National

Officials: Bush to Call for Moon, Mars Missions

By Don Gonyea

Published January 8, 2004 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 21 years ago.

President Bush is expected to announce next week a major recommitment to the U.S. space program. Senior officials say Bush will call for establishing a permanent human settlement on the moon and an eventual manned flight to Mars. Critics say the plan, which could cost at least $1 trillion, is unadvisable at a time of record deficits. Hear NPR's Don Gonyea.

National

Don Gonyea

You're most likely to find NPR's Don Gonyea on the road, in some battleground state looking for voters to sit with him at the local lunch spot, the VFW or union hall, at a campaign rally, or at their kitchen tables to tell him what's on their minds. Through countless such conversations over the course of the year, he gets a ground-level view of American elections. Gonyea is NPR's National Political Correspondent, a position he has held since 2010. His reports can be heard on all NPR News programs and at NPR.org. To hear his sound-rich stories is akin to riding in the passenger seat of his rental car, traveling through Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan or wherever, right along with him.