Tag: Moon base

China, Russia and the New Space Race

Article by James Stavridis                                           April 12, 2021                                          (bloomberg.com)

• Russia and China are contesting the US militarily, from the Arctic to the Baltics to the South China Sea. A few weeks ago, the two nations agreed to build a joint research station on the Moon. In an online statement, the China National Space Administration said the base would be open to “all interested countries and international partners”. But if you look at recent Russian and Chinese space operations, they have a distinctly military bent. And the idea of general political and military cooperation between the two is gaining speed, from massive war games on the Siberian border to warship deployments in the eastern Mediterranean and the North Atlantic.

• Washington needs to understand the strategic approach being taken by both of these US rivals in space. The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the lesser-known Secure World Foundation have recently released reports highlighting a cluster of Russian activities that have caught the attention of the US intelligence community. These include significant antisatellite missile tests throughout 2020; flights of Russian spacecraft very near US spy satellites; tests of projectile launches in space; and fraying ties with the US in civilian and scientific space cooperation.

• As the supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, this article’s writer, James Stavridis, spent a good deal of time with the then-Russian ambassador to the alliance, Dmitry Rogozin. Rogozin went on to serve as deputy prime minister in charge of all Russian defense and space industries. Since 2018, Rogozin has been the head of Roscosmos, the equivalent of NASA. Given his strong defense background, Rogozin brings a military thrust to the Russian space program.

• Ten years ago, Rogozin told Stavridis that Russia’s military future was in space. In 2014, Rogozin mocked the US space program on Twitter as needing a trampoline to bring astronauts to the International Space Station. After a successful commercial launch by SpaceX in 2020, Elon Musk tweeted back, “The trampoline is working.”

• China doesn’t have the decades-long history that Russia has in the space domain, but the Chinese are accelerating rapidly. China had landed a lunar module on the Moon, returning soil samples. It launched a Mars probe that is currently orbiting the red planet. And it has plans to build a Moon base, along with Russia. All of this is part of an emerging “space culture” in China.

• Chinese efforts in space have an increasingly military feel to them as well. China has 363 satellites in space, second only to the U.S. (with more than 1,300). The Chinese have been conducting anti-satellite tests for nearly two decades, including missiles and lasers. They have devoted considerable effort to sharpening offensive cybertools that can go after US space assets. The Chinese have also fired more rockets into space than any other country for three years straight.

• As Russia and China come together to operate in the cosmos, their overall military and strategic cooperation will increase as well. The fledgling US Space Force must be part of a US response. America needs a small but elite US Cyber Force working alongside our allies, much as China and Russia intend to do. And Washington needs a coherent plan for private-public cooperation and to prioritize defense dollars for space.

• [Editor’s Note]   The author of this article, retired Admiral James Stavridis, is intent on associating Russia with China’s CCP. And where is he now that he has retired from the US Navy? He is an operating executive with the Carlyle Group, a notorious bastion of the deep state elite trying to stoke a war between the US, China and Russia. China has invited “all interested countries and international partners” to join them in the development of a Moon base. After the deep state stopped utilizing Russian space rockets to bring Americans to the International Space Station in favor of their darling, Elon Musk, why wouldn’t Russia be interested in another Moon program? And didn’t the Russian navy just work with the US Navy to bottle up the Evergreen container ship ‘Ever Given’ in the Suez Canal, which reportedly contained not only trafficked humans but weapons of mass destruction?

What is really going on is a war between the deep state and non-compliant Alliance countries like Russia. Deep state shills like Admiral Stavridis only want to demonize Russia and stir up World War III to give the deep state a path to total control over the planet and the solar system. Unfortunately, Administrator Biden is also a deep state lackey who supports this evil agenda. It is up to the white hats in the US military to excise the deep state trolls from its ranks, completely remove the deep state from power, and set the planet on a course of peace and prosperity – including our expansion into space to stand alongside our space cousins – which the deep state has actively prevented since WWII.

