Trump signs order directing NASA to prepare a return to the moon

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SpaceX founder Elon Musk unveiled plans to put humans on Mars as early as 2024. Musk said SpaceX's upcoming BFR mega-rocket can take dozens of people to the moon and to Mars and can also fly from New York to Tokyo in less than 30 minutes. (Sept. 29) AP

Corrections and clarifications:An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Buzz Aldrin was the last living member of the Apollo 11 crew. Command module pilot Michael Collins is alive.

WASHINGTON  — President Trump wants to make the moon great again.

Forty-five years after Apollo 17 astronauts delivered astronauts to the lunar surface for the last time, Trump signed a presidential order Monday directing NASA to prepare a return to the moon.

"It marks an important step in returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972 for long-term exploration and use," the president said during a White House signing ceremony in the Roosevelt Room. "We're dreaming big."

The directive comes as little surprise given the months-long trajectory his administration has charted since he took office in January.

The budget Trump proposed in the spring that slashed most agency budgets kept NASA relatively intact. He nominated a NASA administrator — Oklahoma GOP Congressman Jim Bridenstine — who's firmly committed to a lunar return. And the president re-established the National Space Council headed by Vice President Mike Pence, who's made the moon a priority.

Pence joined Trump for the ceremony, along with members of Congress, cabinet members and astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin, a member of the Apollo 11 mission that carried the first crew to the moon in 1969, and Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, an Apollo 17 astronaut who was the last human to walk on the lunar surface.

Trump called the signing a "momentous occasion in the history of American space exploration."

“We will return American astronauts to the moon, not only to leave behind footprints and flags but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond,” Pence declared in October during the Space Council's first meeting.

The roughly 239,000-mile trip won't be the herculean task it was during the 1960s when America spent about $25 billion — or an average of approximately 4% of overall federal spending — to build the infrastructure and test the rockets that carried out John F. Kennedy's vision of a lunar landing by the end of the 1960s.

But it won't be easy, quick or cheap either.

Space policy experts say it probably will take at least a decade to execute such a mission. Maybe as much as 20 years if resources aren't significantly boosted, they said.

Roger Launius, former chief historian for NASA, applauds the move as an achievable goal with many benefits.

But "it's not going to happen overnight," he said. "It can happen in a decade or something less than that if you really put your mind to it. But you've got to put some resources into it and you've got to have a single -minded devotion to making this happen. It will require a national commitment of political leadership and at least the public's acquiescence if not active support. And none of those things exist."

NASA was getting ready to return to the moon about a decade ago. But President Obama scrapped the Constellation mission after independent experts concluded the lander that would have taken astronauts from orbit to the lunar surface was prohibitively expensive.

Instead, he pivoted toward Mars and NASA under his direction opted to use an asteroid. But Republicans on Capitol Hill never bought into the idea and Trump promptly scratched the plan.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who attended Monday's White House ceremony, said he's pleased the president is committed to a lunar mission as a stepping stone to Mars.

"The question is will there be enough money to actually go down to the surface? To that I say: show me the money," Nelson said after the signing. Republicans "are talking about a boost in defense (spending) and cutting everything else. So let's match this with the reality."

But a return to the moon, both by astronauts and robots launched by commercial companies, is increasingly gaining traction for three reasons:

— Companies are eager to mine potentially valuable minerals and extract the water believed to be under the lunar poles which could be converted to fuel for deep space missions.

— The moon provides NASA a close, accessible setting to develop technologies.

— A return to the moon would lay a strategic claim in space at a time when rival nations, notably China, are contemplating their own lunar missions.

Trump's order, known officially as "Space Policy Directive — 1," directs NASA to partner with U.S. aerospace companies that already have begun to develop  their own lunar missions to return Americans to the moon.

The news was welcomed by Eric Stallmer, president of Commercial Space Federation, an industry trade association who said companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in private capital to develop innovative capabilities for lunar-related missions.

The trade group "recommends that the Administration direct NASA to leverage these capabilities to generate greater efficiency, as well as partner with industry through flexible, innovative contracting approaches, to accelerate progress towards achieving the goals set out in Space Policy Directive," he said.

Howard McCurdy, a space policy expert at American University in Washington, is optimistic Trump's directive will be more successful than the previous president's grandiose space initiatives because this one carries the support of a large and influential cadre of officials in and out of government.

"We've had a lot of attempts to do a lot of things and they haven't led to actual missions," he said. "Hopefully, since this constitutes a broader movement, it will continue beyond any presidential administration and will get something that gets us out of low Earth orbit finally after 50 years." 

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