NASA chief proposes $16.2 billion budget for 2005
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NASA chief Sean O'Keefe estimated some 25 to 30 shuttle voyages are required to complete construction on the International Space Station.
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Bush outlines his plan to reinvigorate the U.S. manned space program.
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| BUSH SPACE INITIATIVE |
•Spend $12 billion on new space exploration plan over next five years. $1bn will be new money, the rest reallocated from existing NASA programs.
•Retire shuttle program by 2010
•Develop new manned exploration vehicle
•Launch manned mission to moon between 2015 and 2020
•Build permanent lunar base as "stepping stone" for more ambitious missions
•Complete commitments to International Space Station by 2010
Source: White House
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- NASA's proposed budget for fiscal 2005 will be $16.2 billion, a 5.6 percent increase meant to jump-start President Bush's plan for missions to the moon and Mars, the space agency's chief said this week.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said his agency was well-placed to begin the ambitious space exploration program, even with the shuttle fleet grounded since the February 1 Columbia disaster and no clear date for resuming flight.
"In many ways, we're probably better positioned right now than we might have been otherwise," O'Keefe told reporters. "The accident really, really shook the foundation of this agency ... That's the perfect time, in many ways, in which to look at new directions."
O'Keefe said the $16.2 billion was 5.6 percent up from the 2004 budget of $15.4 billion, well over Bush's 4 percent cap for budget increases in areas of discretionary spending. The cap is meant to cut the national budget deficit in half in five years, but NASA, the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security are exempt from this guideline.
In future years, O'Keefe said, NASA's projected budget increases will be more modest: 4.8 percent in fiscal 2006, 4.7 percent in fiscal 2007 and 1.5 percent in fiscal 2008.
Bush has already pledged an added $1 billion over the next five years for his moon-Mars initiative, and $11 billion will be channeled from other NASA programs over that same period to give a total of $12 billion to the space exploration program, O'Keefe said.
NASA reorganizes
Some $6 billion previously allocated to NASA's canceled Orbital Space Plane program and a space launch initiative will go to the moon-Mars venture, O'Keefe said.
One day after Bush's January 14 announcement of the moon-Mars plan -- which calls for a human lunar mission by 2020 and an eventual exploration of Mars -- NASA reorganized some of its management team to focus on that goal.
The next day, the space agency said it was scrapping a plan for a service call to the Hubble Space Telescope, effectively dooming the orbiting observatory.
NASA is also committed to returning the three-ship shuttle fleet to flight, because there are some 25 to 30 shuttle voyages required to complete construction on the orbiting International Space Station. O'Keefe estimated there could be five shuttle missions a year for this work.
Since last May, the station has been tended by a two-person crew, ferried to the outpost by Russian Soyuz space taxis.
NASA has said the earliest that shuttles might fly again is September, but an independent panel monitoring the process of a return to flight said this week that it is too early to say when the shuttles could launch.
The 2005 budget proposal is set for release February 2, one day after the anniversary of Columbia's mid-air disintegration. A ceremony for families of the seven astronauts killed in the accident was set for February 2 at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington.
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