Posted: Wed, Jan 14, 2004, 8:50 AM ET (1350 GMT)
President Bush is expected to announce a new human space initiative on Wednesday that may be more modest than first reported. Bush is scheduled to speak Wednesday afternoon at NASA Headquarters to unveil the "space exploration objectives" for the space agency. The AP reported that the plan would feature an unmanned lunar lander mission in 2008, a human return to the Moon by 2020, and a human mission to Mars after 2030. Although initial reports last week suggested that Bush would raise NASA's budget by five percent a year for five years to pay for starting the effort, Reuters reported that the budget increases would last for only three years, while the AP said that Bush would propose raising NASA's budget by only $1 billion over five years, a substantially smaller increase. Bush, under fire from some quarters for proposing what them deem to be an extremely expensive venture, is expected to stress that any new project will be affordable.

Related Links:

•  AP article
•  Reuters article
•  MSNBC article
•  CNN article
•  SPACE.com article