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."
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."
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