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WRITTEN HISTORY FOR CAS NEWS AND USED WITH AUTHORIZATION
The three US astronauts aboard the International Space Station said Monday that they were ready to sign up for a trip to the moon if NASA could achieve the recently announced goal by the US. Trump administration to bring Americans back to the lunar surface here five years.
Meeting with NASA officials and aerospace officials at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center last Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence, chairman of the National Council of Space Revitalized, said stated that failure was not an option.
"On the order of the President of the United States, the US government and United States have a policy of returning American astronauts to the moon in the next five years," said Mr. Pence. "The first woman and the next man on the moon will be American astronauts, launched by US rockets from American soil."
The three NASA astronauts currently onboard the International Space Station – Nick Hague, Christina Koch and Anne McClain – were born long after Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin entered the lunar surface. is 50 years old in July. But they will be at the peak of their careers when NASA picks the next set of astronauts for the moon.
Of course, the agency can meet the ambitious timetable of the Trump administration.
"It was a really exciting announcement for our country and for the space program as a whole," McClain told CBS News in an interview Monday in orbit.
"We are all very excited about this," she said. "I think everyone has an idea of the work that will have to be done. It's the beginning of a long journey. … Certainly, we will all play the role that is asked of us. It will be great to see boots on the ground on the moon.
One can wonder if NASA can achieve such a feat in just five years without a significant increase in its budget. But Hague said simply setting such an ambitious goal was a good thing for NASA and the country.
"I think it's an exciting time to be involved in space," he said. "I think it's a source of inspiration, and that we hope more people will be involved in the space, that more people will want to see the benefits we bring to the space station every day." as well as those that will be generated by the attempt to achieve this goal.
"In terms of inspiring everyone, I think it's a big goal to fix."
When asked if the five-year goal could put NASA under tremendous pressure on the schedule, the kind of pressure that could cause the agency to cut costs at the expense of flight safety, Mr. Hague said. confident that the agency would execute the program safely.
"Space is a very dynamic and stimulating environment, and we are constantly meeting these challenges and finding ways to overcome them and keep doing the work," he said. "So setting those goals and finding ways to reach them is what we do every day at NASA."
The Trump administration had already established a return to the Moon at the center of NASA's deep space exploration program in Space Policy Directive No. 1, signed by the president in December 2017.
The agency was already planning to launch a mini space station called Gateway in a near-moon orbit by the mid-2020s, with the long-term goal of landing astronauts by 2028.
But even this remains a major challenge given NASA's current budget and the problems under development of the National Launch System (SLS), the mega-rocket needed to boost the Orion crew capsules, the modules of home and, eventually, the lunar landing gear.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine recently sent a shock wave to the space community claiming that NASA would consider launching a first Orion test flight around the moon using a commercially developed rocket if the SLS does not could not meet his schedule.
In his speech last week, Pence doubled, saying the SLS program was plagued by bureaucratic inertia and "paralysis of analysis."
"After years of cost overruns and staggered delays, we are actually told that the sooner we can return to the Moon is 2028," he said. "It would be 18 years after the launch of the SLS program and 11 years after the president had ordered NASA to send American astronauts back to the moon. Ladies and gentlemen, that just is not enough. We are better than that. "
Although NASA believes that the SLS is essential to its lunar projects, Mr. Pence said, "We are not committed to any subcontractor. If our current contracts can not achieve this goal, we will find one that will. If the US industry can provide essential business services without government development, we will buy them.
"And if commercial rockets are the only way to attract American astronauts to the moon in the next five years, it will be commercial rockets. The urgency must be our word of order. The failure of our goal to send an American astronaut back to the moon over the next five years is not an option. "
In a letter to employees of the agency last week, Bridenstine said that a two-week study had convinced him that the SLS was essential for sending astronauts and equipment on the Moon. But he accepted the Vice President's challenge and assured him that the agency was able to launch the first SLS / Orion test next year, as originally planned.
"We are now looking at creative approaches to advance the manufacturing and testing of SLS to ensure the launch of Exploration Mission-1 in 2020," he said. "We will work to ensure that we have a safe and reliable launch system that keeps its promises to the American people."
McClain, for his part, thinks that NASA is ready to send astronauts back to the moon in the near future.
"Every day, NASA has the opportunity to make the extraordinary look ordinary," she said. "And I do not doubt that the teams on the ground can achieve this goal. We do our best when ambitious and bold goals are given to us and we are able to work together to achieve them. So yes, I think we can do it. "
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