Mike Pence wants NASA to put humans on the moon by 2024

At the fifth meeting of the National Space Council, Vice President Mike Pence said the Trump administration is determined to send humans back to the moon by 2024, four years earlier than the goal previous NASA, namely 2028.

Pence, speaking at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said the administration would achieve this goal "by all means necessary." He called on NASA to adopt new policies and argued that the space agency should adopt a "new" To do this, he indicated that the administration might consider abandoning some of NASA's current contractors, who are developing new vehicles to take humans into space, and instead use commercially developed rockets. "If commercial rockets are the only way to bring American astronauts to the moon in the next five years, they will be, said Pence. "The urgency must be our order."

However, Pence has proposed few clear recommendations and changes that would help accelerate NASA's return, aside from the risk of tipping between rockets and contractors. "It was a rhetoric about" by all means possible "and" we will provide the necessary resources "and" leadership is essential, "says John Logsdon, an expert on space policy at George Washington University. The edge. "I mean, these are all good words, but the devil is in the details."

Image: NASA

The administration has clearly expressed its desire to send humans back to the moon since the beginning of the Trump presidency. In December 2017, Trump signed his first space policy directive, asking NASA to send humans back to the moon. However, NASA has been relatively vague about its timetable for implementing this directive. Recently, the agency proposed 2028 as the booking date for the first humans to land on the moon, and the administration is now expressing dissatisfaction with this timeline. "Ladies and gentlemen, that's not enough," said Pence in his speech.

For the moment, the strategy of the space agency to return to the lunar surface is based on the construction of a space station orbiting the moon, called Gateway. Such a platform would serve as a passage station for astronauts to get to the surface of the moon and back. In addition, NASA has focused on developing a new monster rocket called Space Launch System (SLS), which would be used to launch a crew capsule called Orion in a deep space. Not only would the SLS send people to the bridge, but it would also be used to deliver cargo and help bring new modules to the lunar space station. And most recently, NASA has called on commercial companies to design landing gear models that can transport humans from the Gate to the Moon.

However, NASA does not plan to start building the bridge before 2022, nor to try the first human-level landing gear on the moon until the mid-2020s. In addition, the SLS suffered a series of delays and overtaking costs that threaten the current, non-accelerated schedule. The rocket was originally scheduled to be launched in 2017, resulting in the Orion capsule on a three-week trip around the moon. But the first flight of the rocket has since been postponed until June 2020. And recently, NASA officials have admitted that the date of 2020 is likely to go to 2021, a gesture that apparently irritated the members of the administration. This delay has prompted NASA to consider alternatives for the launch of Orion in 2020, including the use of commercially available rockets, such as the SpaceX Falcon Heavy or ULA's Delta IV Heavy instead of the SLS.

Image: NASA

However, facing the charge of meeting the 2024 deadline, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine told Pence that NASA at to have the SLS and "speed up his program". Rather than using commercial rockets, Bridenstine said the SLS would be ready for its current launch date. "I am confident that we will be able to make this first launch in 2020 for SLS and actually pilot the crew capsule around the moon," said Bridenstine, without however specifying what could have been changed to avoid the delay until In 2021. Boeing went on to say: The edge that he plans to deliver the heart of the SLS rocket this year and that he has been able to accelerate development by proposing a new plan that will allow the company to work on different sections at the same time time, while attaching parts of the rocket together.

"Boeing and NASA have implemented changes in processes and technologies to speed up production without sacrificing safety or quality, and we are on schedule to deliver the first SLS main floor to NASA. here the end of the year, "Boeing said in a statement. However, Boeing noted that he was facing fixed budgets.

If the SLS Is remain an essential part of NASA's deep space exploration plans, which means changing something to the agency's current strategy. No concrete ideas have been given about this, however. Pence clarified that NASA needed a heightened sense of urgency and a culture change, but it offered no guarantee of additional funding from the company. ;administration. "It was a great speech without teeth," says Laura Forczyk, space consultant and owner of the Astralytical consulting and space research firm. The edge. "It was another big set of promises."

In fact, this speech comes at a difficult time, as the President's recent budget request proposed a drastic reduction in NASA funding, including the SLS and Orion budgets. And after the release of the budget request, NASA officials even admitted that additional funding may not be enough to accelerate development. "Having … a fast, technically feasible launch is a primary goal of this budget, and more money will not accelerate," said NASA Chief Financial Officer Jeff DeWit. 39, a press conference on the budget request in March. "It's a profoundly technical condition to get there faster. We do not ask for more money to do the work. We just need a little more time.

Image: NASA

Even if the administration decided to give more money to NASA or significantly change the agency's plans, the executive branch could not make these decisions alone. As with all government agencies, any major funding decision must be approved by Congress. And when setting the annual budget, lawmakers can also define the NASA program. This is one of the reasons why the SLS remains an important part of the space agency's projects. The rocket is primarily built in Alabama – the location of today's Space Council meeting – and this location has garnered strong support from Alabama congressional representatives, including Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL). They have tried to keep the rocket alive by giving it additional funding and making it mandatory because it creates jobs in that state.

So, if NASA wants to speed up its schedule for the gateway or its deadlines for the completion of the lunar landers, the Congress must approve it. Certainly Congress has set a precedent in recent years by giving NASA more funding than the president has requested in the budget, so legislators can provide the necessary cash flow. But until that happens, Pence's words are just that: words.

During his speech, Pence invoked the memory of President John F. Kennedy, who had made the same bold statement to send human beings to the moon without any guarantee from lawmakers. "Some would say it's too hard, too risky, too expensive," he said. "But the same thing was said in 1962." Circumstances have changed dramatically since the 1960s, and we will know this year if Congress decides to follow up on Pence's call for action.

"He is It's time to go back, "says Logsdon. "So, I applaud the call to move on."