Student News IE | Members Of US Congress Want NASA To Send Astronauts Back To The Moon

Members Of US Congress Want NASA To Send Astronauts Back To The Moon
Student News IE | April 11, 2013

US President Barack Obama recently announced that the country is ready to release the budget to NASA to start planning a program that aims to capture an asteroid, but several members of the US Congress said that the country should still focus on manned mission to the moon.

Earlier this week, Obama said that NASA can spend up to $100 million for the asteroid-hunting mission, calling for the abolition of planned manned-mission to the moon. The President previously said: “We’ve been there. There’s a lot more space to explore.”

However, several members of the US Congress filed the RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act or REAL Space Act that will direct NASA to plan to return to the moon by 2022 and establish a human presence in the lunar body. The presence of human in moon will be a stepping stone for future exploration to Mars and other breakthrough researches about the solar system.

Representative Bill Posey said: “The Moon is our nearest celestial body, taking only a matter of days to reach. In order to explore deeper into space—to Mars and beyond—a moon presence offers us the ability to develop and test technologies to cope with the realities of operating on an extraterrestrial surface.”

Alabama representative Robert Aderholt said that establishing human presence in the moon will reassert the country’s status as the leader in space despite several attempts from other powerful countries.

Aderholt said: “Moon missions, both human and robotic, offer the United States true international cooperation, while ensuring that we lead from the front. Other nations, private industry, and government experts all regard the Moon as the right place for NASA to direct its resources. The time to reassert the United States as the leader in space is now and the REAL Space Act is the next step.”

Currently, there are twelve Americans that were able to explore a section of the moon, but the scope of the exploration is not wide enough because the explored section is said to be smaller than the national mall.

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