Bush considers course for space exploration

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — On the centennial of the world's first flight, high-speed travel seems to be at an all-time low.

The Columbia is gone. So is the Concorde. The remaining space shuttles are grounded. The space station is stalled.

Yet hope is on the horizon as President Bush considers what might put the nation on a new course of space exploration. After three decades of sticking close to the home planet, astronauts may be headed back to the moon. The prize, this time around, may also include Mars.

The destruction of Columbia nearly one year ago forced the dreamy subject of real outer space sojourns from the back halls and labs of NASA, and from the bailiwick of starry-eyed mavericks, to Capitol Hill and the White House.

That alone gives believers reason for optimism, space travelers included.

Astronaut Edward Lu is encouraged by the examination of "overall goals of the space program. I think you need that organizing, big-picture view of where the program itself is heading."

If Lu was in charge, "I would put us on a course toward going back to the moon, eventually going to Mars, going out to asteroids."

He would treat the international space station, his home for six months this past year, as a testbed for learning the things needed to accomplish those lofty objectives.

His replacement aboard the space station, Michael Foale, another astrophysicist-astronaut, says the challenge is not building a Mars ship. "Unfortunately, making your dreams and your wishes political reality is much, much more tricky," says Foale, who's living on the space station until spring.

After watching a full moon and the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" from orbit, Foale says he's fired up about the possibility of a lunar base. He's also energized by NASA's Project Prometheus, a research effort into nuclear-powered rockets and generators that could dramatically speed up space travel.

"The space station is a good place to start from, but it certainly needs to be the stepping stone to somewhere else," Foale said wistfully last week.

Bush administration officials are sidestepping questions about whether the president will announce a grand, new space plan anytime soon. An interagency task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney has been considering options since summer.