PASADENA, Calif. -- President George W. Bushs announcement later today about the future of American space exploration is being met by cautious optimism. While many welcome the visionary zeal of humans once again kicking up lunar dust as a stepping stone to Mars they also wave cautionary flags.

Assuming that Bush puts America on a course going to the Moon to set up a permanent outpost and learn how to go to Marsthe plan "is visionary while being practical."

Thats the feeling of G. Jeffrey Taylor of the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics & Planetology at the University of Hawai'i in Honolulu.

It will use the Moon's resources for use throughout Earth-Moon space and develop the space infrastructure to make us a truly space-faring nation, all the while setting the stage for human exploration of Mars," Taylor said.

The space program has needed clearly defined goals, Taylor noted, that will lead to technological and scientific discoveries. "The technological development that will accompany an aggressive space program is essential to maintain U.S. technological leadership."

"This could be the beginning of some exciting times," Taylor senses.

"I view this Bush push back to the Moon with cautious optimism," said Clive Neal, an Associate Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Still to be answered, Neal said, is how Bush will get Congress and the nation behind a space plan that gives it momentum to last beyond his administration.

"Having humans on the Moon again will vastly expand scientific possibilities from nuclear fusion (using the helium 3 on the Moon) to the early history of the solar system to how the Moon evolved and died," Neal explained. 

Furthermore, seismometers can be placed over a wider area across the Moon than offered by Apollo.

"We can finally understand more about lunar internal structure. Given what we now know about the Moon from missions since Apollo, landing sites can be chosen with more of a scientific rational. Having a Moon base up there opens up the possibility for astronomers to utilize the Moon for astronomical observations," Neal concluded.

Mike Duke, an ex-NASA scientist with years of personal experience, suggests an internal overhaul of the space agency. Otherwise, the Bush space plan is likely to quickly fall back on the White House launching pad.

"It will not be successfulif we do not change the way that NASA does business," Duke said, now a space resource expert at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. "At a minimum, a new program office, with control of the funding and responsibility to achieve both long term and near term goals needs to be established."

Duke said he is not a proponent of killing NASA and starting anew.

"However, some means must be found for focusing NASA and not letting the historical inability for the Space Flight and Space Science organizations to work together in an exploration program get in the way," Duke said.

If President Bush wants space to happen faster and more cost-effectively for the American taxpayer, he should turn to the private sector argues James Benson, founding chairman and chief executive of SpaceDev in Poway, California.

"The President should require that data and services be purchased from the private sector, giving priority to small businesses which is where the innovation is," Benson explained. For example, better data on possible lunar landing sites is needed, and where resources are located on the Moon, he told SPACE.com .

"NASA should do data purchases on a COD -- Cash-On-Delivery basis -- post the requirement and the reward for producing the data and then stand back while the private sector competes among themselves to fly the mission and deliver the data," Benson suggested.

Benson said that NASA and other government agencies need to get over their fear of failure and take advantage of smaller aggressive space technology companies...to get the job done on time and on budget, using modern technology.

"The government talks about transformational space technology, yet continues for the most part to go to the large companies with the old mainframe attitude that bigger is better," Benson said. "Smaller companies that are transformational themselves are the only source of paradigm shifting, transformational, affordable and responsive space technologies."

Whats needed is to re-stimulate the space sector, Benson stated. "The best way to get public support and enthusiasm is to have challenging, exciting programs that move fast and have lots of accomplishments on the way to major successes."

Those successes include putting a permanent settlement on the Moon, as well as extracting water from near Earth asteroids for use as rocket fuel, refilling our tanks and exploring the rest of the Solar System, Benson said.

Moreover, by drawing upon the talents of smaller firms, the use of the vast natural resources that are available in easily reached near Earth space becomes achievable, Benson concluded.

Given few details of what Bush may announce, many are in "hopeful but holding" mode.

"The devil is in the details with this [Bush] proposal," said Roger Launius, Chair of the National Air and Space Museums Division of Space History in Washington, D.C. "The space enthusiast in me says, great, let's go back to the Moon and on to Mars. We need to get out of low-Earth orbit and now is as good a time as any," he suggested.

"But, the cynic, curmudgeon, realist in me wonders about how all of this will unfold and what hard choices it will engender," Launius said.

Like many, Launius questions from where the needed funds can be found to support and sustain a new NASA long-range agenda.

Even though a five percent increase for the indefinite future is relatively modest, two questions about this come immediately to mind, Launius points out:

• Is it enough to fund these major initiatives, even taking into consideration the reprogramming of other funds within the NASA budget?; and
• What is the likelihood that Congress will agree to these increases given the record deficits already being recorded and lots of other priorities for precious
  tax dollars?

"An unfunded mandatepresents enormous, if not insurmountable difficulties," Launius told SPACE.com .

As for human access to space, Launius made note of the rumored promise of a Crew Exploration Vehicle. "But I am mindful of a landscape littered with failed human space access projects."

"Although I'm a big believer in returning to the Moon," Launius said, "will that part of this [Bush] proposal resonate with the public? Or is it something that is basically saying: to boldly go where nine Apollo crews have gone before?"