Analysts say manned moon missions more realistic than landing on Mars

Under Obama, private companies have taken the lead on space travel

The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States could herald the return of American astronauts to the surface of the Moon.

Observers of NASA and the American space program say that if Trump appoints key Republican ally Newt Gingrich to a top position, the US may find itself leading international efforts to build a permanent base on the lunar surface – a major stepping stone toward the ultimate goal of one day sending a manned mission to Mars.

Gingrich has been a vocal proponent of once again sending astronauts to the moon, only this time to establish a permanent colony there from which scientists could continue to explore the solar system.

The former House speaker even suggested that the lunar colony would one day hold 13,000 settlers, and that it would even perhaps qualify for statehood in the US, according to The Washington Post.

Any renewed focus on lunar missions would likely come at the expense of NASA's Earth Sciences division, which received increased funding under Obama and performs research related to climate change.

Newt Gingrich (left), the former House speaker, is believed likely to bring influence to bear on President-elect Donald Trump's (right) space policies

He made it one of his policy points during his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

‘It is very plausible to speculate that the new administration will insert a mission to the lunar surface, probably international in character, as a step on the way to Mars’, a prominent space policy analyst, John Logsdon, told The Washington Post.

‘Politically, most of the other countries of the world have identified the moon as an interesting destination, and they don’t really have the capabilities to talk about sending people to Mars’.

‘If we want to assert international leadership, we would take a position in leading a coalition to return to the moon’, Logsdon said.

Gingrich as well as other Republicans rumored to be under consideration for posts in a Trump administration have favored resuming manned missions to the moon (seen above)

Trump’s victory has placed NASA at a crossroads.

Once he assumes the presidency officially, Trump is expected to appoint Republicans to key positions who also advocate a return to the moon.

House Rep. James Bridenstine, a Republican from Oklahoma, has been mentioned as a possible candidate who would head NASA in a Trump administration.

According to The Washington Post, Bridenstine has been a proponent of putting Americans back on the moon.

Edwin Aldrin is seen above posing next to the US flag on July 20, 1969, during the Apollo mission, the first time man landed on the moon. No astronaut has set foot there since 1972

Another Republican said to be under consideration to head NASA is Scott Pace, who served as associate administrator of the agency under President George W. Bush.

Pace believes that putting humans on the moon would not only advance science but it would also ‘meet an important international objective’ by serving as a ‘foreign policy tool’ that would be easier and more realistic to pursue than a mission to Mars.

Bush’s signature space program, Constellation, envisaged a lunar landing by the year 2020, but the program was scrapped by President Barack Obama, who has instead focused on privatizing space travel.

Under President Barack Obama (left), the US has preferred to allow private companies led by entrepreneurs like Elon Musk (right) to map the future of space travel

Other commercial, non-NASA entities have taken the lead in blazing new frontiers in space.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos built a space travel firm, Blue Origin, that seeks to catapult tourists beyond the earth’s stratosphere at a reasonable cost, making it available to the masses.

Another billionaire entrepreneur, Elon Musk, helms SpaceX, a company whose stated goal is not just to land a manned mission on Mars, but to colonize the red planet.

Obama has gone on record as saying that he supports putting a man on Mars by the year 2030.

In the period between 1969 and 1972, 12 American astronauts set foot on the moon. Since then, no one has come close.