An AP article this morning suggests that the President will ask for far less for NASA than earlier reports indicated: $1 billion over five years, as opposed to 5% budget increases per year over five years, which give a total increase of a little over $12 billion over that time. See this Spacetoday.net summary for some additional details and links.
One interesting facet of this development is that both AP and Reuters report that the plan would include landing a robotic mission on the Moon by late this decade. It’s made to sound like a new development, but in fact NASA had previously been considering a sample return mission to the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin for some time as part of its New Frontiers program of medium-cost planetary missions. This SPACE.com article from August 2002 notes that such a mission ranked highly among planetary scientists, somewhat to NASA’s dismay. Nonetheless, it was included as one of four “strawman” missions in the Announcement of Opportunity for the New Frontiers program issued in October 2003.
And then there is the additional $1 billion for each year over the next five years from CNN. I guess we should all wait and see what the President’s proposed budget says when it comes out next month.
I also noticed the AP and Reuters assumption that putting uncrewed craft on the moon will be a new endeavor. What do they think NASA was doing before 1969?
I think the emphasis on unmanned missions to the Moon will deal with specific preparations for the arrival of astronauts. The Ranger missions before Apollo were little more than reconaissance. These missions might be more along the lines of stockpiling equipment and using auotmated machines to prepare shelters and so forth.