“NASA intends to shift its human spaceflight program out to the Moon and cis-lunar region, evaluating new habitat technologies, surface transportation systems, fuel generation, and storage solutions, as well as additional technologies that need to be developed prior to traveling to the surface of the Moon and deeper into space.”
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/f...tegic_plan.pdf
NASA plan from 2011
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/516579main_...ategicPlan.pdf
My view, having worked DOD programs with NASA, and serving with Charlie Bolden in the USMC, ( Obama’s NASA Director) and several former astronauts that I served with (I was not in thier club but I had several of them back in the day take squadron patches and other such to orbit for me) that were basically at odds with Charlie’s direction.
NASA started to lose its way 30 years ago when it started putting school teachers in Space. This was about the time Charlie joined NASA.They went from risk takers stretching the limits of aviation technology and space to overly cautious globalists.
The practical effect was that in DOD, we had to do our own thing for hypersonics, power source technology, imagery and satellites. You see this in the rise of commercial enterprises as well. but I’d prefer the risk taking leading edge technology attitude