I think it's likely to be a pork fest for campaign contributors like everything else Bush does. As to Halliburton drilling I though that would have been for ice and water on Mars.

There's a good chance any colonisation of Mars and the Moon would be privatised to corporations who get paid by the government, and so companies like Halliburton and (more likely) Bechtel would be in line to make money out of it.

They don't have to go to Mars to make money out of it. Bush can make a grand proposal and fund it for cronies to research it and make money that way just like missile defense for example.