WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- President Bush is expected to announce plans next week for a permanent human settlement on the moon and eventually a manned mission to Mars.
Administration sources said Bush will announce a new "human exploration" agenda in Washington Wednesday, the Washington Post reported Friday.
Unwilling to provide cost figures or details, officials would say only that the president will direct the government to immediately begin research and development to establish a human presence or base on the moon.
That would in turn lead to a manned flight to Mars, though it could be a decade away, they said. Scientists say any new moon or Mars mission would take years to develop.
The last humans on the moon, the crew of Apollo 17, landed in 1972. The new plans grew out of a White House group that examined NASA after the future of the space program was thrown into doubt with the Feb. 1 disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia.
