NEW YORK /MEDIA:LUNA/ (10 January) -- President Bush's plan to establish a manned science base on the Moon and to send humans to Mars is likely to fail before ever getting off the ground, according to a leading space advocacy group.
"Because of the huge budget deficit the United States has accumulated over the last three years, the United States doesn't have the billions of dollars necessary to develop such a program from scratch," said David Ferrell Jackson, the managing director of the Lunar Republic Society. "Unless Americans want to see their schools closed and their police officers and firemen laid off, this program is doomed from the start." According to the Associated Press, the president's space policy speech will include long-range plans for a manned scientific habitat on the moon and a human journey to Mars. Details of the plan will reportedly be disclosed this week in Aviation Week and Space Technology, a trade publication. Critics of the Bush plan suggest the president's announcement is merely a political move timed to take advantage of excitement over recent pictures taken by the Mars rover Spirit. "The American people are excited about the success of Spirit, and rightfully so," Jackson said. "While we're pleased to hear that the president is interested in the space program, the Lunar Republic Society expects his dedication to fade as soon as pictures of Mars are gone from the front page of the daily newspaper." "We're also looking at a president who may not be in office in another year or, at the most, another five years," Jackson said. "It remains to be seen whether the next administration will share this president's enthusiasm for a return to the Moon." "The public must always remember that the launch vehicles and other equipment that are the key ingredients in a taxpayer-sponsored space program are built, by necessity, by the lowest bidder," Jackson said. "You don't have that same concern in a commercial venture." Jackson says a program based around privatized funding through the sale of lunar land claims is the only plan that makes sense, and that forward-looking entrepreneurs -- such as Richard Branson of the Virgin Group and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com -- will be the most likely torch-bearers. "A privatized program is both democratic and international, it generates economic growth in both America and abroad, and it is immune from political gamesmanship," Jackson said. SOURCES: Lycos Finance, Silicon Valley Business Ink, Finance Canada, Defense Daily
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The Lunar Republic Society, which
offers lunar land claims for sale over the Internet to raise funds
for space exploration, hopes to help finance permanent communities
on the moon by 2015. The organization has sold 400,000 acres of
such claims since its inception in 1999 and has reportedly
received overtures from India and Russia, which both seek
financial assistance for future space missions. (See 
