[00:11.21]Fly to the Moon—NASA’s 2018 Project
[00:17.67]It will cost $104 billion over the next decade
[00:24.01]to send astronauts back to the moon,
[00:26.52]NASA’s chief said,
[00:28.17]defending the price tag as an investment the nation
[00:31.65]can afford despite the expense of Hurricane Katrina.
[00:35.26]The new moon exploration plan unveiled
[00:39.08]by the space agency will use beefed-up shuttle and Apollo parts
[00:43.75]and aims to put people on the moon by 2018.
[00:47.57]“There will be a lot more hurricanes
[00:50.44]and a lot more other natural disasters
[00:53.15]to befall the United States and the world in that time,
[00:56.13]I hope none worse than Katrina,”
[00:58.96]NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said at a news conference.
[01:02.67]“But the space program is a long-term investment in our future.
[01:07.06]We must deal with our short-term problems
[01:10.23]while not sacrificing our long-term investments in our future.
[01:14.27]When we have a hurricane,
[01:16.14]we don’t cancel the Air Force.
[01:18.32]We don’t cancel the Navy.
[01:19.96]And we’re not going to cancel NASA.”
[01:22.68]The $104 billion price tag,
[01:25.98]leading up to an initial four-person lunar landing
[01:29.58]and spread over 13 years,
[01:31.78]represents 55 percent of what the Apollo program
[01:36.04]would cost in today’s dollars, Griffin said.
[01:38.65]Apollo development spanned eight years,
[01:41.62]from 1961 to the first manned moon landing in 1969.
[01:47.09]The new space vehicle design uses shuttle rocket parts,
[01:51.90]an Apollo-style capsule and a lander
[01:54.62]capable of carrying four people to the moon.
[01:57.38]The rockets—there would be two,
[02:00.09]a small version for people and a heftier one for cargo—
[02:04.03]would eclipse the 18-story space shuttle.
[02:07.66]The larger one, in fact,
[02:09.08]would come close to the 36-story Saturn 5 moon rocket.
[02:13.46]They would be built from shuttle booster rockets,
[02:16.72]fuel tanks and main engines,
[02:19.45]as well as moon rocket engines.
[02:20.99]The so-called crew exploration vehicle perched on top
[02:25.25]would look very much like an Apollo capsule, albeit larger.
[02:29.65]The crew exploration vehicle would replace the space shuttle,
[02:34.13]due to be retired in 2010,
[02:36.74]but not before 2012 and possibly as late as 2014
[02:42.65]depending on the money available, Griffin said.
[02:45.92]It could carry as many as six astronauts back and forth to the international space station.
[02:51.94]If all goes well,
[02:53.70]the first crew would set off for the moon by 2018—or 2020 at the latest,
[03:00.90]the year targeted by President Bush who proposed such an initiative.
[03:05.60]The same type of vessel could be used,
[03:08.90]one day, to transport astronauts to Mars.
[03:11.73]The new exploration plan would allow four astronauts to stay on the moon for a week—
[03:17.86]twice as long as Apollo missions.
[03:20.39]It also would haul considerably more cargo,
[03:23.34]much of which would be left on the moon for future crews.
[03:26.61]In time, lunar stays of up to six months would be possible.
