{"id":13629,"date":"2018-08-23T21:39:11","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T13:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/pence-rallies-johnson-space-center-workers-with-promise-of-moon-missions\/"},"modified":"2018-08-23T21:39:11","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T13:39:11","slug":"pence-rallies-johnson-space-center-workers-with-promise-of-moon-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/pence-rallies-johnson-space-center-workers-with-promise-of-moon-missions\/","title":{"rendered":"Pence rallies Johnson Space Center workers with promise of moon missions"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
Vice President Mike Pence speaks to workers Thursday at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credit: NASA\/Joel Kowsky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In what came across as a combination pep rally and old-time revival, Vice President Mike Pence asked flight controllers, engineers and astronauts at the Johnson Space Center Thursday to \u201crededicate\u201d themselves to carrying out the Trump administration\u2019s drive to establish a permanent U.S. presence around the moon in the early 2020s before eventual voyages to Mars.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou here at the Johnson Space Center will guide these journeys,\u201d Pence told a packed auditorium at the sprawling Houston facility. \u201cWhile our sights are once again set on our lunar neighbor, this time we\u2019re not content with just leaving behind footprints. The time has come for the United States of America to \u2026 establish a permanent presence around and on the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

As chairman of the newly reconstituted National Space Council, Pence has been leading a new multi-agency drive to coordinate civil, commercial and military space programs under a unified national space policy. President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1 last December, calling for NASA to refocus its human space program on returning to the moon.<\/p>\n

The agency is developing a new heavy-lift rocket, the Saturn 5-class Space Launch System, to carry Orion capsules to the moon and beyond and soliciting designs from aerospace contractors for a small space station, or \u201cgateway,\u201d that will be built in lunar orbit. It is intended to serve as a base for research and a stepping stone for eventual landings and fights into deep space.<\/p>\n

At the Johnson Space Center, Pence recalled a scene from the movie \u201cInterstellar\u201d in which a character mused \u201cwe used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now, we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not how Americans think,\u201d Pence said. \u201cTruthfully, that kind of thinking led people in the past to even cancel the Constellation program. That would have put Americans back on the moon by 2020 and set the stage for exploration of Mars and beyond. That decision was a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Constellation program was promoted by the Bush administration in the wake of the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster. It called for completing the International Space Station by the end of the decade and building new rockets and spacecraft to carry astronauts back to the moon by the early 2020s for long-duration stays on the surface.<\/p>\n

But the Obama administration canceled Constellation after a review determined it was unsustainable at then-current budget levels. Instead, NASA was ordered to focus on missions to nearby asteroids while helping develop a commercial infrastructure in low-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

The decision to cancel Constellation, Pence went on, \u201csaid to our country and to the entire world that America was no longer serious about human space exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut those days are over. America will lead mankind to the stars once again. Our administration has restored the moon as the focal point of our national space activities because we recognize its pivotal importance. \u2026 It\u2019s not a question of if, it\u2019s just a question of when.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vice president also praised NASA\u2019s work with the International Space Station, calling it an \u201cunqualified success.\u201d But he reiterated the Trump administration\u2019s decision to terminate government funding in 2025 to free up money and to encourage more commercial activity in low-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

He praised the ongoing development of commercial spacecraft being built by Boeing and SpaceX to ferry American astronauts to and from the space station starting next year, ending NASA\u2019s sole reliance on Russia for ferry flights to the lab complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cSadly, for more than seven years we\u2019ve been forced to hitch a ride to space,\u201d Pence said. \u201cMany Americans don\u2019t know we\u2019ve actually been forced to pay Russia to carry American astronauts to the International Space Station. Today, that cost runs about $82 million a seat. Those days are about to be over.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to make you a promise,\u201d he added. \u201cSoon, and very soon, American astronauts will return to space on American rockets launched from American soil! And when they go, they\u2019ll be guided by the dedicated team here at the Johnson Space Center.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pence told the civilian space workers the Trump administration is moving ahead with plans to establish a new branch of the military, the United States Space Force, by 2020. It will be \u201cdevoted solely to advancing American security in space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe need is real,\u201d he said. \u201cChina is aggressively weaponizing space. Russia, too, is developing and testing new and dangerous weapons and technologies to counter America\u2019s space capabilities. Our administration is committed to keep America ahead of our adversaries in this critical domain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, Pence recalled the flight of Apollo 8 and the crew\u2019s reading from Genesis as they orbited the moon 50 years ago this Christmas Eve. He asked the NASA workers to \u201crededicate\u201d themselves to the dream of human spaceflight, saying \u201chowever deep into the cosmos we may reach, our destiny, mankind\u2019s destiny, is not only here on Earth, it is in the heavens as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a now-familiar church-like delivery, Pence called on the NASA workers to \u201cgo forth and meet that destiny together and do what Americans have always done, let\u2019s seize it with ingenuity and courage, let\u2019s seize it with faith. You can be confident the American people have faith in you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Vice President Mike Pence speaks to workers Thursday at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credit: NASA\/Joel Kowsky In what came across as a combination pep rally and old-time revival, Vice President Mike Pence asked flight controllers, engineers and astronauts at the Johnson Space Center Thursday to \u201crededicate\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1545,302,2696,625,328,2628],"class_list":["post-13629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-johnson-space-center","tag-lunar-orbital-platform-gateway","tag-moon","tag-space-policy","tag-vice-president-mike-pence"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}