Pence pledges a U.S. return to the moon within 5 years

“It is the stated policy of this administration and the United States of America to return astronauts to the moon within the next five years,” Pence said at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. On the stage nearby was a model of an Apollo landing module that first transported American astronauts to the lunar surface 50 years ago.

Pence described a need for NASA to adopt greater urgency in returning to the moon. But an accelerated pace has not been evident in the Trump administration’s NASA budget requests to Congress, raising many questions about how it will be possible for the agency to accomplish this ambitious goal.

The vice president’s remarks called for changes in the agency's approach and culture, reflecting frustration within the administration at repeated delays in the development of NASA’s giant rocket, the Space Launch System, and Orion, a capsule for taking astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to the moon and possibly, eventually, to Mars.

Pence and other critics point out that only eight years elapsed between President John F. Kennedy’s famous announcement in 1961 of a plan to reach the moon and the landing of Apollo 11.

Pence raised the specter of China, which landed this year on the moon's far side and is also hoping to land astronauts on the moon in the 2020s.

He also fretted over the cost of relying on Russia, which has provided transportation for NASA astronauts to the International Space Station since the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011.

“We’re also racing against our worst enemy,” Pence said. “Complacency.”

Pence said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine had developed a plan to get back to the moon. But how this could be accomplished by the end of 2024 was far from clear.

NASA, for instance, has not started work on a lunar lander nor issued any contracts to commercial companies to work on one.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.