President Bush last week proposed lofty new goals for the US space program. Some of the goals were claiming the Moon as a launching site for future space missions and a manned mission to Mars for which no reason was given.

Bush also announced a moon-based oil storage facility and also indicated that much of the new space program would be privatized.

"By the year 2015," Bush announced at a pre-fundraising dinner speech, "construction will begin on 'Earth Moon Pipeline, Phase I' which will be a modern marvel to be rivaled only by the massiveness of the proposed 'Mall of the Moon' which will be unlike any shopping experience we have here on Earth."

Bush immediately addressed critics' concerns about funding by also announcing that Halliburton subsidiary KBR (Kellogg Brown & Root) has been awarded the critical Moon infrastructure contract.

Bush automatically defended his decision by saying, "By handing over many of the more expensive tasks to the private sector we can actually reduce Federal space program spending and create jobs in the process."

Bush went on to suggest that his administration may introduce a voucher system by which companies who would like to set up shop on the moon can get federal funds to use vendors from the private sector to help them reach their goals instead of waiting for an "ineffective and crumbling NASA system" to help take their business extra-terrestrial.