The Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) 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. The policy outlined by the "Vision for Space Exploration" was replaced first by President Barack Obama's space policy in April 2010, then by President Donald Trump's "National Space Strategy" space policy in March 2018, and finally by President Joe Biden's preliminary space policy proposals in spring 2021.
Outline 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 extreme vacuum of the lunar surface, and the Moon's remoteness is the ultimate isolation for biologically hazardous experiments. The Moon would also become a proving ground 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 priority space program, 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 Earth, 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 was announced in January 2004, the U.S. Congress and the scientific community gave it a mix of positive and negative reviews. For example, U.S. representative Dave Weldon (Republican–Florida) said, "I think this is the best thing that has happened to the space program in decades." Though physicist and outspoken crewed spaceflight opponent Robert L. Park stated that robotic spacecraft "are doing so well it's going to be hard to justify sending a human," the vision announced by the president states that "robotic missions will serve as trailblazers—the advanced guard to the unknown." Others, such as the Mars Society, have argued that it makes more sense to avoid going back to the Moon and instead focus on going to Mars first. Throughout much of 2004, it was unclear whether the U.S. Congress would be willing to approve and fund the Vision for Space Exploration. However, in November 2004, Congress passed a spending bill which gave NASA the $16.2 billion that President Bush had sought to kick-start the vision. According to then-NASA chief Sean O'Keefe, that spending bill "was as strong an endorsement of the space exploration vision, as any of us could have imagined." In 2005, Congress passed S.1281, the NASA Authorization Act of 2005, which explicitly endorsed the vision. Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin is a supporter of the vision, but modified it somewhat, saying that he wants to reduce the four-year gap between the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the first crewed mission of the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
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