https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-41519682

US Vice-President Mike Pence has expressed the intention for America to send humans back to the Moon's surface.

Speaking to the National Space Council, he said Earth's satellite would be a "stepping stone" to the wider exploration of the Solar System.

"We will return 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," he stated.

The statement drew loud applause.

Mr Pence said something similar when he visited the Kennedy Space Center in July, but he was less specific then about boots on the lunar soil.

It may give stronger hints to the direction of thinking that will be pursued when the Trump White House finally gets its nomination in place for Nasa administrator.

Representative Jim Bridenstine, a Republican from Oklahoma, is the Trump pick to take the job but has yet to be confirmed by the Senate.

In his speech to the newly re-established advisory body (this was the first time it had convened in nearly a quarter of a century), Mr Pence said US space policy had lost its edge and needed to reassert itself.

"The president has charged us with laying the foundation for America to maintain a constant commercial human presence in low-Earth orbit. From there, we will turn our attention back toward our celestial neighbours," he said.

The speech, delivered in front of Space Shuttle Discovery at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, was backed up by an earlier op-ed in the Wall Street Journal .

But neither speech nor the newspaper article mentioned timelines or funding numbers.

President Obama had rejected the Moon as a return destination.

"We've been there," he said bluntly, and told Nasa to take a more direct route to the Red Planet, setting the ambition to "send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth" by the mid-2030s.

He approved the development of a big new rocket, the Space Launch System, and a deep space capsule called Orion. All of this hardware is still some years away from carrying people.

A project to use the systems, when they became available, to visit and capture a small asteroid, was promptly dropped when Donald Trump became president.

Instead, Nasa has recently started looking at the feasibility of building some kind of lunar space station that it refers to as the Deep Space Gateway.

This would be a testing ground for astronauts and their equipment as they move away from Earth and the low-orbiting International Space Station.

International partners, such as Russia, Europe and Canada, have been asked to think about the technologies they could contribute.

Nasa's acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, issued a statement later on Thursday, which read: "Nasa has been directed to develop a plan for an innovative and sustainable programme of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the Solar System, returning humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilisation, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations."

Speaking last week at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, the US rocket entrepreneur Elon Musk said he hoped to send humans to Mars stating in 2024 .

The SpaceX company's CEO and chief designer has plans for a rocket that is even bigger than the SLS. This behemoth, which he says could carry 100 people, is dubbed the BFR, or "Big Falcon Rocket".

The last astronaut mission to the Moon was Apollo 17, which saw Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spend 75 hours on the lunar surface. With budgets tightening, Nasa was instructed by then US president Richard Nixon to direct its future efforts away from the Moon to the Skylab space station and the development of the shuttle.

It's that time of the year where the new administration announces its plans to skew nasa in a new direction instead of letting them spend any significant time on one project. But hey, moon mission let's fuckin go.

Quote from: BaconShelf on November 08, 2017, 05:10:25 PM

I have a winter coat

And a very hot water.

Yeah there's warning signs for stuff everywhere in accomodation

Also my tooth brush is being held in a toilet paper tube because I don't have anything to put it in

>halo 5 wasn't a shitpost

damn

I was tempted to

But autism got in the way

So I have all the Halo Limited Edition copies, and it's a right pain in the arse if I want to actually play any of them because of how many layers of box they're kept in. So, I decidedto buy some blank XB1 game cases and make somecustom box art for my collection. Still not 100% on all of them but I'm quite happy with them right now.

I also did them for the ones without limited editions for consistency.










I'm consideringmoving the UNSC logo from Halo 3 to the cover of Wars 1 and moving the Covenant insignia of Wars to HAlo 2 to replace the Mark of Shame, then replacing the UNSC logo on 3 with the ONI logo. idk though maybe I will maybe I won't. Maybe put UNSC on HW2 then put Spirit of Fire on Wars 1.

You know those days when you and your partner just want to climax but aren't really putting any feelings into it. You just go though the motions and the 'pap-paps' but just feel kinda empty afterwards. That what a COD campaign feels like.

If anyone is getting this instead of Wolfenstein 2, you probably will also get the iPhone X and drive diesel.
80% you also put the milk before the bowl and drive an automatic.

woah

I think it's just that a lot of the people who grew up with the prequels are starting to voice their opinions. I mean, AoTC was one of the first films I saw in a cinema and RoTS was the first Star Wars I remember going to see, that's probably why I generally prefer Clone Wars era over Sequel, OT or Old Republic stuff.

Can't believe bungie recycled the layout for Cairo Station's hangars in The Almighty

Honestly I got Truth and Reconciliation vibes for the carrier in the EDZ in general.

I've only watched GOTG2, Spiderman, Dunkirk and Bladerunner so probably GOTG.

You know why they call me captain keyes, son

I'm guessing all this stuff is an american thing

Quote from: BaconShelf on October 30, 2017, 01:05:45 PM

Wtf is trap music

YouTube

a style of hip hop music that's really popular in america right now among stoners, club-goers, lean sippers, and trashy white girls

So this is what the cool kids are listening to huh

Quote from: BaconShelf on October 30, 2017, 02:15:09 AM

Quote from: Boomdeyadah on October 29, 2017, 09:11:14 PM

Imagine playing Halo 5 in 2017

>he doesn't make sentient crabs in forge

Explain🤔

You can use forge scripting to make objects that seek out players with a relentless bloodlust

Disagree

I enjoyed this season overall but

Quote from: Snake on October 24, 2017, 10:40:26 AM

Also I think we should all collectively start calling the "Switch" the "NS".

Why do you want to Switch it to that?

Nice