Space Pioneer Questions Bush Plan

Former Ohio Senator John Glenn, the grand old man of space exploration, pulls no punches when you ask him about President Bush's plan for a permanent colony on the moon and a manned mission to Mars by 2035.

It "pulls the rug out from under our scientists," he says.

Speaking before the presidential commission charged with charting a path back to the moon and to Mars at Wright-Patterson AFB in his home state of Ohio last week, Glenn said the president's initiative will wreak chaos for space projects already in the works. Much of his venom was directed at the president's plan to cut US participation in the International Space Station.

"We have projects that are planned or in the queue now, projects that people -- academics and laboratories and companies -- have spent millions of dollars to get ready," Glenn said. "That pulls the rug out from under our scientists who placed their faith in NASA, and our scientists within NASA who devoted years and years to their work."

Glenn says the Bush plan cuts out most research that has nothing to do with his Moon-Mars goals. Cutting out research on the once-ambitious space station project would only save about $2.5 million -- a mere pittance in NASA terms.

"I think we're voluntarily stopping some of the most unique, cutting-edge research in the history of the whole world. Now we're going to let other nations do it and they'll be able to benefit from it. I just don't think that's right. I think that's a mistake. For a few bucks, we could continue this research," he said.

But NASA seems undaunted by criticism of the first American to ever orbit the Earth. "We're going to do the research that's important for us to fulfill the president's vision," said NASA spokesman Glen Mahone.

Still, former Sen. Glenn says he doesn't see the sense in using the Moon as a stepping stone toward manned flights to Mars. "In effect you're making a Cape Canaveral out on the moon. It would be a smaller one, I'm sure, but it would be enormously complex," Glenn said. "It just seems to me the direct-to-Mars (route) is the way to go."

The octogenarian, who last flew in space aboard STS-95 in 1998, warned NASA might expend its entire Moon-Mars budget going to the moon alone. The space agency might "use up all our money on the moon and never get to Mars."

FMI: www.nasa.gov