"As a company, we are very excited about the announcement," Boeing Space Division spokesman Ed Memi said of Bush's speech at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) headquarters in Washington.

"Obviously, we are excited to hear the White House issuing this policy, which is likely to strengthen the space market," said Kimberly Campbell, marketing director at Spacehab, which furnishes resupply modules for the orbiting International Space Station (ISS).

"This is good news for the entire industry" said Evan McCollum, communications director for Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

In the absence of details, particularly dollar signs, the big dream for the moment of potential major space players was the importance of positioning themselves in the lineup for the new race to the heavens.

As he outlined it at NASA, Bush's big picture involves a new round of manned lunar missions, eventually manned flight to Mars, possible colonization of the red planet, and perhaps replacing the current space shuttle program.

"We know space very well," said Randy Bellote, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman. "We are ready to participate."

"Our goal will be to be involved on that one," said Spacehab's Campbell.

However, in a period of record US budget deficits, and for a project that will need congressional approval in a general election year, Bush will have little maneuvering room for his new space vision.

With NASA's annual budget at 15 billion dollars, and with yearly hikes limited to five percent, or 800 million dollars, over each of the ensuing five years, the space agency's financial windfalls to its subcontractors would be tight.

But for Boeing, a major player in the aerospace program for 40 years which had major stakes in the Apollo program of the 1960s and in the ISS, the nation's future in space is real enough.

"We will be well situated" to participate in the new space program, said a confident Ed Memi. "We feel that what we're doing, like the orbital space plane (OSP), will be compatible with President Bush's new vision."

The OSP is envisaged as a successor to the space shuttle program and could serve as a space platform for lunar missions.

"We are here to help achieve the nation's goals, whatever they may be," said Lockheed Martin's McCollum. "We stand ready to help NASA and the president to achieve their objectives."

Northrup Grumman, whose defense contracts are its lifeline, has high hopes of getting a piece of the pie.

"We are rich in a long legacy of supporting manned space projects," said Belote. "We helped with the space shuttle, our system is currently on the Mars Rover, on the Cassini platform towards Jupiter."

For Spacehab, a specialist in building space exploration hardware, exclusion from Bush's new space program is not an option.

"We do plan to pursue any opportunity aggressively, as soon as the vision is clearer," said marketing director Campbell. "We've been focusing on the ISS but our capacities can easily be converted and we can support NASA's designs."

SPACE.WIRE