川普总统星期一命令美国航空航天总署恢复2011年暂停的载人太空探索计划，并宣布美国宇航员将再次踏上月球。
川普说：“这将是1972年以来第一次美国宇航员重返月球的重要一步，将进行长期探索和利用。这一次，我们将不仅插上国旗和留下足迹，还将建立一个最终用于探索火星的基地。或许将来有一天，会探索更多的星球。”
川普总统邀请几位宇航员和前宇航员出席了白宫签署指令的仪式。川普借用了阿姆斯特朗1969年第一次踏上月球时所说的名言：“一个人的一小步，人类的一大步。”他说：“这是朝着激励未来，重新回到美国在太空应有位置的一大步。”
参加签署仪式的包括全人类曾踏足月球12个人中的两个人 –埃德温· “巴兹”·奥尔德林和哈里森·“杰克”·施密特。奥尔德林在阿姆斯特朗迈出历史性一大步之后也踏上月球表面。施密特是1972年阿波罗17号的机组人员之一。那是美国最后一次登月飞行。
川普总统说，签署仪式正值施密特和阿波罗17号指挥长尤金·赛尔南1972年登月的45周年之际。
Pledging that “America will once again reach for the moon,” President Donald Trump Monday ordered the National Air and Space Administration to revive the manned space exploration program that was suspended in 2011.
“(This) marks an important step in returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972 for long-term exploration and use,” Trump said. “This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint, we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars. And perhaps, someday, to many worlds beyond.”
Surrounded by several astronauts and former astronauts in a White House ceremony, Trump paraphrased Neil Armstrong, who famously said “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” when he first set foot on the lunar surface in 1969. “This is a giant step toward that inspiring future and reclaiming America’s proud destiny in space,” Trump proclaimed.
Among those attending the event were two of the 12 humans ever to have walked on the moon, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, who touched the surface shortly after Armstrong’s historic step, and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, who did it as a crewmember of Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the moon in 1972.
Trump noted that the signing ceremony came exactly 45 years to the day after Schmitt’s moonwalk with Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan.