WASHINGTON -- When U.S. President George W. Bush arrives at NASA headquarters today to set the U.S. space agency on a course to return to the moon and eventually go on to Mars, his speech inevitably will invite comparisons to John F. Kennedys 1961 speech announcing what became the Apollo program. To duplicate Kennedys success in winning congressional and popular support for his proposals, Bush needs to find a way to ensure that his vision endures even as political conditions shift, said Mike Griffin, a former NASA official who led NASAs space exploration efforts in the early 1990s.

Kennedys dramatic pronouncement -- and his call for Congress to support the efforts very heavy costs -- came as the United States was heavily engaged in the Cold War and had ample justification to show off its technological prowess, Griffin said. Yet by 1973 when the last Apollo capsule returned from the moon in triumphant fulfillment of Kennedys ambitions -- the United States had set aside its interest in space in favor of other priorities laid out by President Richard M. Nixon, he said.

We have repudiated nearly everything else that came out of the Nixon administration, but we are still living with the consequences of the Nixon space program, said Griffin.

Today, as Bush seeks to restore NASAs luster in the wake of the painful loss last year of the space shuttle Columbia, he will in a sense pick up where the Apollo program left off more than 25 years ago, said Lewis Peach, chief engineer of the Universities Space Research Association in Columbia, Md. There was no buy into longer-term goals by NASA once the Apollo program stopped. Peach said. It wasnt sustainable. Once it was done, there was nothing for the future.

Bushs father, President George H.W. Bush, attempted to turn the United States back in the direction of Mars in a 1989 speech marking the 20th anniversary of the first lunar landing, Apollo 11. But Griffin -- who joined NASA to turn the elder Bushs ideas into reality -- said the proposals never took hold because Congress did not see the value in investing heavily in space exploration.

Theres an old saying that the administration proposes and Congress disposes, Griffin said. The first President Bush was unable to convince the nation that the country needs to be the pre-eminent space-faring nation because is it about exploring the frontier and that is what great nations do.

John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington University here, said the scathing report by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) could give Bush and NASA momentum as they seek the support that was lacking in 1989. Back then, said Logsdon, NASA didnt have the kind of criticism that came out the CAIB about it having a lack of vision. NASA wasnt involved in the initiative, and they werent very enthusiastic.

Griffin said it will be essential for Bushs space vision to resonate deeply enough with the public that future presidents and members of Congress are not tempted to scale back or derail the nations space ambitions. Griffin noted that programs with broad public appeal - such as Social Security, established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s endure indefinitely even as they periodically come up for debate. While someone must first articulate the vision, succeeding political administrations must continue [to support it], he said.

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