Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech yesterday in which he draft NASA ’s new goal . The agency will no longer focus on break down to Mars – it is now design a return to the Moon first .
The announcement is the modish about - turn for the agency , which must be somewhat sick of being given a new goal every 4 geezerhood . Under Bush , it was the Moon . Under Obama , Mars . Now we ’re back to the Moon again . come up on citizenry .
Absent from Pence ’s speech – make at the National Space Council ’s launchcontroversially re - startedby Trump – were any actual specifics . There was no timeline , no showing of unexampled hardware , no studies . rather , we got a bunch of wishy - washy statements that might placate the public , but in reality , mean absolutely nothing .
“ We will devolve American spaceman to the Moon , not only to leave behind footprints and flags , but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond , ” Pencesaidat the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Virginia , tantamount to me telling you I ’m developing my own atomic fusion nuclear reactor .
“ We won the wash to the Moon a half a hundred ago , and now we will win the twenty-first C in space . ”
Goddammit .
As mentioned , we have no idea when this would actually materialize . It would be the first return to the Moon since Apollo 17 leave in 1972 . What the programme actually is though , who knows .
For the last decade , NASA has been working on a huge Modern rocket call the Space Launch System ( SLS ) , and a unexampled spacecraft call Orion . The latter has completed one remote-controlled launch , while the former will not vanish for the first timeuntil 2019 .
These were develop as part of Obama ’s broader finish to get astronauts to Mars , a worthy melodic theme if one that was not in full supported . This so - called Journey to Mars , championed by former NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden , would have seen astronauts orb the Red Planet in the 2030s and , at some point , land .
contribute up on Mars would be " fatal , " Bolden told IFLScience inan interview2 eld ago . Sorry Charlie .
There were quite a lot of things missing from that Journey to Mars plan , though . NASA had n’t yet begin development on the whole spacecraft that will really go to Mars , nor any variety of habitat for the futurity . It has been gathering theme for build up aMars frontier settlement , though .
Maybe that was for the unspoiled because the goalposts have switch yet again . Truth be narrate , it probably does n’t change too much for now . The SLS and Orion will still be used for deputation to the Moon , so their growing will still continue . NASA is also bet into building a lunar space station , perchance withhelp from Russia .
But this commitment to put “ boots on the Moon ” is unexampled . It mean the Trump government is telling NASA to actively concenter on develop arrangement to down on the Moon . That ’s not cheap , and it will surely delay any attempts to go to Mars .
In an op - ed for theWall Street Journal , Pence spouted the normally misheld view that the US is not leading in space , and “ must dissemble ” to its former gloriole . To say that is false is an understatement . NASA leads in space , no doubt .
“ America will result in space again , ” said Pence , perhaps forget that no country can match NASA for planetary science . It leads on the International Space Station ( ISS ) , has no rival for astronomy , and will startlaunching humansagain next yr ( thanks to Obama , mind ) , to name but a few things .
Anyway , the Southern Cross of it all is that NASA ’s new goal is to go back to the Moon . Until Trump is no longer President , then it ’ll probably go somewhere else . Then somewhere else . Until Elon Muskcolonizes Marsor something .
Oh to be a NASA employee .
