Vice President may tell NASA to accelerate lunar landings

Enlarge / Vice President Mike Pence, center in Mission Control Houston, will oversee all space decisions made by the Trump administration. (credit: NASA)

One of the panelists who will appear at a National Space Council meeting next Tuesday said to expect "a few fireworks" during the discussion, which will focus on NASA's efforts to return humans to the Moon. The meeting of this council that oversees US spaceflight policy will be held in Hunstville, Alabama, and led by Vice President Mike Pence.

University of Colorado Boulder astrophysicist Jack Burns, one of six speakers scheduled for the meeting, said the current timeline for NASA to send humans to the Moon lacks urgency. NASA has talked about landing its astronauts on the Moon before the end of the 2020s, and the president's budget proposal for the coming fiscal year allows for this to happen as early as 2028.

"The timeline is too slow, and that's one of the things that I'm going to be talking about next Tuesday," Burns said. If pushed, how soon could NASA put humans back on the Moon? The year 2025, Burns replied. "And I know some in the administration would like to do it even faster than that," he added. "We're going to see a few fireworks."

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