foot on the moon, a moment for the ages.

But ever since the space shuttles were retired, there's been a renewed debate over what NASA's

mission should be.

As it turns out, what's old is new again.

There's a big push to return to the moon.

Miles O'Brien looks at those questions and the man who tasked -- is tasked with overseeing

it for our weekly segment about the Leading Edge of science, technology and health.

MILES O'BRIEN: One year into his tenure as NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstine is a man

on a new mission for the space agency.

MAN: Please join me in welcoming Jim Bridenstine.

(APPLAUSE)

MILES O'BRIEN: It made him a star at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, the annual

convening of the cosmic cognoscenti.

JIM BRIDENSTINE, NASA Administrator: So many in this room are familiar that we have been

given now a new charge, that we are going to place humans on the surface of the moon

in five years.

For a number of years at NASA, they weren't really allowed to talk about going to the

moon.

And now they not only can talk about going to the moon.

The idea that we're going to be there in five years has everybody extremely excited.

MILES O'BRIEN: U.S. astronauts on the moon by 2024, Vice President Mike Pence dropped

that gauntlet at the end of March.

MIKE PENCE, Vice President of the United States: Now, make no mistake about it.

We're in a space race today, just as we were in the 1960s, and the stakes are even higher.

MILES O'BRIEN: A space race with whom?

A private mission designed by Elon Musk and SpaceX or also China, which landed on the

far side of the moon in January, and vows to build a permanent encampment there in a

decade.

It's a time frame that invokes another race, another era.

JOHN F. KENNEDY, President of the United States: We choose to go to the moon in this decade

and do the other things, not because they are easy, because they are hard.

MILES O'BRIEN: NASA delivered on President Kennedy's audacious challenge 50 years ago

this July.

That moon race was fueled by rivalry with the Soviets, the desire to honor the wishes

of a martyred leader, and a blank check from taxpayers.

A lot of things just lined up perfectly to make that happen.

JIM BRIDENSTINE: That's right.

MILES O'BRIEN: Do you see the similar ingredients right now?

JIM BRIDENSTINE: So, it's a different era.

That kind of competition doesn't exist right now.

But what does exist now that's unique that didn't happen back then is all of the partnerships

with international players.

MILES O'BRIEN: During the symposium, the former Navy fighter pilot, who wasn't even alive

during Apollo, met with those international partners.

He had some convincing to do.

U.S. space policy has shifted with the political wind.

In 2004, President George W. Bush retired the shuttle program and set his sights on

the moon, a program called Constellation.

But when Barack Obama became president, he made it clear the moon didn't interest him.

So, in 2010, he canceled Constellation after an independent committee determined the NASA

budget fell far short of the ambition.

The agency was left with a vague underfunded notion to go to Mars.

But in December of 2017, President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, which put NASA back

on course to the moon.

NASA policy has been as dizzying as the stomach-churning gimbal rig test endured by the first astronauts.

When you talk to your counterparts, as you did earlier today, and you tell them, we're

going to be there in five years, we need your help, are they kind of hanging on to their

wallet a little bit?

Are they a little skeptical?

JIM BRIDENSTINE: We are anxiously anticipating the resources that come from these other countries.

But you're right, not every country will participate at the same level, and we're OK with that.

MILES O'BRIEN: All the big spacefaring nations were here, except China, conspicuous in its

absence.

What are your thoughts on whether China should somehow be brought into this partnership?

JIM BRIDENSTINE: So, that goes above the pay grade of the NASA administrator.

What I will tell you is that we follow the law, and the law says that NASA is not going

to do any bilateral kind of cooperation with China.

MILES O'BRIEN: So what will this international sprint look like?

To be determined, quickly.

MIKE PENCE: The president has directed NASA and Administrator Jim Bridenstine to accomplish

this goal by any means necessary.

You must consider every available option and platform to meet our goals, including industry,

government, and the entire American space enterprise.

MILES O'BRIEN: Pence gave that address at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville

Alabama, where they designed the Saturn V rocket that carried Apollo astronauts to the

moon.

The even bigger rocket they and Boeing are building now, the Space Launch System, or

SLS, is troubled.

JIM BRIDENSTINE: It's behind schedule.

Yes, it's over cost.

Yes, it's been a challenge.

Every rocket program in history has had those challenges, but we're almost there.

And the problems that it has had historically -- it's been under development now for 10

years -- we're getting those problems fixed.

MILES O'BRIEN: Elon Musk's SpaceX is in early development of a huge rocket for missions

to the moon and Mars, but it is unlikely a commercial alternative to SLS would be ready

in time.

Besides, politics dictates this rocket be at the center of this program.

The powerful delegation from Alabama will have it no other way.

When he came to NASA, Bridenstine was in his third term as a Republican congressman from

Oklahoma.

He understands technology through a political prism.

JIM BRIDENSTINE: There's two kinds of risk.

There's the technical risk and then there's the political risk.

As a member of Congress, I can tell you, I have seen it.

The technical risk is irrelevant if the politics aren't right.

MILES O'BRIEN: Bridenstine has already gotten a taste of the skepticism he is facing among

his former colleagues.

REP.

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (D-TX): The simple truth is, is that we are not in a space race to

get to the moon.

We won that race a half-century ago.

MILES O'BRIEN: Democrat Eddie Bernice Johnson chairs the House Science Committee.

REP.

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON: Rhetoric that is not backed by a concrete plan and believable cost

estimates is just hot air.

And hot air might be helpful in ballooning, but it won't get us to the moon or Mars.

MILES O'BRIEN: Even if SLS works, NASA needs a lot more hardware, like the Orion crew capsule

built by Lockheed Martin and its service module built by the European Space Agency.

But the agency also aims to build a small outpost orbiting the moon called the Lunar

Orbital Platform-Gateway.

And, of course, it needs a lander.

Bridenstine is hoping for help from international partners or maybe commercial players.

Why five years?

A lot of people look at it and say, this synchs up with the political calendar perhaps a little

bit suspiciously.

Is there a political motivation to all this?

JIM BRIDENSTINE: I don't think so at all.

If there is, nobody has talked to me about it.

So, I will tell you what I think it is.

The idea that these long timelines allow the agency to be cast to and fro by political

whims, that's what we're trying to avoid.

MILES O'BRIEN: The plan is more than a sprint, followed by flags, footprints and photos.

NASA hopes it will be the beginning of a permanent outpost near the lunar south pole, a base

for science and a proving ground for a mission to Mars.

The concern has always been that, on paper, that's a great idea.

It's a springboard to Mars.

It also could be a cul-de-sac or a dead end.

JIM BRIDENSTINE: Right.

MILES O'BRIEN: Because there's only so much money and interest.

JIM BRIDENSTINE: That's right.

MILES O'BRIEN: And it could lose momentum.

JIM BRIDENSTINE: Yes.

So you're right.

If we get bogged down on the moon and we put all of our resources there, then we're not

going to get to Mars.

So we don't want that to happen.

MILES O'BRIEN: Speed, sustainability and safety all at once will not be cheap.

There is an expression in the space world made popular in the 1983 movie "The Right

Stuff":

ACTOR: No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

MILES O'BRIEN: And in those glory days, NASA had a whole lot of bucks, more than twice

the budget it gets now.

So the administration is poised to ask Congress to up the ante on space.

It will require bipartisan support.

Sure, NASA can send a man to the moon, but politics is not as easy as rocket science.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Miles O'Brien in Colorado Springs.