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CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saying "the desire to explore and understand is part of our character," President Bush Wednesday unveiled an ambitious plan to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and use the mission as a steppingstone for future manned trips to Mars and beyond.
"We do not know where this journey will end, yet we know this -- human beings are headed into the cosmos," Bush said. "Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives and lifts our national spirit."
The president unveiled what he billed as a "new course" for the nation's space program in a speech at NASA headquarters, shifting 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.
Bush proposed spending $12 billion over the next five years on the effort. About $1 billion of that will come from an increase in NASA's budget, while the other $11 billion would come from shifting funds from existing programs within NASA's current $86 billion budget. The overall NASA budget would stay at about 1 percent of the federal budget, according to White House figures.
But some in Congress questioned whether the funding would be enough to achieve the president's ambitious goals. And the project drew criticism from groups who say the money would be better spent on domestic programs.
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