SOUTH PORTLAND (AP) -Mainers don’t seem to be very interested in President Bush’s plan to sent astronauts to the moon and eventually Mars.

“We’ve been there, done that,” said Janice McGreevy, 64, of Millinocket, while eating in the food court of the Maine Mall.

“Now let’s tend our problems at home.”

Those interviewed at the Maine Mall said the country has more pressing problems at home to concentrate on.

Some people had only vaguely heard about the president’s plan. Others expressed ambivalence.

And some argued that with the continuing occupation of Iraq, a sluggish economy and record budget deficits, the nation faces more pressing challenges than space exploration.

Bush said Wednesday he wants to revive NASA’s moon program, and work on sending astronauts to Mars.

Two weeks ago NASA’s Spirit rover probe landed on the red planet, which has revitalized interest in the space program.

But not in Maine. Norm Therrien, 74, of Old Orchard Beach said the country can’t afford the program right now.

“The economy right here has to be better than it is,” he said. “This thing’s going to cost billions of dollars.”

NASA estimates the cost of returning to the moon and making progress toward a Mars mission, plus a few other smaller programs, would reach $170 billion by 2020. The president wants to revisit the moon as early as 2015 but has not established a timeframe for reaching Mars.

Bush’s initiative has drawn comparisons to President Kennedy’s 1961 call to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Back then, public opinion was divided, and a poll by The Associated Press found a similar split.

Maine residents said there’s a major difference between now and the early 1960s. Due to deadly accidents and the routine nature of space travel, exploring the cosmos has lost some of its allure, especially among young people.

Tommy Nguyen, 17, of Portland, said astronauts might need to discover life elsewhere in the universe to galvanize the American public around space travel again.

He was blase about returning to the moon. “We’ve been on the moon,” he said. “That would be like 30 years ago.”

But Steve Innes, who works as a projectionist at the University of Southern Maine’s Southworth Planetarium, said a trip to the moon and Mars would give people something to look forward to and make life interesting.

“Hunger and poverty deserve a lot,” he said. “But I also feel that going to the moon and Mars . . . gives people something to look forward to, something to make life interesting.”

AP-ES-01-17-04 1056EST