 

          Fmr Admiral James Stavridis

Russia and China are looking hard at how they should allocate defense spending to

       Dmitry Rogozin

contest the U.S. militarily, from the Arctic to the Baltics to the South China Sea. Near the top of both national shopping lists are military operations and assets in space, and the most intriguing aspect of their decision to look to the stars is that they are going to do it together.

Most notably, the two nations agreed a few weeks ago to build a joint research station on the moon. In an online statement, the China National Space Administration said the base would be open to “all interested countries and international partners,” which sounds relatively benign. But if you look at recent Russian and Chinese space operations, they have a distinctly military bent. And the idea of general political and military cooperation between the two is gaining speed, from massive war games on the Siberian border to warship deployments in the eastern Mediterranean and the North Atlantic.

What should the U.S. be doing?

First, Washington needs to clearly understand the strategic approach being taken by both of these rivals, who are now peer competitors, at least in space.

We should begin with Russia, which has had a very long and successful track record in space operations dating back to Soviet times. The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the lesser-known Secure World Foundation have recently released reports highlighting a cluster of Russian activities that have caught the attention of the U.S. intelligence community.

These include significant antisatellite missile tests throughout 2020; so-called close aboard flights of Russian spacecraft very near U.S. spy satellites; tests of projectile launches in space; and fraying ties with the U.S. in civilian and scientific space cooperation. (The two nations have previously worked together closely, especially on the International Space Station.)

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Russia and China Ready to Sign Deal to Build First Moon Base, Snubbing US

Article by Olivia Burke                                                 February 18, 2021                                            (thesun.co.uk)

• On February 11th, the Russian Federation announced plans to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with China to collaborate on a series of International Lunar Research Stations (ILRS) or ‘Moon bases’, as proposed by the Chinese. Both countries will carry out preparatory research throughout the 2020s with the aim of establishing Moon bases at the Moon’s south pole in the early 2030s. The bases will initially be populated by robots and will provide a long-term presence on the Moon for short crewed missions in the early 2030s, and a longer-term sustained human presence anticipated to begin between 2036-2045. The U.S. has not been asked to participate.

• The Chinese and Russians plan to use the lunar base to aid the “construction and operation of human’s first sharing platform in the lunar south pole, supporting long-term, large-scale scientific exploration, technical experiments and development and utilization of lunar resources.” The robotic base will potentially incorporate the expertise of other nations as well, who will contribute their own spacecrafts.

• Pand Zhihao, a former researcher at the China Academy of Space Technology, praised, “Russia’s expertises, including liquid oxygen kerosene engine technology as well as a complete, world-beating system for astronaut training, will all no doubt accelerate the program’s advancement.” Russia’s state corporation for space activities, Roscosmos, said the official announcement set to coincide with the Global Space Exploration Conference in 2021, held in St. Petersburg.

• Humans have not set foot on the Moon since the NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. The Americans have been planning to resume settlement of the Moon under the Artemis Accords, pledging to send astronauts back there by 2024. The Russians, however, do not favor the Artemis Accords because it proposes a global legal framework for mining on the Moon, which the Russians liken to colonialism. Roscosmos’ deputy general director for international cooperation, Sergey Saveliev, remarked, “There have already been examples in history when one country decided to start seizing territories in its (own) interest — everyone remembers what came of it.”

• It is also believed that Russia was reluctant to back the Artemis Accords plan due to the Lunar Gateway element – a small orbiting space station and communication hub similar to the ISS. U.S. legislation implemented in 2011 prohibits China from participating with the International Space Station partnership. And it is thought that the Trump Administration further isolated the U.S. from its international allies by unilaterally creating the Space Force.

• NASA’s Artemis Accords have the cooperation and support of Australia, Canada, England, Japan, Luxembourg, Italy, and the UAE. “The Artemis Accords have driven China and Russia toward increased cooperation in space out of fear and necessity,” said former Congressional legislative director Elya Taichman.

