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Transhumanists, like legislators, greeted Bush space bid cautiously. Although nearly all of them support space exploration, few trust the words of this "duplicitous, scheming, cynical, election year President" (the description is Mike Treder's). Here are some reasons for skepticism:

the project has an estimated cost of one trillion dollars

the US is already under a half trillion-dollar deficit

Bush senior made a similar proposal back in 1989 --which never materialized

the announcement serves Bush junior to divert attention both from the disastrous occupation of Iraq and from the recently published Nature paper that predicts the extinction of between 15 percent and 37 percent of the species by 2050 (regarding this alarming finding, see the excellent MediaLens alert by David Edwards and David Cromwell).

Less known, but more significant, is the fact that in September 2003, just a few months ago, Rep. Nick Lampson introduced the Space Exploration Act. The bill sets to carry out the following goals:

Within 8 years develop and demonstrate a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying people, from low Earth orbit, to the L1 and L2 Earth-Sun libration points and back, to the Earth-Moon libration points and back, and to Lunar orbit and back.

Within 10 years develop and demonstrate a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying people from low Earth orbit to and from an Earth-orbit crossing asteroid and rendezvousing with it.

Within 15 years develop and demonstrate a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying people from Lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back, as well as the deployment of a human-tended habitation and research facility on the Lunar surface.

Within 20 years develop and demonstrate a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying humans to and from Martian orbit, deploy a human tended habitation and research facility on the surface of a Martian moon, and develop and demonstrate a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying humans from Martian orbit to the surface of Mars and back.

Interestingly enough, the bill has 30 cosponsors --none of whom are Republican. Moreover, the bill establishes a "$450 billion price tag to be an upper bound" for its expected cost.

A curious feature of the bill is the fact that it counts as its signatories Dennis Kucinich. Arguably the most progressive of the presidential candidates --and certainly far more progressive than Howard Dean-- Kucinich has been a consistent opponent of the Iraq war, which has already cost the American taxpayer 95 billion dollars (that is, between a fifth and a tenth of the expected cost of the space programs). Kucinich and Bush's views about space, in fact, couldn't be farther from each other: one advocates, and has passed legislation for, the complete abolition of the so-called "star wars" missile defense that the other actively, and alarmingly, promotes.