<B>US </B>President George W. Bush has announced plans on to send humans back to the moon as early as 2015 and eventually to Mars ? an election-year initiative that critics derided as a costly extravagance that could renew a military space race.

?We will build new ships to carry man forward into the universe, to gain a new foothold on the moon and prepare for new journeys to the worlds beyond our own,? Bush said at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The announcement came less than a year after the breakup of the space shuttle Columbia, which killed all seven astronauts last February. Bush said the remaining space shuttles would be retired in 2010. The new initiative would be ?a journey, not a race,? said Bush, calling on other nations to join the US effort. It could also help extend US military supremacy in space at a time when China is planning lunar exploration missions.

?You always want the (strategic) high ground,? Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, chairman of the Senate commerce subcommittee on science, technology and space, told Reuters. Such thinking echoed a key aim of the 1960s US space race against the Soviet Union.

Alice Slater, head of the environmental advocacy group Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, warned the Bush initiative ?will create a new arms race to the heavens.?

US security officials have said military dominance in space was essential, especially after China?s first manned space flight last year. NASA?s 2003 strategic plan says its mission was widened to include the Pentagon?s space effort.

In Beijing, Xinhua news agency reported that China aims to launch 10 satellites this year while preparing for its second manned space flight and a lunar probe that would go where no Chinese spaceship has gone before.

The agency quoted Zhang Qingwei, head of the China Space Science and Technology Corp., as saying the Chinese orbiters would be shot into space atop nine rockets from its Jiuquan, Xichang and Taiyuan launch sites.

China has already announced plans to launch a lunar probe program this year, which includes a lunar satellite by 2007.

?That will be followed by the landing of an unmanned vehicle on the Moon by 2010 and collecting samples of lunar soil by 2020,? Xinhua said.

Moscow may also send a manned mission to Mars, Itar-Tass reported. ?Technically, the first flight to Mars may be made in 2014 It will take about 15 billion US dollars to do it. American specialists estimate their project at 150 billion US dollars,? the Russian news agency quoted Leonid Gorshkov, designer at the space rocket corporation Energia, as saying.

<B>Ambitious plans</B>

Bush?s announcement was the latest ambitious policy initiative designed to portray him as a leader who deserves re-election in November. He has sought to avoid the fate of his father, former President George Bush, who once famously remarked that he lacked vision and was defeated for re-election in 1992 by Bill Clinton.

The elder Bush proposed sending humans back to the moon and on to Mars in 1989, but that went nowhere. Analysts said Bush may not win the backing of Congress for his measure this year, but it could be a major issue in 2005 if he is re-elected, especially if Republicans gain congressional seats.

Bush proposed landing an unmanned spacecraft on the moon as early as 2008. Humans would return to the moon by 2020, after an absence since December 1972. The moon would serve as a stepping stone to an eventual manned mission to Mars. To pay for it, Bush proposed a five-year, $1 billion increase in NASA?s budget, which is now about $15 billion.

Another $11 billion over five years would be reallocated from elsewhere in NASA?s budget. NASA would retire the space shuttle after completion of the International Space Station, which Bush said would focus on studying the impact of space travel on humans.

The initiative would slake a human ?thirst for knowledge? and yield technological breakthroughs, he said. The moon also has ?abundant resources? that could be exploited for potential uses such as rocket fuel, added Bush, a former oilman.

Critics said the initiative could cost hundreds of billions of dollars at a time the federal budget deficit is expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone.

?I think it?s just a total fiscal absurdity. Bush has been spending money like we?ve got money to burn, and we don?t,? said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a politically powerful conservative group.

Democrats said the government should focus on bolstering domestic programs. ?We should not be going hundreds of millions of miles away on a costly new mission when we have limited resources,? said Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.

NASA Administrator Sean O?Keefe compared the impact on the average taxpayer to ?the cost of a monthly cable television payment.? Officials said that would be the equivalent of an annual cost of about $55 to $60 per taxpayer.

Bush named Pete Aldridge, a former Air Force secretary and chief Pentagon weapons buyer and current board member of defense contractor Lockheed Martin, to head a commission to advise the government on implementing the new space program.

Randall Mikkelsen