The first manned Moon flight since the last Apollo mission in 1972 had been scheduled for 2028. In 2017, Trump set a goal of returning to the Moon as a first step before moving on to human exploration of Mars. "Failure to achieve our goal to return an American astronaut to the Moon in the next five years is not an option." "We got it loud and clear," NASA head Bridenstine responded to the vice president. He assured the gathering that the SLS rocket would be ready in 2020.

Source: Bangkok Post March 26, 2019 21:45 UTC