NASA was already working on plans to return humans to the moon in the late 2020s when Vice President Mike Pence took the stage at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, March 26 for the fifth meeting of the National Space Council. “At the direction of the president of the United States, it is the stated policy of this administration and the United States of America to return American astronauts to the moon within the next five years,” Pence announced.

This article originally appeared in the April 8, 2019 issue of SpaceNews magazine.

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Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science...