The men on Mars may soon replace the man on the moon. According to a speech made by President Bush regarding the recent Mars explorations, NASA will be sending manned shuttles into deep space.

The men on Mars may soon replace the man on the moon.

According to a speech made by President Bush regarding the recent Mars explorations, NASA will be sending manned shuttles into deep space.

"We do not know where this journey will end," said Bush, "Yet we know this: Human beings are headed into the cosmos."

On Jan. 3, the Mars rover Spirit touched down on an area of the planet called the Gusev Crater. The rover's mission is to explore the crater, and its rock layers, which scientists believe were once engulfed in water. The rover might have to enter smaller craters to look for these layers of rock. A grinder would show cameras and other instruments whether Mars' water came from hot springs, a salty sea or some other source. A sister rover, the Opportunity, touched down on the other side of the planet in small crater on the Meridiani Planum near the planet's equator.

In one of the largest breakthroughs NASA has seen, the rover Opportunity, which touched down on Jan. 24., has sent back information confirming that the area of the planet it is studying was once a salty sea.

Dr. James Garvin, lead scientist for Mars and lunar exploration at NASA Headquarters, Washington, said, there has been speculation that water was present for many years.

"Many features on the surface of Mars that orbiting spacecraft have revealed to us in the past three decades look like signs of liquid water, but we have never before had this definitive class of evidence from the martian rocks themselves," said Garvin. "We planned the Mars Exploration Rover Project to look for evidence like this, and it is succeeding better than we had any right to hope."

Eventually, according to Garvin, someone is going to have to be sent to retrieve these rocks.

"This confirmation of standing water in Mars' history builds on a progression of discoveries leading us to believe that Mars is the most Earthlike of alien planets," said Garvin. "This result gives us a reason to expand our ambitious program of exploring Mars to learn whether microbes have ever lived there and, ultimately, whether we can."

Part of the new plan Bush had outlined for NASA includes sending Americans to the moon by 2020 and using the mission as a stepping stone for future manned trips to Mars and beyond.

According to his speech, reprinted by CNN, Bush wants to shift the long-term focus from the space shuttle and the international space station to the creation of a new manned space vehicle that will be flying with a crew in 10 years and will return humans to the moon within 16 years.

The new vehicle will be capable of traveling to the space station. It has not been determined whether the craft will be reusable, like the space shuttle, or a spacecraft like those on the Apollo missions, which were used just once. The new vehicle will be developed and tested by 2008 and will conduct its first manned mission no later than 2014. Lunar missions will begin between 2015 and 2020.

Also, NASA will begin sending a series of robotic missions to the moon beginning in 2008 to conduct research and prepare for future missions, and research will be conducted on the space station on the long-term effects of extended space travel on human physiology.

Kevin Kregel, retired astronaut from Amityville, NY, is unsure if he would be willing to take part in such a long mission.

"I've done multiple orbits around the earth, with some of my missions lasting over six weeks," said Kregel. "But it takes six months to get to Mars."

The president did not announce a date for a Mars mission, but administration sources said the earliest date for a journey to the red planet would be 2030.

In addition, manned space travel is expensive and the plan calls for spending $12 billion over the next five years on the effort.

Bush said the idea behind returning to the moon will be to develop the capability to use it as a launch pad for deeper space exploration, as well as tapping resources on the lunar surface that could be used in those missions.

"Establishing an extended human presence on the moon could vastly reduce the cost of further space exploration, making possible ever more ambitious missions," he said.