NASA Gearing-Up Human Spaceflight for the Moon in President Obama's Second-Term?

Artist concept of gateway station courtesy John Frassanito & Associates.)

Space fever could soon reach a new high with rumblings about NASA announcing new manned moon missions with a possible space outpost on the menu in the wake of President Obama's re-election, notes Slate.

 

Following a Space.com story and earlier rumors, George Washington University professor emeritus John Logsdon, says the game plan has already been given the go-ahead by the White House.

 

Starting with a  “gateway” deep-space station between Earth and the moon as a stepping stone out of low-Earth orbit around 2021,  American astronauts would embark upon more manned missions to the moon, a manned outpost on the far side of the moon, a mission sending astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, and the commencement of manned missions to Mars by the mid-2030s.

Apollo 17's Harrison H. Schmitt on the Moon in Dec. 1972. Credit: NASA

Perhaps, the White House will advance the proposals in Chicago with NASA as America approaches the 40th anniversary next month of the Apollo 17 mission last landing a human on the moon. The Obamanauts may be "fired-up and ready to go!"  More from Wired.