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We’ll return to the moon before flights to Mars: Vice President Mike Pence, chairing a revived National Space Council, said Thursday the United States will once again send astronauts to the moon, using Earth's satellite as a critical stepping stone for eventual flights to Mars, and vowing to beef up national security space assets to counter rapidly escalating threats from adversaries.
In the human spaceflight arena, Pence said the Trump administration's space policy calls for sending missions to the moon to test new technologies, to establish infrastructure far beyond low-Earth orbit and to serve as a staging base on the surface, or a gateway in lunar orbit, for robotic and human flights to Mars. Experts told the panel NASA could return astronauts to the moon within five years using the agency's huge Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule -- and possibly a Saturn 5-class rocket envisioned by SpaceX -- to lay the groundwork for landings on the lunar surface or developing an orbital outpost.
In the human spaceflight arena, Pence said the Trump administration's space policy calls for sending missions to the moon to test new technologies, to establish infrastructure far beyond low-Earth orbit and to serve as a staging base on the surface, or a gateway in lunar orbit, for robotic and human flights to Mars. Experts told the panel NASA could return astronauts to the moon within five years using the agency's huge Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule -- and possibly a Saturn 5-class rocket envisioned by SpaceX -- to lay the groundwork for landings on the lunar surface or developing an orbital outpost.