NASA aims to send astronauts back to the moon. Because that's what President Trump set during his first term as the destination for his agency's human spaceflight program.
On December 11, 2017, Trump signed what the White House called Space Policy Directive 1. This stated that “the United States will lead the return of humans to the moon for long-term exploration and use, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.”
Those who attended signing Trump's orders included Buzz Aldrin, the second person to step into the moon during the Apollo 11 mission after Neil Armstrong, and Harrison Schmidt, the Apollo 17 astronaut, where people were on the moon.
Three reasons are often provided for NASA to send astronauts back to the moon.
Much knowledge of the solar system can be collected from the moon, especially in eternally shadowed craters in polar regions that appear to hold frozen water.
The moon is the logical next stop for astronauts.
The US needs to return to the moon before China can get there.
Few people paid much attention to the moon decades after Apollo Moon Landing. The moon was a place where we were there, did it, a lethargic world without any vibrancy of rocks and dust, not anything else. Scientists and NASA were trying to explore Mars and other planets.
The discovery of frozen water in the crater rekindled interest in the moon.
Moonwater could simplify the mission of astronauts. Humans need to drink water to survive, and water molecules can be divided into hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen provides breathable air, and can also use hydrogen and oxygen as rocket propellants to return to Earth or travel elsewhere in the solar system.
Crater ice layers can also provide solar system history, just as Greenland and Antarctic ice cores provide a record of Earth's climate.
Spacecraft like Athena, an intuitive mechanical mission whose fate is uncertain after Thursday's attempt to land on the moon, is aiming to advance these targets.
The rapid rise of China's space program also sets the stage for a new space race. At the Commercial Space Congress in Washington in February, Texas Rep. Bruce Babin, the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, raised the ghost of the signs of “trespassing” of the moon, written in Chinese.
“My top priority is to ensure that US astronauts return to the moon and do so before the CCP,” Babin said using the Chinese Communist Party's initials.
It's not so sure whether Trump still wants to go to the moon.
During his campaign, in his first speech in January and in his speech to Congress this week, Trump mentioned planting the US flag on Mars. He rarely talks about the moon anymore.
SpaceX's CEO and Trump's principal adviser Elon Musk says the moon is a distraction despite SpaceX having a multi-billion-dollar NASA contract to build land that will take astronauts to the surface of the moon as part of its Artemis program.
