US want to see astronauts‍🚀 return to the Moon

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

Speaking to the National Space Council, the VP 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.

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), Pence said US space policy had lost its edge and needed to reassert itself.

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.

"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.

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."

UCJ, UNILORIN.