The Trump administration is
committed to sending astronauts to the moon as part of a broader push to
prioritize human spaceflight and firm up U.S. dominance in the final frontier,
Vice President Mike Pence said.
"We will return
American astronauts to the moon, not only to leave behind footprints and flags,
but [also] to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and
beyond," Pence said today (Oct. 5) at the first meeting of the newly
reinstated National Space Council (NSC).
"The moon will be a
stepping stone, a training ground, a venue to strengthen our commercial and
international partnerships as we refocus America's space program toward human
space exploration," Pence added.
Under the previous
administration, that stepping stone was much smaller: President Barack Obama
had directed NASA to prep for Mars trips by visiting a near-Earth asteroid. In
response, the space agency devised a plan to pluck a boulder off a space rock and
haul that fragment into orbit around the moon.
Oct. 4 was the 60th
anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, which kicked off the Space Age and the
Cold War space race. Pence referenced that seminal event during his remarks
today, while lamenting a perceived lack of direction in U.S. space policy.
"Rather than lead in
space, too often, we've chosen to drift," he said. "And, as we
learned 60 years ago, when we drift, we fall behind."
As evidence of this drift,
Pence cited the fact that NASA astronauts haven't gone beyond low-Earth orbit
since the final Apollo moon mission, in 1972. In addition, he noted, the
country has had to pay Russia to ferry U.S. astronauts to the International
Space Station since the space shuttle retired in 2011. That service currently
costs $76 million per seat. (Two U.S. companies, SpaceX and Boeing, are both
developing capsules to take over this taxi service for NASA astronauts; these
spacecraft could begin crewed flights next year.)
Pence pledged that the Trump
administration, with the help of the NSC, will develop and implement a
coherent, long-term U.S. space strategy.
That strategy will focus
heavily on human spaceflight, economic development and national security, if
Pence's words today and in an op-ed published yesterday in The Wall Street
Journal are any guide.
"We will renew
America's commitment to creating the space technology needed to protect
national security. Our adversaries are aggressively developing jamming and
hacking capabilities that could cripple critical military surveillance,
navigation systems and communication networks. In the face of this threat,
America must be as dominant in the heavens as it is on Earth," Pence wrote
in the op-ed.
"We will promote
regulatory, technological and educational reforms to expand opportunities for
American citizens and ensure that the U.S. is at the forefront of economic
development in outer space," he added. "In the years to come,
American industry must be the first to maintain a constant commercial human
presence in low-Earth orbit, to expand the sphere of the economy beyond this
blue marble."
The primacy of these stated
goals was reflected in the makeup of the panelists at today's meeting, which
was held at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F.
Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. (The space shuttle Discovery is on
display at Udvar-Hazy, providing a dramatic backdrop.)
Two of the three panels
consisted of executives of the spaceflight companies SpaceX, Blue Origin,
Sierra Nevada Corp., Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Orbital ATK. The third panel
focused on national security and featured retired Navy Adm. James Ellis, the
former chief of U.S. Strategic Command; former NASA astronaut and former DARPA
(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Deputy Director Pamela Melroy; and
former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin.
"We won the race to the
moon half a century ago, and now we will win the 21st century in space,"
Pence said at today's meeting.
The NSC was last active in
the early 1990s, during the presidency of George H.W. Bush. President Trump
resurrected the council via executive order on June 30.