Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin doesn’t like all this hemming and hawing about getting back to the moon.

I think 2028 is so late-to-need that it doesn’t even need to be on the table. Such a date does not demonstrate that the United States is a leader in anything. This is 2018. It took us eight years to get to the Moon the first time, and you’re going to tell me it takes 10 to 12 to 14 to do it again when we know how? I just want to drop a flag on the play.

The occasion was a meeting of the National Space Council Users’ Advisory Group, one of whose members, Buzz Aldrin, is also against NASA’s plans for a “lunar gateway”/space station in lunar orbit with boots on the ground whenever we get around to it. Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a space shuttle, also thinks the timeline for getting back to the surface is really “far off.”

Share or save this article