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VP Pence Talks Moon Return and Mars Mission at NASA
Vice President Mike Pence spoke at NASA's Johnson Space Center on Thursday about the agency's plans to send humans back to the moon for the first time in almost half a century and eventually on to Mars. He said: The next Americans who set foot on the Moon will start their journey by stepping through the NASA's Orion hatch. And this extraordinary spacecraft will one day bridge the gap between our planet and the next.
The International Space Station has been an unqualified success. Soon and very soon American astronauts will return to space on American rockets launched from American soil. America will not ever abandon the critical domain of space, we will open the way for innovators and development and we will lead once again in human exploration. Our administration is working tirelessly to put an American crew aboard the lunar orbital platform before the end of 2024. In a prepared statement, Pence added, "We're renewing our national commitment to discovery and exploration and write the next great chapter of our nation's journey into space. It's now the official policy of the US that we'll return to the Moon, put Americans on Mars and once again explore the farthest depths of outer space."
The International Space Station has been an unqualified success. Soon and very soon American astronauts will return to space on American rockets launched from American soil. America will not ever abandon the critical domain of space, we will open the way for innovators and development and we will lead once again in human exploration. Our administration is working tirelessly to put an American crew aboard the lunar orbital platform before the end of 2024. In a prepared statement, Pence added, "We're renewing our national commitment to discovery and exploration and write the next great chapter of our nation's journey into space. It's now the official policy of the US that we'll return to the Moon, put Americans on Mars and once again explore the farthest depths of outer space."
That's the point.
For instance...this is being worked on
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Most of those capabilities are unnecessary for either the moon or Mars, and aren't likely to ever be developed without active manned space exploration to drive the need for them.
What we really need is greatly reduced cost and deployed transportation infrastructure capable of frequent deliveries of large payloads, and people actually getting out there, discovering the problems that need to be solved, and working out solutions for them. Make it easy to get mass into orbit, and people will research stuff like magnetic shielding and advanced propulsion. Meanwhile, what we have is enough to start going to the moon and Mars. If SpaceX achieves their goals with BFR, the BFS will go straight from LEO to the surface of Mars with 150 t of payload and with a trip time short enough that simulated gravity, exotic radiation shielding, etc are unnecessary; then refuel and launch from Mars to land back on Earth. This isn't a tin can that can barely get a few humans there, it's a serious transport craft capable of supporting well-equipped research expeditions and colonization efforts. Blue Origin has similar ambitions focused around the moon.
The Lunar Orbiting Platform (or whatever they're calling it today), though...yeah, it's embarrassingly lacking in ambition and potential for meaningful progress. It can't even be occupied full time, and any reasonable lunar or Mars mission would blow right past it without wasting delta-v on rendezvous.
It could've existed if not for irrational fear of everything "atomic".
Guys who built them bombs in Manhattan Project were planning to personally cruise solar system in actual spaceships (size of a, well, ocean ship), propelled by detonation of small bombs behind, once a second. Physics and engineering actually worked!
Look up "Project Orion", or read George Dyson's book (his dad Freeman was one of the leaders).
Paul B.