The space agency made the spectacular announcement in a tantalising video and seems to be a solution to the Space Policy Directive-1, which Donald Trump signed last year with orders for NASA to increase its physical space exploration efforts. The short video shows a plethora of archive footage, including that of the first historic landing of man on the Moon in 1969. A voiceover from actor Mike Rowe says: “We’ve taken giant leaps and left our mark in the heavens.
“Now we’re building the next chapter, returning to the Moon to stay, and preparing to go beyond.
“We are NASA – and after 60 years, we’re just getting started.
“It is time we take the next great leap.”
NASA has recently submitted a plan to US Congress which outlined its National Space Exploration Campaign.
In the document, the space agency “calls for human and robotic exploration missions to expand the frontiers of human experience and scientific discovery of the natural phenomena of Earth, other worlds and the cosmos”.
There are five main goals in the plan.
One is to commercialise space operations to take the public into low-Earth orbit for NASA missions so the government does not need to bear the entire cost.
Another is to return humans to the surface of the Moon, and another is to lead the charge to build a station on the Moon so humans can use it as a pit stop to Mars.
The plan is also to send more robotic missions to the Moon study how humans can get to Mars and other worlds.
NASA is not the only operation looking to win the space race to get humans on Mars.
The likes of China and private space firms such as SpaceX are also striving to get to the Red Planet
NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin said a Mars colonisation is achievable by 2040, while tech billionaire Elon Musk is more ambitious and says that he hopes to get people to the Red Planet by the 2030s.
Last year, the SpaceX CEO said the mission can be accomplished in “about 10 years, maybe sooner, maybe nine years”.