• China made history in 2019 by becoming the first country to land on the dark side of the Moon. The European Space Agency is said to be closely monitoring the ILRS program in anticipation of joining. It is feared that a China-Russia-European consortium could knock NASA off the top spot as the international leader of space exploration.

 

RUSSIA and China are joining forces as they prepare to sign a historic deal to build the first moon base after they snubbed the US.

                             Apollo 17

The two countries are to collaborate on the international lunar structure, which was thought up by China – the latest build in the space-race against America.

The purpose of the International Lunar Research Stations (ILRS), is to create a long-term robotic presence on the Moon by the start of the next decade, before eventually establishing a sustained human presence.

           Elya Taichman

An Order of the Government of the Russian Federation detailing the scheme was published on February 11, but the “date to sign the above mentioned MoU has not been determined yet and is currently discussed with the Chinese partners.”

Humans have not set foot on the moon since December 1972, when Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan made tracks on it during an

     Sergey Saveliev

Apollo 17 mission.

Both countries will carry out the research, beginning with China’s upcoming Chang’e-6, -7, and -8 missions and Russia’s Luna 27 probe.

They plan to use the lunar base to aid the “construction and operation of human’s first sharing platform in the lunar south pole, supporting long-term, large-scale scientific exploration, technical experiments and development and utilisation of lunar resources.”

China and Russia plan that in the early 2030s, the ILRS development will theoretically provide a base for long-term robotic presence on the Moon with the potential for short crewed missions.

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US Planned to Blow Up Moon, What Happened?

Article by Bhaswati Guha Majumder                            June 21, 2020                         (ibtimes.sg)

• At the dawn of the space race in the 1960s, a secret mission code-named ‘Project A119’ was devised by the US Air Force out of Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico to demonstrate to the Soviets and to the entire world that the U.S. could dominate space by exploding a bomb on Moon’s “terminator” – the area between the part of the surface that is illuminated by the Sun and the part that is dark. The military planned to add sodium to the bomb to make it glow and be highly visible to the naked eye from Earth. The plan was never carried out to avoid an “unparalleled scientific disaster.”

• This revelation is exposed in the unclassified Air Force document from 1959 entitled: ‘A Study of Lunar research Flights’, and in a new book by John Greenewald Jr. entitled: Secrets From the Black Vault: The Army’s Plan for a Military Base on the Moon and Other Declassified Documents that Rewrote History. Greenewald, who runs ‘The Black Vault’ website containing the largest civilian archive of declassified government documents, said, “A nuclear bomb on the surface of the Moon was definitely one of the stupider things the government could do.”

• Greenewald’s book also discloses the US military’s “Project Horizon”, in which the US Army planned to establish a permanent colony of 10 to 20 people on a Moon base by 1966. The plan was promoted in 1959 by the Chief of Research and Development for the U.S. Army, Lt General Arthur G. Trudeau, who claimed that if the U.S. could beat the Soviets to the Moon, “the prestige and psychological advantage to the nation will be invaluable.” They went so far as to design suits for the landing party and bulldozers for the construction. But the cost of the endeavor was estimated at over $6 billion annually (or $53 billion per year in today’s dollars), and was therefore shelved. Greenewald told the NY Post, “You look at these documents and wonder if this is what they’re telling us. Imagine what they’re not.”

• Today, NASA’s Exploration Technology Development Program is working on a plan to establish a permanent Moon base for scientists and astronauts. Also, Lewis Dartnell, a professor at the University of Westminster, has proposed a “Moontopia” city to be built inside massive hollow tubes formed by lunar volcanic eruptions.

• [Editor’s Note]   It appears that while the Army’s plan to establish a Moon base was publicly terminated, the military industrial complex revised their plan by creating a NASA space program to occupy the public’s imagination by hiring ex-Nazis to put Americans on the Moon using rocket technology, while secretly pursuing a ‘secret space program’ to explore and colonize space using advanced anti-gravity and electromagnetic/warp drive technology throughout the ensuing decades.

