His proposal calls for a US return to the moon as early as 2015, saying a lunar base would be a launch pad for manned missions to Mars and "across our solar system."

Following are some key facts about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration:

-- The United States created NASA in October 1958, in a bid to outrun the Soviets in the space race.

-- While the Soviets put the first man in space, NASA won the race to the moon with its Apollo missions. Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20,

-- NASA is the world's richest space agency, with a budget of more than 15 billion dollars. It employs 19,000 people, plus another 40,000 employed as contractors. By contrast, the European Space Agency's budget for 2001 was 2.85 billion euros.

-- In addition to its Washington headquarters, NASA has 10 centers scattered across the country. The best known are the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, which launches the space shuttle, and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, which houses mission control for shuttle flights.

-- In 1981, NASA's Columbia became the first US space shuttle to orbit the Earth. Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on February 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board. That was the second US shuttle disaster; the shuttle Challenger exploded on takeoff on January 28, 1986, also killing seven people.

-- When the Pathfinder spacecraft landed on Mars in 1997, its Sojourner robot became the first vehicle to run on another planet. NASA has repeated that success with its Spirit mission, which has landed another robot on Mars, with the twin probe Opportunity on its way.

-- NASA's Voyager 1 space probe is believed to have reached the edge of the solar system, making it the most distant object made by humans.

-- In addition to the space shuttles and the International Space Station, NASA operates a fleet of telescopes in orbit around the Earth. The most famous, the Hubble Space Telescope, has produced remarkable images from the farthest reaches of the universe, offering glimpses of how the universe was formed billions of years ago.

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