Apollo veterans are helping Nasa with its new moon mission: ‘We are taking it to the next level’

While engineers build on the foundations of the 1969 trip to tackle the next lunar adventure – Trump must overcome scepticism from congress and decide what the new mission means, writes Chris Stevenson

Donald Trump and Mike Pence have made it a priority to put boots back on the moon (Nasa/AP)

Almost 50 years to the day since Neil Armstrong took his “giant leap for mankind” by stepping on to the moon – Regina Spellman is still in awe of their achievements but her eyes are fixed on what comes next. The Nasa project manager is one of those in charge of refitting Launch Pad 39B, where Apollo 11, containing Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, blasted into space in 1969. Now, the space agency is looking to put the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface in 2024.

“Being able to write that next chapter, knowing what has come before through Apollo and the shuttle programme, and knowing we are writing that next story is amazing. It is humbling to think about what they were able to do... especially considering they didn’t have the computing power we do,” she says. “That we are even in the same conversation... is incredible.”

Spellman should know what the Apollo missions took, she works with veterans of that programme and while Nasa has had to build on that expertise over the past five decades the principles of that era-defining trip underpin everything she does. The current mission, called Artemis, the sister of Apollo, is daunting in itself. Having been set the task of returning to the moon in 2028, Donald Trump’s administration has accelerated that timeline. Vice-president Mike Pence said back in March that the later deadline was “just not good enough” and that “urgency must be our watch word”.