And according to SSP whistle-blowers, the Nazis did in fact build a lunar base within hollow volcanic tubes on the Moon in the early 1940s, which the American military industrial complex improved upon and expanded during the 1950s and 60s through a subsequent collaboration with the post-WWII Nazi remnant headquartered in Antarctic, along with their reptilian allies.

 

Blowing up the moon — this idea may look like a sci-fi movie plot, but it is a fact that the U.S. government made plans to explode a bomb on moon’s “terminator” — the area between the part of the surface that is illuminated by the sun and the part that is dark.

Lt Gen. Arthur G. Trudeau

It was a secret mission code-named “Project A119.” The project was conceived at the dawn of the space race in the

               John Greenewald Jr.

1960s and designed to be monitored by a U.S. Air Force division located at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. All the details of this secret mission came to light in a recent report titled, A Study of Lunar Research Flights.

The Explosion of Moon

It is quite obvious that the plan did not work out. But if the U.S. had done, the explosion would have been visible from earth with naked eyes as the military had planned to add sodium to the bomb, which would make it glow and make it visible during the explosion.

John Greenewald Jr., author of the new book “Secrets From the Black Vault: The Army’s Plan for a Military Base on the Moon and Other Declassified Documents that Rewrote History” said, “A nuclear bomb on the surface of the moon was definitely one of the stupider things the government could do.”

The author also runs a website called The Black Vault, which is the largest civilian archive of declassified government documents including around 2.1 million pages. This webpage includes classified documents on assassinations and other phenomena legally obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Greenewald wrote in his book that the U.S. Air Force devised the moon plot as they wanted to show the Soviets and the entire world that they can dominate space as well. Based on one such declassified document, he said that the plan was never carried out, most possibly due to the its potential to trigger an “unparalleled scientific disaster.”

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NASA’s Full Artemis Plan Revealed: 37 Launches and a Lunar Outpost

by Eric Berger                   May 20, 2019                    (arstechnica.com)

• In March 2019, Vice President Mike Pence directed NASA to return to the Moon by 2024. Since then, NASA has been working on a plan to accomplish this using existing technology, large projects nearing completion, and commercial rockets. The first draft of this unofficial “Artemis Plan” reveal a human landing in 2024, annual sorties to the lunar surface, and the construction of a Moon base beginning in 2028. It involves 37 launches of private and NASA rockets, and a mix of robotic and human landers. This plan is everything Pence asked for—an urgent human return, a Moon base, a mix of existing and new contractors.

• NASA’s projected cost for this program is $6 billion to $8 billion per year on top of NASA’s existing budget of about $20 billion. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has asked for an additional $1.6 billion in fiscal year 2020 to jump-start its lander development. Due to its massive cost, an international partnership will be needed to sustain this plan. The White House has proposed paying for the lunar project with a surplus in the Pell Grant Reserve Fund (provided to low-income college students). But this appears to be a non-starter with House Democrats.

• Boeing has been working on the core stage of the Space Launch System for eight years. The three-stage, reusable lunar lander envisioned by NASA to get humans to the lunar surface will require new, upgraded engines and control systems, including fuel management. It is uncertain that Boeing will be able to deliver an SLS core stage in 2020, then again in 2022, and then six more between 2024 and 2028, according to this ambitious plan.

• Funding for the lunar program is a harsh political reality. Will Congressional Democrats insist that NASA funding may only come from Department of Defense funds earmarked for Space Force? And what if Trump is not re-elected in 2020? Will a new administration pursue a lunar program that has barely gotten off the ground? Or will it pivot toward a lower-cost space program that makes extensive use of the new private space industry?

• If the funding issues are resolved, this NASA plan could take us back to the Moon. But it probably won’t happen by 2024. A more realistic date would be 2026 at the earliest, say sources inside NASA.

