President George Bush is set to announce plans to send Americans to Mars and establish a permanent human presence on the moon, senior US administration officials said today.

UK scientists were forced to revise their plans to track down the missing Beagle 2 today – just as America celebrated the Nasa probe’s successful landing on Mars.

After landing in their capsule way off-course in an alarming end to their return from the international space station, the three-man Russian-American crew opened the hatch today and emerged in good health, officials at Russian Mission control said.

President Bush sent Congress a €2.07 trillion spending plan today that would accelerate tax cuts to bolster the weak economy, overhaul some of the US government’s biggest social programmes and shower billions of additional dollars on defence and homeland security.