Says Astronauts Will Launch From American Soil

Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday addressed the fifth meeting of the National Space Council, and moved the goalpost for one of the nation's most ambitious space objectives.

"I’m here, on the President’s behalf, to tell the men and women of the Marshall Space Flight Center and the American people that, at the direction of the President of the United States, it is the stated policy of this administration and the United States of America to return American astronauts to the Moon within the next five years," Pence said. "And let me be clear: The first woman and the next man on the Moon will both be American astronauts, launched by American rockets, from American soil."

Pence said that in Space Policy Directive-1, the President directed NASA to create a lunar exploration plan.  But as of today, more than 15 months later, there is still no plan in place.

"The truth is, despite the dedication of the men and women who are designing and building and testing the SLS, you all know the program has been plagued by bureaucratic inertia, by what some call the “paralysis of analysis.”  The nation actually learned, with great disappointment, in recent weeks, that the date for its first flight for the SLS has been pushed back yet again, to 2021," Pence said.

"You know, after years of cost overruns and slipped deadlines, we’re actually being told that the earliest we can get back to the moon is 2028.  Now, that would be 18 years after the SLS program was started and 11 years after the President of the United States directed NASA to return American astronauts to the Moon.

"Ladies and gentlemen, that’s just not good enough.  We’re better than that.  It took us eight years to get to the Moon the first time, 50 years ago, when we had never done it before, and it shouldn’t take us 11 years to get back."

In a statement posted to the NASA website, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said this is the right time for this challenge, and I assured the Vice President that we, the people of NASA, are up to the challenge.

“We will take action in the days and weeks ahead to accomplish these goals. We have laid out a clear plan for NASA’s exploration campaign that cuts across three strategic areas: low-Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars and deeper into space," Bridenstine said in the statement.

“I have already directed a new alignment within NASA to ensure we effectively support this effort, which includes establishing a new mission directorate to focus on the formulation and execution of exploration development activities. We are calling it the Moon to Mars Mission Directorate.

“Earlier today I was also at Marshall Space Flight Center for an all-hands to reinforce our commitment to SLS with the workforce. We discussed my recent announcement that NASA would consider all options to fly Orion around the Moon on schedule. I shared the analysis we conducted to assess flying the Orion on different commercial options. While some of these alternative vehicles could work, none was capable of achieving our goals to orbit around the Moon for Exploration Mission-1 within our timeline and on budget. The results of this two-week study reaffirmed our commitment to the SLS. More details will be released in the future.

“There’s a lot of excitement about our plans and also a lot of hard work and challenges ahead, but I know the NASA workforce and our partners are up to it. We are now looking at creative approaches to advance SLS manufacturing and testing to ensure Exploration Mission-1 launches in 2020. We will work to ensure we have a safe and reliable launch system that keeps its promise to the American people.

“I know NASA is ready for the challenge of moving forward to the Moon, this time to stay.”

(Source: White House and NASA. Image provided by NASA)

FMI: www.nasa.gov/moon2mars, www.whitehouse.gov