President Bush's call for a national push to Mars via the Moon has excited scientists who want to pick up where Apollo 17 left off, as well as the contractors who would build the program's new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). But on Capitol Hill the politicians who ultimately must make it so worry that the election-year timing and the sheer scope of Bush's proposal will make it difficult if not impossible to reahze. "The big question is what this is going to cost," said one, in the face of a presidential statement long on vision and short on details. Bush's plan would add $12 billion to NASA's space exploration budget over the next five years―$ 11 billion of that by reallocating funds already in the NASA budget―but does not include an estimate of what it would cost to return to the Moon with robots by 2008, and with humans as early as 2015. Administrator Sean O'Keefe defended the absence of an overall cost, arguing that the plan consists of several different activities―robotics, space power technology, developing the vehicle―that will be funded on their own merits.
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