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VOICE ONE:

This is Science in the News, in VOA Special English. I'm SarahLong.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Bob Doughty. This week -- the news from Mars ... and areport on President Bush's plan for space exploration.

VOICE ONE:

Plus a warning from scientists who study life, and its future,here on Earth.

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Scientists are excited about theprogress of Spirit, the American exploration vehicle on Mars. Itlanded January third to look for environmental conditions that couldhave supported life. Engineers and scientists cheered as thespacecraft sent its first pictures.

Spirit landed on target in the Gusev Crater, an area fifteendegrees south of the Martin equator. Scientists chose the GusevCrater based on evidence that it may have been an ancient lake.

Hours after landing, the spacecraft began to send detailedpictures of the surrounding area.

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Spirit traveledfour-hundred-eighty-seven-million kilometers to reach Mars. Itstayed in place on its lander for more than a week. NASA officialswanted to make sure all the equipment worked before they told therover to drive onto the surface.

There was a delay. They had to turn the vehicle away from airbagsthat softened the landing but then blocked the desired path. LastThursday the controllers again cheered as they declared that all sixwheels of the rover were on Martian soil.

Special cameras and devices to identify minerals helped engineersand scientists decide which direction to send the rover first.Spirit has a robotic arm to collect rocks and soil to study them forevidence of water in the past.

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Spirit was launched from Florida last June. NASA launched asecond spacecraft in July, called Opportunity. Opportunity will landon Mars in a few days if all goes as planned,. The landing areachosen is called the Meridiani Planum. It is on the other side ofthe planet from where Spirit landed. NASA officials say the twoareas are very different.

Like Spirit, Opportunity weighs about one-hundred-eightykilograms. The two rovers are expected to travel no more than fortymeters each Martian day to search for evidence of water. A Martianday is about the same length as an Earth day. The exploration issupposed to continue for at least three months.

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On Earth, almost everywhere liquid water exists, so does life.Today Mars is cold and dry, with huge dust storms. Scientists saylife cannot exist. But evidence from past landings suggest the redplanet was once warmer. Experts say water could have flowed in lakesor even oceans.

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VOICE TWO:

President Bush has proposed tosend people to Mars. Before that, however, robotic spacecraft wouldgo to the moon to prepare for the return of humans.

People would return to the moon sometime betweentwo-thousand-fifteen and two-thousand-twenty. They would go on a newkind of spaceship to be developed, called the Crew ExplorationVehicle.

Crews would establish a moon base for scientific research. Later,that base could be used to launch explorers farther into space.

Mister Bush visited NASA headquarters in Washington last week toannounce the plan to explore what he called "worlds beyond our own."

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The first goal is to complete the International Space Station bytwo-thousand-ten. Fifteen other nations are also involved in theprogram. Mister Bush says the station is needed to study thelong-term effects of radiation and weightlessness on health. He saysthere is much to learn before human crews can travel through spacefor months at a time.

NASA will need its current space shuttles to complete thestation. But Mister Bush says the three shuttles will be retiredafter that. NASA has not launched a shuttle since the Columbia brokeapart on re-entry into the atmosphere last February first. Sevenastronauts were killed.

Mister Bush said the United States will invite other nations tojoin his plans in what he called a spirit of cooperation andfriendship. Last October, China sent its first person into orbitaround Earth in a test as the Chinese develop a space program.

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Mister Bush says he wants Congress to add one-thousand-milliondollars to the NASA budget over the next five years. In addition,NASA would move eleven-thousand-million dollars away from existingprograms. The current five-year budget plan for the agency iseighty-six-thousand-million dollars.

Mister Bush's father, when he was president, also proposedsetting up a moon base and sending people to Mars. The olderPresident Bush announced his plan in nineteen-eighty-nine. He did soto mark twenty years since the first moon landing. But that plancalled for a much bigger budget and did not succeed.

Critics call the new plan a political move in an election year.They say the money would be better spent at home. But President Bushsaid in his speech: "We chose to explore space because doing soimproves our lives and lifts our national spirit. So let us continuethe journey."

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In the early nineteen-sixties, President John F. Kennedy declaredthe goal to put a man on the moon. The space program began as a racewith the Soviet Union. The Soviets were the first to reach space.But the United States was the first -- and so far only -- country toland people on the moon. The last of six Apollo landings took placein December of nineteen-seventy-two.

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International researchers say climate warming caused by humanactivity could lead to the destruction of hundreds of kinds ofplants and animals in the next fifty years. Most scientists thinkclimate change, or global warming, results from the release ofcarbon dioxide and other gases. Industrial production and vehiclesrelease these gases. The gases trap heat in the atmosphere.

The nineteen scientists studied more thanone-thousand-one-hundred species of plants and animals in land areasaround the world. They published their study in the magazine Nature.

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The researchers gathered information from earlier studies. Theseincluded examinations of animals that live in deserts, wetlands,cool climates and other habitats in five areas of the world. Thescientists used several computer models on expected climate change.The models were divided into levels of possible severity, frommoderate to extreme climate change.

The researchers joined these models with maps of the differentkinds of environments in which the species lived. These mapsprovided information about what each species needed from itsenvironment and how climate change would affect those needs. Thenthey studied where those species might have to move in cases wheretheir needs could no longer be met.

The scientists found that between fifteen and thirty-sevenpercent of the species they studied will disappear in fifty years ifclimate change continues.

VOICE TWO:There are more than fourteen-million known species ofplants and animals on Earth. Study leader Chris D. Thomas says itwould be helpful to include more in the examination. But, he alsosaid there is no reason to think the findings would change greatlyif more species were included. Mister Thomas is a scientist at theUniversity of Leeds in Britain.

Townsend Peterson of the University of Kansas in the UnitedStates was another study team member. He says there are a number ofreasons people should be concerned about the threatened extinction.He says the information loss from destruction of a species is oneconcern.

For example, a threatened plant may contain a substance thatcould be used to make an important medicine. But, Mister Petersonsays humans should also care because each species is a part of thenatural history of the planet.

Other scientists criticized with the study. One scientist said itis too difficult to see into the future and predict results fiftyyears from now. Another scientist said the study did not recognizethe ability of species to change or adapt in order to live in highertemperatures.

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VOICE ONE:

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Caty Weaver, Avi Arditti andCynthia Kirk, who was also our producer. This is Sarah Long.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Bob Doughty. Join us again next week for more newsabout science in Special English on the Voice of America.