your question, yes, we had a 1 inch “MAN ON THE MOON, THEN MARS?” squarely under our newspaper title.  Now quess what teaser was ABOVE the newspaper title:

“PROBE IS OVER (in RED LETTERS)…NCAA removes its threat of more football penalties”

Does Alabama know how to prioritize or what?  

It got a front-page headline “President to Propose Mission to Mars” here in Eugene, where there is no connection to the aerospace industry, and I was astonished, as I had not seen anything about it in the Internet news last night and the paper is printed at midnight. (After that headline, I was somewhat disappointed to see that it was somewhat exaggerated — it surely implied a specific manned mission.) Our paper is not especially pro-Bush or pro-space. I think it must reflect a perception that the general public is really more interested in Mars than politicians tend to think, which if true, is an encouraging sign.

This is why I support a manned mission to Mars before we have explored much more of the moon, even though I believe a permanent moonbase will provide greater benefits and is badly needed. I don’t think the public will get excited enough about the moon to provide sufficient funding for it at this time, whereas there is an emotional feeling about Mars that could be built up with minimal PR — especially if Spirit discovers something that inspires wide interest.

Of course the announcement was held until after the successful landing of Spirit–how would it have looked if Spirit had crashed shortly after such an announcement had been made? That would have ruined whatever chance the proposal has for funding. It would have done the space effort more harm than good. This would be true even if there were not an election coming. The president’s personal interest may be in the election, but the space effort depends on capitalizing upon public enthusiasm about success; I can’t think of a better time for a fundraising campaign.

Newsday had a big spread at the front on it. Of course we have some old ties to the space program (the lunar modules were built here) but not much aerospace these days, now Grumman has mostly left.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the timing… Kennedy’s moon announcement was a few weeks after Alan Shepard’s first successful suborbital flight. If that had failed, I suspect Kennedy would not have bitten.

There’s been an awful lot of commentary about this on the web, but we should probably wait for the actual announcement tomorrow before getting too excited.

One new report from Sietzen and Cowing though, President’s plan revamps station research indicates a new focus for the ISS:

Bush on Wednesday is expected to announce a new focus for America’s human space exploration efforts. Missions will be directed outward from Earth to the moon and, eventually, Mars and the asteroids. Sources told United Press International American assets on the space station will be dedicated to meeting that goal.

- sounds pretty good so far…

Just so you know, as far as I’m concerned coverage of this story on SciScoop is all yours , AP. I’ll stick to writing on other topics. Have fun.

Hey Ricky – I’m traveling, unfortunately :-) But I’ll try to put something together