NASA's emerging exploration plan will call for safely sending humans to Mars, possibly by the 2030s, and de-emphasize exploration of the moon, the agency's leader said Tuesday.

“That is my personal vision,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “I am confident that, when I say humans on Mars is a goal for the nation, not just NASA, I'm saying that because I believe the president will back me up.”

Bolden cited appearances set before congressional committees on Feb. 24 and 25 as a deadline for creating the “beginnings of a plan” for human exploration.

At those hearings, Bolden said, he will be able only to give a range of dates for a Mars trip because scientific questions, such as mitigating radiation exposure and bone loss, remain unanswered.

But he confidently said the 2030s, even the early 2030s, were viable if given a reasonable and sustained budget.

Bolden was in Houston this week making his first visit to Johnson Space Center since the release of President Barack Obama's budget on Feb. 1. Obama has been on the defense as the budget, while adding $6 billion in new money over five years, calls for the cancellation of the Constellation program that the Houston space center manages.

Bolden's expansiveness on the attractiveness of Mars as a clear goal for NASA may blunt some of the criticism Obama has received for not addressing space policy since taking office, nor clearly outlining what will replace Constellation.

Under Constellation, NASA was to build two new rockets to fly astronauts to the International Space Station and, by the early 2020s, back to the moon where a lunar base would be built. Researching and living on the moon would be a steppingstone to exploring outward to destinations like Mars, perhaps by 2040.

‘Fight, fight, fight' vowed
Congressional critics have said NASA should not be asked to change plans when $9 billion has already been spent on Constellation and that by canceling the space agency's next-generation exploration program, Obama is turning his back on human spaceflight.

“The president's plan is not what our country needs at this time,” said Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land. “We have been the world's leader for 50 years, and I can't accept that we're going to fall behind. We are going to fight, fight, fight to ensure that the next person who steps on the moon is an American.”

Olson said the right thing to do is add $3 billion to NASA's budget annually for the next five years to ensure Constellation is fully funded.

But Bolden's comments Tuesday, made at a Houston Chronicle editorial board meeting, indicate the president hopes to reach Mars before the timeline envisioned by the Constellation program.

Bolden said this could be accomplished by sending robotic or possibly human missions to the lunar surface, but to skip the costly and timely step of building a permanent lunar base.

“I don't see us colonizing the moon as some people do,” he said. “That's not NASA's job. Our job is to explore.”

And if someone beats NASA back to the moon while it is conducting research on rockets that can blast humans to Mars?

“When the Chinese or the Japanese or the Russians, or anybody else that people are worried about, get back to the moon before we do, I'm not worried about that,” said Bolden, a former astronaut. “Because when they land they're going to be walking in the footsteps of 12 Americans who have already been there.”

Planetary Society likes it
Some pro-space exploration organizations have embraced Obama's plan because it has the potential to get humans beyond the moon more quickly than Constellation.

“The proof will be in what they do with this new plan, but I have great hopes for it,” said Louis Friedman, executive director of The Planetary Society.

Friedman noted Constellation budget's is largely focused at present on developing the Ares I rocket, to carry astronauts to Earth orbit, and the Orion crew capsule that would house them both in orbit and on longer journeys.

The president's proposed budget spends more, about $3.1 billion over the next five years, on the design of a heavy-lift rocket that can carry the fuel and supplies needed to propel and sustain astronauts on long journeys, Friedman said.

Hard sell ahead?
Bolden said he would like to use some of the money previously earmarked for Constellation's Ares I rocket to fund newer technologies that might get humans to Mars more quickly.

“I think the path that (Obama) has asked us to go down now gives us a better chance of getting to some destinations, if not as fast, maybe even faster in some cases because there are technologies that we overlooked, or just pushed aside, because we couldn't afford them for the last several years we've been developing the Constellation program,” Bolden said.

His task during the next two weeks will be to flesh out more details for the Mars vision, and then sell the plan to a skeptical Congress that ultimately will have to approve funding.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6859370.html

And a big take THAT to Rick Perry!

Seriously, however, we are allllll praying and anxiously awaiting this speech here in Houston.

Obama to unveil vision for space program
By the CNN Wire Staff

Washington (CNN) -- President Obama will announce his administration's vision for America's space program during a visit to Florida on Thursday, according to documents provided to CNN by a White House official.

"The Administration is committed to a bold, new approach to human spaceflight, and is increasing the NASA budget by $6 billion over the next five years in order to embark on this ambitious strategy that will foster the development of path-breaking technologies, increase the reach and reduce the cost of human spaceflight, and help create thousands of new jobs," the documents say.

The future of the space agency as outlined in the White House documents would include a multi-billion-dollar moderization of Kennedy Space Center, expansion of private-sector and commercial space industries, creation of thousands of jobs and eventually human travel to Mars.

The president's announcement will come during what have been uncertain times surrounding the agency. The space shuttle is scheduled for retirement at year's end, with just three scheduled launches remaining. Obama has cancelled the Bush administration's Constellation moon program. The space agency had already spent about $9.5 billion on that project to develop a next-generation rocket and the crew capsule.

Allard Beutel, news chief at the Kennedy Space Center, told CNN that layoffs at the center will likely reach "the 7,000 range" with the end of the shuttle and the cancellation of the Constellation program.

Obama's plans would shift some funding away from NASA's costly human spaceflight program to NASA's scientific programs, including robotic missions to other planets.

The president's budget would also provide funding to private launch companies to develop spacecraft to ferry astronauts.

Once the space shuttle is retired, U.S. astronauts will need to ride Russian Soyuz rockets to reach and return from the International Space Station. It's expected to take several years or more before commercial launch companies are capable of carrying astronauts into orbit.

"This new strategy means more money for NASA, more jobs for the country, more astronaut time in space, and more investments in innovation," the documents from the Obama administration say.

"It will result in a longer operating lifetime for the International Space Station, new launch capabilities becoming available sooner, and a fundamentally more ambitious space strategy to take us to an increased number of destinations and to new frontiers in space.

"By undertaking this strategy, we will no longer rely on our past achievements, and instead embrace a new and bold course of innovation and discovery."

During a briefing in early April, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden praised the new future being charted for the agency.

"This budget provides an increase to NASA at a time when funding is scarce," Bolden said. "It will enable us to accomplish inspiring exploration, science and (research and development), the kinds of things the agency has been known for throughout its history."

The budget "enables NASA to set its sights on destinations beyond Earth orbit and develop the technologies that will be required to get us there, both with humans and robots," Bolden said.

"We're talking about technologies that the field has long wished we had but for which we did not have the resources," he said.

"These are things that don't exist today but we'll make real in the coming years. This budget enables us to plan for a real future in exploration with capabilities that will make amazing things not only possible, but affordable and sustainable."

CNN's Dan Lothian and CNN Radio's Dick Uliano contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/space/04/14/us.space.program/index.html?hpt=C1