Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Moon and Mars in New Budget

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.
...Bush said nothing about NASA during the presidential campaign, although his top budget aides threatened to veto any spending bill that did not include full funding for his space plan.
Congress didn't seem interested, and the House even passed a budget that slashed almost a billion dollars from the NASA request. The Senate was more generous, but the budget did not pass before Congress went on break for the November elections. That left NASA's fate to behind-the-scenes negotiations.

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