Bush Plugs NASA Moon Mission During Town Hall Meeting

by Brian Berger, Space News Staff Writer

Date: 10 July 2007 Time: 11:19 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- NASA and the vision for space exploration received a rare plug from President George W. Bush on Tuesday when the U.S. leader told a Cleveland audience why he decided in 2004 to have the space agency set its sights on the Moon.

?I believe in exploration, space exploration. And we changed the mission to make it relevant,? he said.

Bush was speaking at a town hall-style meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel Cleveland when he was asked by a member of the audience to comment on how he intended to fund NASA and its new mission ?going forward.?

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The president dodged the essence of the question, saying ?I can't give you the exact level of funding?.

But he did explain to the audience why he directed NASA in the aftermath of the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia accident to develop a new human space transportation system and come up with a plan for returning to the Moon by 2020.

?I think that NASA needed to become relevant . . . to justify the spending of your money, and therefore, I helped change the mission from one of orbiting in a space shuttle -- in a space station -- to one of becoming a different kind of group of explorers,? he said, according to a transcript of the event released by the White House. ?And therefore, we set a new mission, which is to go to the Moon and set up a launching there from which to further explore space.?

?And the reason I did that is,? Bush continued, ?I do want to make sure the American people stay involved with -- or understand the relevance of this exploration. I'm a big -- I support exploration, whether it be the exploration of new medicine -- that would be like [National Institutes of Health] grants -- the exploration of space through NASA.?