Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- NASA plans to replace the space shuttle with a reusable spacecraft shaped like the Apollo capsule that first took U.S. astronauts to the moon in 1969, the U.S. space agency said today.

The Crew Exploration Vehicle will be three times as big as the Apollo capsule and can be used as many as 10 times, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said in a statement.

The spacecraft will be able to take as many as four astronauts to the moon and as many as six people on missions to Mars, NASA said. It will also be able to deliver supplies and crews to the International Space Station.

``Think of it as Apollo on steroids,'' NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said during a news conference from the agency's headquarters in Washington broadcast live on NASA Television.

The ship will help NASA comply with President George W. Bush's space strategy, which calls for manned trips to the moon and Mars as stepping stones to further exploration of the solar system. The plan also called for retiring the shuttle in 2010 after it is used to finish building the International Space Station.

Griffin said today that the moon exploration program alone will cost about $104 billion over its first 13 years. Bush said in January 2004 that his strategy would cost $12 billion through 2009, including $1 billion in new money and $11 billion in reallocated funding.

Investment

``The space program is a long-term investment in our future, and we must deal with our short-term problems while not sacrificing long-term investments,'' Griffin said, defending the increased costs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. ``When a hurricane hits, we don't cancel the Air Force, we don't cancel the Navy, we're not going to cancel NASA.''

Griffin declined to provide details on the cost of the Crew Exploration Vehicles alone, or say how many NASA wanted to build.

U.S. Representative Sherwood Boehlert, a Republican who heads the House Science Committee that oversees NASA, said it will be difficult to increase NASA's $16 billion budget given funding shortfalls in the space shuttle program.

``There is simply no credible way to accelerate the development of a Crew Exploration Vehicle unless the NASA budget increases more than has been anticipated,'' Boehlert said in a statement. ``Whether such an increase is a good idea in the context of overall federal spending at this time is something neither Congress nor the Administration has yet determined.''

Space Station

The craft can begin taking astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station in five years. Those missions may not be necessary if companies can come up with another way to deliver crews and stores to the outpost before that, Griffin said.

Two rockets -- one carrying a lunar landing module and another to boost the ship out of Earth orbit -- would be launched first, with the crew taking off separately atop a third rocket and then docking in orbit with the remaining components before departing for the moon, NASA said.

The capsule and the lunar lander will use liquid methane in their engines. NASA wants to use resources on the moon and Mars to power future missions, and scientists theorize that astronauts will be able to convert atmospheric resources on Mars into methane fuel, along with oxygen and hydrogen extracted from the moon.

The ship should be able to carry out as many as two lunar missions a year starting in 2018. Those trips will be preceded by robotic trips to the moon starting in 2008 to search for landing sites and search for resources.

Safety

The Crew Exploration Vehicle will be 10 times as safe as the space shuttle because it will give the astronauts aboard the ability to escape a failed launch and because it sits on top of its takeoff vehicle, Griffin said.

Returning to earth, it would descend by parachute to either dry land or an ocean splashdown, as did the Apollo capsules and its predecessors in the U.S. manned space program. The winged shuttle glides to a landing like an airplane after re-entering the atmosphere.

``We believe this venture safer and more affordable than any other spaceflight ventures that the United States has had,'' Griffin said.

Lockheed Martin Corp. and a team from Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. earlier this year both won contracts valued at about $28 million each to design the vehicle.

NASA's decision to use shuttle-derived rockets to launch the new vehicle is good news for Edina, Minnesota-based Alliant Techsystems Inc., which makes the rockets for the current shuttle fleet, said Peter Arment, an analyst with JSA Research in Newport, Rhode Island.

``NASA could have developed all new rockets,'' said Arment, who rates Alliant's shares a ``buy'' and doesn't own any. ``At the end of the day, practicality and reliability won out. This puts the company in a very secure position.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 19, 2005 16:05 EDT