NASA wants to return to moon

Even as astronaut Neil Armst-rong and his Apollo 11 crew members, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, gathered in Washington on Tuesday evening for a gala celebration of their July 20, 1969, landing on the lunar surface, NASA's proposed 2005 budget took a beating on Capitol Hill.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration would get $229 million less than it did in 2004 and $1.1 billion less than President George W Bush requested, if a spending bill approved by a US House of Representatives subcommittee becomes law.

The panel kept the requested $4.3 billion for the space shuttle program and $691 million for robotic Mars programs that Bush asked for. But it cut Bush's request for a human mission to Mars. It approved $372 million for the project, $538 million below Bush's request of $910 million.