Pence: U.S. to head to moon, stay years
The United States is going back to the moon to stay, Vice President Michael Pence promised Thursday.
Pence capped a twoday swing through California with a visit to NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, where he said work was under way “for the return of human, American astronauts to the surface of the moon.”
That brought loud cheers from the 200 NASA workers and contractors there for the vice president’s upbeat, 30minute speech.
“You’re developing the technologies for living on the moon not for days, but for weeks, months and even years,” he told them.
Pence arrived in California on Wednesday for a pair of fundraising events in Huntington
Beach (Orange County) and Monterey, then spent the evening in the South Bay before his lunchtime speech. He was at the research center in his role as chair of the National Space Council, a 60yearold group that was resurrected by President Trump and includes
government leaders in an effort to coordinate the nation’s activities in space.
Before the speech, Eugene Tu, director of the NASA Ames, and Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator, took Pence on a tour of the facility. They showed him the Arc Jet Lab, where he saw a spaceship reentry shield tested against a 10,000degree jet of plasma, along with a prototype of the VIPER lunar rover scheduled to be launched in 2022 on a mission to seek out water on the moon’s south pole, and a lunar lander simulator used to train astronauts for moon missions.
“We landed on the surface of the moon and the vice president did it better than I did,” Bridenstine said after emerging from the simulator.
“That’s one of the coolest things I’ve done in a long time,” Pence said.
There was nothing overtly political about the visit or the crowd, which represented just about every division at the research center.
Lindsey Stevens, who works on Urban Air Mobility, also known as flying cars, was there for a chance to see Pence.
“I’ve never been to something like this with the vice president, and I really wanted to see it,” he said.
While Pence received an enthusiastic welcome, the loudest cheers and applause
“That’s one of the coolest things I’ve done in a long time.”
Vice President Mike Pence after experiencing NASA’s lunar lander simulator at Ames Research Center came when he said that the president planned to boost NASA’s budget to record levels.
“NASA Ames will be at the center of America’s renewed leadership in space for decades to come,” he promised.
Pence credited Trump for putting the United States back on the path to human space exploration.
“Earlier this year, I was proud to be a part when President Trump announced that it’s the policy of this administration to return to the moon within the next five years,” Pence said, a project the president said would be the first step to a mission to Mars.
It’s going to be an American affair, the vice president added.
“Before spring arrives next year, we’re going to send American astronauts on American rockets, from American soil, back into space,” Pence said. “We’re going to have our own platforms to take us back, and we don’t need to hitch a ride with the Russians anymore.”
Pence spoke before a backdrop of two lunar landing simulators and colorful signs reading “Artemis,” which is NASA’s ongoing effort to place men and women on the moon by 2024.
In tweets, Trump has suggested that the Mars mission is more important. Pence, however, said a lunar stopover would be needed for a Mars expedition, including “mining oxygen from lunar rocks to fuel our reusable landers, extracting water from permanently shadowed craters on the south pole, and developing a new generation of nuclearpowered spacecraft that will actually help us fly further and farther and faster than ever before.”
Private business will play a big role in the renewed space effort, he added.
“The president puts it pretty succinctly,” Pence said. “He says, ‘Rich guys love rockets,’ so we’re going to let them build them and innovate with all the people here at NASA Ames.”