Introduction: Back to The Moon and on to Mars

On July 20, 1989, President George Bush proposed that the United States undertake as the long range objective of its civil space program an initiative that would lead to the establishment of a permanent base on the moon and a human expedition to Mars. His speech, delivered from the steps of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., on the 20th anniversary of the first landing on the moon, gave official blessing to what had long been the unapproved purpose of the American civilian space.