 

In the nearly two months since Vice President Mike Pence directed NASA to return to the Moon by 2024, space agency engineers have been working to put together a plan that leverages existing technology, large projects nearing completion, and commercial rockets to bring this about.

Last week, an updated plan that demonstrated a human landing in 2024, annual sorties to the lunar surface thereafter, and the beginning of a Moon base by 2028, began circulating within the agency. A graphic, shown below, provides information about each of the major launches needed to construct a small Lunar Gateway, stage elements of a lunar lander there, fly crews to the Moon and back, and conduct refueling missions.

This decade-long plan, which entails 37 launches of private and NASA rockets, as well as a mix of robotic and human landers, culminates with a “Lunar Surface Asset Deployment” in 2028, likely the beginning of a surface outpost for long-duration crew stays. Developed by the agency’s senior human spaceflight manager, Bill Gerstenmaier, this plan is everything Pence asked for—an urgent human return, a Moon base, a mix of existing and new contractors.

One thing missing is its cost. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has asked for an additional $1.6 billion in fiscal year 2020 as a down payment to jump-start lander development. But all of the missions in this chart would cost much, much more. Sources continue to tell Ars that the internal projected cost is $6 billion to $8 billion per year on top of NASA’s existing budget of about $20 billion.

The plan also misses what is likely another critical element. It’s not clear what role there would be on these charts for international partners, as nearly all of the vehicles could—and likely would—come from NASA or US- based companies. An international partnership, as evidenced by the International Space Station program, is likely key to sustaining a lunar program over the long term in the US political landscape.

Three miracles

Although the plan is laudable in that it represents a robust human exploration of deep space, scientific research, and an effort to tap water resources at the Moon, it faces at least three big problems.

The first issue is funding and political vulnerability. One reason Bridenstine has not shared the full cost of the program as envisioned is “sticker shock” that has doomed other previous efforts. However, if NASA is going to attempt a Moon landing with this specific plan—rather than a radical departure that relies on smaller, reusable rockets—the agency will need a lot more money.

So far, the White House has proposed paying for this with a surplus in the Pell Grant Reserve Fund. But this appears to be a non-starter with House Democrats. “The President is proposing to further cut a beneficial needs-based grants program that provides a lifeline to low-income students, namely the Pell Grants program, in order to pay for the first year of this initiative—something that I cannot support,” House science committee chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson has said.

Congress is also not going to give NASA an unlimited authority to reprogram funds, with an apparently open-ended time frame, which Bridenstine has sought.

A second problem is that NASA’s current plan relies on its contractors to actually deliver hardware. Boeing’s work on the core stage of the Space Launch System is emblematic of this problem. The company has been working on the core stage for eight years, and it is unlikely to be ready for flight before another year or two. Boeing’s management of the contract has been harshly criticized by NASA’s Inspector General. After all this, can Boeing be counted on to deliver an SLS core stage in 2020, then again in 2022, and six more between 2024 and 2028?

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Did the USSR destroy a secret US Moon Base in 1977?

A Wikileaks document that referred to the destruction of a US moon base sometime in the 1970s has recently gained renewed attention. The document is dated January 24, 1979, and is titled “Report that UR Destroyed Secret US Base on Moon.” It was correspondence involving one or more officials from the U.S. State Department to Samuel L. Devine, a Republican member of the US Congress.

The document has tags “Operations–General | UR – Soviet Union (USSR)” which reveals that “UR” stands for the USSR. The document was marked unclassified, which suggests that the content of the correspondence did not contain classified information, and involved open source material widely available at the time. The fact that officials were discussing such a topic raises the question, did the USSR destroy a secret US moon base sometime before January 1979?

Wikileaks included the document in its dump of State Department diplomatic cables that it began releasing online in November 2010 and ended on September 1, 2011. Julian Assange’s arrest on April 11, 2018, sparked renewed interest in him and Wikileaks document dumps over the years.

