Among lobbyists and space policy analysts, enthusiasm for the forthcoming announcement was still running high Monday. But expectations had been scaled back somewhat in the four days since the news broke that Bush would announce a major new effort to return astronauts to the moon in the next decade and then eventually on to Mars.
"It's going to sound like a really big splash, but its going to turn out to be a lot of technology development and study efforts," predicted one veteran lobbyist, who asked not to be named. "Because that's what they can afford."
Though the White House and NASA have been tight lipped about what the new initiative might cost, government sources have said Bush is prepared to ask Congress to increase NASA's $15.5 billion budget by five percent a year for at least the next five years. Nearly all of the 2005 increase -- roughly $800 million -- would be used to jumpstart the new initiative. Sources also say that retiring NASA's three remaining space shuttle orbiters by decade's end and backing away from the international space station once the planned assembly is complete could free up billions of more dollars annually to put toward the new goals.
Industry sources said they don't foresee the shuttle being retired before the station is finished, probably several years from now. But they do expect NASA to pull back almost immediately from plans to upgrade the shuttle and re-certify it -- a potentially costly and lengthy process -- for service beyond 2010. The shift towards more life science experiments on the international space station -- a change set in motion by a blue ribbon review of NASA's research priorities -- is expected to pick up speed after the president makes his announcement.
Industry sources also expect to see NASA transition its current Orbital Space Plane program from an effort focused on crew transport to and from the station to one that can also play a role in exploration beyond Earth orbit. The so-called Crew Exploration Vehicle said to be part of Bush's plan is seen as more of an expansion of the Orbital Space Plane program than a wholesale replacement. NASA has been making the case since last year to speed up the timetable for fielding a space plane capable of taking over the space shuttle's crew transport duties. That could still happen, sources said, under the new plan.
In fact, some industry sources said, a lot of the early money included in the president's proposal could go toward taking care of old business, like replacing the space shuttle, dressed up in the language of the new vision.
"We've got to get the shuttle back to flying again and we already know that NASA needs money to accelerate development of the Orbital Space Plane," said an industry lobbyist. "There are a ton of things the money can be tied too."
Bruce Mahone, director of space policy at the Roslyn, Va.-based Aerospace Industries Association, said it goes without saying that a presidential vision for the U.S. space program is sorely needed and long overdue.
"The question is whether there will be the support and money we need to carry through on it," Mahone said. "The preliminary indications are that the accompanying levels of money are too low" at least in the near-term.
Mahone said the funding outlook improves later in the decade if NASA can in fact put its space shuttle fleet out to pasture and manages to cut back dramatically its space station expenses. Those two programs alone currently absorb more than a third of NASA's budget.
Mahone said shifting the shuttle and station budgets to the new initiative, when combined with the proposed 5 percent annual increase, could yield about $8 billion a year for the new effort - enough money, he said, to mount a substantial program.
But whether NASA can return to the moon and forge on to Mars on a steady $8 billion a year remains to be seen. Normally, Mahone said, such undertakings need considerably less funding than that in the early planning stages and considerably more in later years, when factories are busy turning out the spacecraft, robots and other hardware needed for the journey.
Mahone said an $8 billion a year program is not inconceivable, even in an era of budget deficits and expensive military operations abroad.
"Eight billion dollars a year is not that different from what we are putting into missile defense," he said. "We have seen that the president can pick a priority program and get funding at the six to eight billion [dollar level]. People said there was no room in the defense budget for it, but he did it."
James Muncy, an independent space policy consultant here, said $8 billion a year is plenty for a space exploration budget, if managed well.
"You have to consider that there will be considerable synergy between NASA's robotic exploration efforts and the human space flight program," Muncy said. "There are considerable resources there that come into play."
NASA's space science enterprise, the part of the agency responsible for putting the Spirit rover on Mars and capturing dust from the tail of a comet with the Stardust probe, now gets about $4 billion a year. Muncy and others expect NASA will re-orient much of its planetary exploration activity to support the new set of goals Bush is expected to articulate Wednesday.
But perhaps the most monumental change in the offing, Muncy said, is the new direction for NASA's human space flight activity.
"This is going to transform human space flight from a program based in low Earth orbit to one that pushes beyond low Earth orbit," he said. "This is a tremendous change and one people have been waiting for -- for a very long time.
"This is a vision that can pull the human space flight program to a future that's really greater than Apollo," he added.
Don Brownlee, vice president of Washington operations for the California-based rocket propulsion firm Aerojet, said he will be listening Wednesday for the president to chart a bold new course for the U.S. space program. Brownlee said he likes what he has been hearing so far, but admits that the "devil will be in the details."
"I'm encouraged by the fact the administration is going to be placing a major emphasis on space," Brownlee said. "It is import to the future of mankind. And while it is not going to be inexpensive it is the necessary beginning to the legacy that we leave for generations to come."
As lobbyists, Brownlee and others are understandably interested in what the president's vision will mean for the fortunes of the U.S. aerospace industry. But one of the biggest payoffs of a bold new goal for the space program, Brownlee said, is the positive impact it could have on attracting young people to the industry.
NASA officials and aerospace executives alike have been warning that a substantial chunk of their workforce will retire by the end of the year. Replacements for these so-called graybeards have been hard to come by.
"We are all hurting for good engineers and scientists now because the allure of working in the space discipline just hasn't been there," Brownlee said. "Hopefully a vision like this, one that results in real programs to work on, would re-instill a lot of the engineering and scientific interest that is being drained from our industry so badly right now."
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