Trump’s 5-year moon landing plan has gone off the rails
The idea was simple when vice president Mike Pence pitched it earlier this year: Let’s get astronauts back on the moon by 2024, not 2028 as had been NASA’s plan. To make this happen, the White House proposed a temporary increase of $1.6 billion this year to NASA’s budget, and something on the order of $20 to $30 billion in additional money over the next five. Former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich, meanwhile, is urging US president Donald Trump to skip all that and just hold a contest for space companies.