Arjun Walla published an article in Collective Evolution that discussed Assange’s arrest and examined the controversial Wikileaks’ Moon base document. Walla discussed it in relation to a host of Moon-related information that has been leaked over the years. This included a Congressional statement on building a permanent Moon base; CIA concern over Soviet plans to build a Moon base; Soviet concerns over the US plans to use the Moon as a military base of operations; and whistleblowers discussing photographic evidence of moon bases. I recommend reading Walla’s article for a succinct overview of this data.

However, to explore the question of whether or not the USSR destroyed a secret Moon base in the 1970’s we need to go back a few years to the remarkable audio letters of Dr. Peter Beter. Beter was the General Counsel of the Export-Import Bank (1961-67) and had high-level sources who confided to him what was happening behind the scenes in space from the 1960s to the early 1980s. In this modern era of whistleblowers, it’s worth emphasizing that Beter was the first genuine insider to come forward with details about secret space programs.

He described how the US and USSR were fiercely competing both in a race to the Moon and in the development of particle beam weapons that could operate between the Moon and Earth. It was clear that whoever first developed a particle beam weapon that could operate from the Moon would possess an overwhelming strategic advantage.

According to Beter, while the US was forging ahead in the race to the Moon, the Soviets were ahead in developing particle beam weapons. In his Audio Letter 26, released on September 30, 1977, Beter wrote:

By 1972, these experiments still were a long way from a suitable weapon for deployment on the moon. But ominous developments in the Soviet Union led to the decision to cut off the Apollo program prematurely so that the construction of the secret moon base could be rushed ahead.

According to Beter, Diego Garcia was used as a spaceport for building the moon base:

Early in 1973, soon after the supposed end of the American moon program, we began hearing about a place called Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Supposedly we were merely building a communications installation there, yet the drastic step was taken of relocating all the 20,000 or so natives of this little island to other areas. More recently, we have heard about Diego Garcia as the site of a new American naval base; but, my friends, you still haven’t been told the whole story. Diego Garcia, my friends, is the new space-port from which secret missions to the moon have been launched during the building of the moon base.

Diego Garcia was the ideal location for a space launching pad according to Beter:

Unlike Cape Canaveral, where Saturn rocket launches are impossible to hide, Diego Garcia is remote and isolated, and even the natives are no longer there to watch what goes on. What’s more, Diego Garcia is practically the perfect moon-port, located as it is almost on the earth’s equator, and a space vehicle launched eastward into orbit from Diego Garcia passes over a nearly unbroken expanse of water for more than half the circumference of the earth. The only means of monitoring the early flight of a space craft launched from Diego Garcia, therefore, is from ships.

In his 1977 newsletter, Beter wrote about the information he had received from his sources about the US moon base:

I was first alerted to the existence of a secret base on the moon last November 1976–but it has been one of the best kept of all Rockefeller secrets, and it was only a few weeks ago that I was able to confirm its existence and learn the complete story; and since that time, events have moved with lightning speed.

Beter went on to give details about the deadly race to develop particle beam weapons as it played out in 1977:

Throughout this year an unseen but deadly race has been underway to see who would get an operational Particle Beam first: the Rockefellers, at their secret moon base; or the Soviet Union, in earth orbit. By late spring, a Salyut manned space craft was launched that carried out preliminary tests of beam-weapon techniques, using lasers in order to simulate the Particle Beam.

Beter next gave details about the race between the USSR and US to develop particle beam weapons for deployment in space and/or the Moon. The Soviets succeeded in developing the first operational particle beam weapons in Earth orbit, and destroyed the newly built US moon base:

By the 26th of September, American personnel at the secret Rockefeller moon base nestled in Copernicus Crater were almost ready. Their Particle Beam was almost operational–but they were too late. By late that day, the Soviet Union began bombarding the moon base with a Neutron Particle Beam. Through the night, and all day on September 27 the moon base was bombarded without mercy with neutron radiation just like that produced by a neutron bomb; and by that evening as Americans looked up at the peaceful full moon overhead known as the Harvest Moon, the last few Americans on the moon were dying of neutron radiation. America had lost the Battle of the Harvest Moon.

