VP Mike Pence revs up NASA schedule for putting astronauts on station in lunar orbit
During a pep talk to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas, Vice President Mike Pence today highlighted what he saw as the mistakes of past space policy and touted an ambitious plan to put American astronauts on a new space station in lunar orbit by the end of 2024.
Pence said the Trump administration was working with Congress on a $500 million initiative to move NASA’s Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway “from proposal to production.” The first element of the outpost, known as the Power and Propulsion Element, is due for launch in 2022.
NASA’s first crewed launch of its heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket is currently scheduled for 2023. That mission would send astronauts around the moon and back in an Orion deep-space capsule. Pence suggested that a follow-up SLS launch would send astronauts to dock with the Gateway sometime during the following year.
“Our administration is working tirelessly to put an American crew aboard the Lunar Orbital Platform before the end of 2024. … It’s not a question of if. It’s just a question of when,” Pence told the audience at Johnson Space Center.
Meeting a 2024 timetable would require getting other components of the Gateway attached to the Power and Propulsion Element — and clearing a more powerful variant of the SLS, known as Block 1B, for crewed flight. That schedule is theoretically doable, but challenging for an Orion-SLS development program that has already met with delays.
Putting a crew aboard the Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway in 2024 would mesh with the Trump administration’s drive to phase out direct federal funding for the International Space Station by 2025.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters in Houston that the space agency wanted to make sure a gap in space station utilization “doesn’t materialize,” as it did in the case of the space shuttle program.
Pence, who heads the White House’s National Space Council, reiterated the administration’s commitment to the space station transition and other aspects of space policy during today’s talk. Among the highlights:
In addition to his NASA visit, Pence spent time in Houston campaigning for U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, who attended the Johnson Space Center gathering. Also in attendance were the nine NASA astronauts selected to fly on next year’s first commercial crew missions to the International Space Station.