page_title: Vision for Space Exploration
section_title: Outline
hierarchical_section_title: Vision for Space Exploration / Outline
context_page_description: The Vision for Space Exploration was a plan for space exploration announced on January 14, 2004 by President George W. Bush. It was conceived as a response to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the state of human spaceflight at NASA, and as a way to regain public enthusiasm for space exploration. It was replaced by the space policy of the Barack Obama administration in June 2010.
context_section_description: The Vision for Space Exploration sought to implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the Solar System and beyond; extend human presence across the Solar System, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations; develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration; and to promote international and commercial participation in exploration to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests.
  In pursuit of these goals, the Vision called for the space program to complete the International Space Station by 2010; retire the Space Shuttle by 2010; develop a new Crew Exploration Vehicle (later renamed Orion) by 2008, and conduct its first human spaceflight mission by 2014; explore the Moon with robotic spacecraft missions by 2008 and crewed missions by 2020, and use lunar exploration to develop and test new approaches and technologies useful for supporting sustained exploration of Mars and beyond; explore Mars and other destinations with robotic and crewed missions; pursue commercial transportation to support the International Space Station and missions beyond low Earth orbit.
  Outlining some of the advantages, U.S. President George W. Bush addressed the following:
  Establishing an extended human presence on the moon could vastly reduce the costs of further space exploration, making possible ever more ambitious missions. Lifting heavy spacecraft and fuel out of the Earth's gravity is expensive. Spacecraft assembled and provisioned on the moon could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy, and thus, far less cost. Also, the moon is home to abundant resources. Its soil contains raw materials that might be harvested and processed into rocket fuel or breathable air. We can use our time on the moon to develop and test new approaches and technologies and systems that will allow us to function in other, more challenging environments.
  One of the stated goals for the Constellation program is to gain significant experience in operating away from Earth's environment, as the White House contended, to embody a "sustainable course of long-term exploration." The Ares boosters are a cost-effective approach — entailing the Ares V's enormous, unprecedented cargo-carrying capacity — transporting future space exploration resources to the Moon's weaker gravity field. While simultaneously serving as a proving ground for a wide range of space operations and processes, the Moon may serve as a cost-effective construction, launching and fueling site for future space exploration missions. For example, future Ares V missions could cost-effectively deliver raw materials for future spacecraft and missions to a Moon-based space dock positioned as a counterweight to a Moon-based space elevator.
  NASA has also outlined plans for human missions to the far side of the Moon. All of the Apollo missions have landed on the near side. Unique products may be producible in the nearly limitless extreme vacuum of the lunar surface, and the Moon's remoteness is the ultimate isolation for biologically hazardous experiments. The Moon would become a proving ground also toward the development of In-Situ Resource Utilization, or "living off the land" (i.e., self-sufficiency) for permanent human outposts.
  In a position paper issued by the National Space Society (NSS), a return to the Moon should be considered a high space program priority, to begin development of the knowledge and identification of the industries unique to the Moon. The NSS believes that the Moon may be a repository of the history and possible future of our planet, and that the six Apollo landings only scratched the surface of that "treasure". According to NSS, the Moon's far side, permanently shielded from the noisy Earth, is an ideal site for future radio astronomy (for example, signals in the 1–10 MHz range cannot be detected on Earth because of ionosphere interference).
  When the Vision 
caption: Two planned configurations for a return to the Moon, heavy lift (left) and crew (right)
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