It’s not clear what the contents of the document titled “Report that UR Destroyed Secret US Base on Moon” discusses. Given its unclassified status, and the date it was created, the most plausible explanation is that it involved a discussion between Congressional and State Department officials about Beter’s “Harvest Moon Battle”, or some other unclassified material regarding destruction of a US Moon base and the development of particle beam weapons.

Why would Congressional and State Department officials be interested in such information; and, more importantly, what did they have to say about it? A Freedom of Information Act request will help answer such questions.

© Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Copyright Notice

Further Reading

Trump’s NASA Pivot

by Marina Koren        October 7, 2017        (theatlantic.com)

• Trump wants to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020, shifting the focus away from Obama’s Mars agenda.

• Trump wants to establish a lunar base, or an orbiting “cislunar” base, before heading to Mars.

• Mars proponents worry that we’ll get stuck on the Moon.

• India’s space program plans to visit the Moon next year.

• Both Russia and China plan to visit the Moon by the 2030’s.

• The European Space Agency envisions building a “moon village.”

• NASA wants to send the Lunar Rover to the back-side of the Moon.

• They all might be very surprised by what they find on the dark side of the Moon.

 

Rumors that the Trump administration was more interested in the moon than Mars began circulating days after the inauguration. Leaked memos published in February revealed the president’s advisers wanted NASA to send astronauts there by 2020, one part in a bigger plan to focus on activities near Earth rather than missions deeper in the solar system. Vice President Mike Pence spoke vaguely of a return to the moon in a speech in July. In September, the administration nominated a NASA chief who extolled the construction of lunar outposts. All signs pointed to a significant shift in the country’s Mars-focused space agenda of the last seven years.

This week, the Trump administration made it official.

“We will return NASA 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 said Thursday at the inaugural meeting of the National Space Council, an advisory body his administration recently revived.

The vice president’s comments marked a pivot from Barack Obama’s directive for a “Journey to Mars,” established in 2010, and harkens to the aspirations set forth by the George W. Bush administration. The Obama administration had maintained that some kind of human activity in cislunar space—the region between the Earth and the moon—was necessary to test technology for a mission to Mars, but the efforts would amount to a pit stop, not a destination. While Pence did not provide details on what kind of “foundation” Americans would build on the moon, the new direction was clear: Americans should be spending more time in their cosmic backyard before flying off into the solar system.

“It’s a 180-degree shift from no moon to moon first,” said John Logsdon, a space-policy expert and former director of the Space-Policy Institute at George Washington University.

The announcement is obviously good news for space-transportation companies and lunar researchers lamenting the country’s 45-year absence from the moon. For those in the Mars camp, many of whom aim for a human mission to the planet by 2033, the news puts their ambitions on shakier ground.

“Most of the people who are Mars-centered worry that we’ll get stuck on the moon.”

The administration’s push for a return to the moon may be unambiguous now, but plenty of questions remain, ranging from the basic, like when and how, to the intriguing, like the role commercial spaceflight companies might play. NASA also wouldn’t be starting from scratch. The space agency has spent the last decade building the Space-Launch System and Orion, a rocket and spacecraft intended to carry people into deep space but also to build a cislunar way station called the Deep-Space Gateway. NASA planned to use the Deep-Space Gateway as a place for astronauts to prep for deep-space journeys, but the new shift could see the station being used for lunar landings.

Both time-tested contractors and growing commercial companies will be eager to work on potential lunar activities. Boeing is currently developing a capsule that would ferry people into low-Earth orbit, and SpaceX said its proposed mega-rocket, which is mostly intended to fulfill Elon Musk’s Sim City-esque ambitions for Mars, could contribute to travel to the moon. Musk, well aware of the political benefits of it, leaned heavily into lunar ambitions. “It’s 2017. We should have a lunar base by now,” he said recently. “What the hell’s going on?”

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