US President George W. Bush on Wednesday will announce a dramatic new effort to return to the moon and eventually send a mission to Mars, which critics say is a costly extravagance that also raises concerns over US military aims in space.
Supporters and critics alike said Bush's proposal to replace ageing US space shuttles with a new generation spacecraft would help extend US military supremacy further into space, at a time when China, a growing strategic power, is planning a series of lunar exploration missions.
"You always want the (strategic) high ground," US Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, chairman of the Senate commerce subcommittee on science, technology and space, told Reuters.
Alice Slater, head of the Global Action Center for the Environment, warned the initiative "will create a new arms race to the heavens."
US security officials have stressed the need to ensure US military dominance in space, especially in the wake of China's first manned space flight last year.
But White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president's proposal would focus on civilian exploration. "This is not a race anymore, it's a journey," he said.
"The spirit is going to be one of continued exploration (and) seeking new horizons," Bush said on Tuesday as he prepared to outline what could be a big-picture issue for his gathering re-election campaign.
Bush was to speak at 3:15 pm EST (2015 GMT) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. His proposals followed a review of US space policy after the loss of the space shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1 last year.
Administration officials said Bush would propose landing an unmanned spacecraft on the moon by the end of this decade. Humans would return to the moon's surface in the middle of the next decade, after an absence since December 1972.
Bush would have the United States establish a presence on the moon as a stepping stone to an eventual manned mission to Mars. The United States is the only country to land humans on the moon, beginning in 1969.
To pay for the ambitious effort, Bush is proposing a five-year, $1 billion increase in NASA's budget, which is now about $15 billion.
Other resources would be reallocated, including $3.5 billion a year for the space shuttle once it is retired on completion of the International Space Station in 2006.
NASA expects to spend $95 billion to build and operate the space station for 10 years or more.
Critics, including some conservatives, blasted the idea as irresponsible at a time the federal budget deficit is expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone.
"I think it's just a total fiscal absurdity. Bush has been spending money like we've got money to burn, and we don't," said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a politically powerful conservative group.
Democratic presidential candidates have said the federal government should spend more on programs at home rather than space.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, appearing on the CBS' "The Early Show," compared the impact on the average taxpayer to "the cost of a monthly cable television payment."
That would be nearly $50 per month, according to the most recent J.D. Power and Associates survey.
Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the initiative will cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
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