Ancient Galactic Show in the Sky: Planets Fire Lightning Bolts

By Leonardo Vintini, Epoch Times

Were these recurring petroglyph patterns a familiar sight to ancient skies?

Given expression throughout history among countless civilizations around the world, the human image, rendered in a few simple lines, offers an unmistakable representation of a unique spectacle occurring in the ancient skies.

A Signal of the Gods

Suddenly, someone pointed toward the sky. The afternoon sky had become red, later white, and then an intense yellow. The great power of the firmament was both beautiful and terrifying, the most frightening that the group had ever seen. It was a beautiful and painful demonstration of human insignificance before the gods.

The grand sparkles stayed in the sky for a time, enough for the natives to engrave the scene on their granite canvases. The axis of energy charged across space, in its path letting loose gigantic streams of gas, some flying upward and other flying downward.

“…only a few thousand years ago the terrestrial sky was ablaze with electrical activity. The ramifications of this possibility will directly affect our understanding of cultural roots. What was the impact of the recorded events on the first civilizations? What was the relationship to the origins of world mythology, to the birth of the early religions, or to monumental construction in ancient times?” asks David Talbot and Wallace Thornhill in their book “Thunderbolts of the Gods.”

The true origin of the “squatter” or “stickman”—as the petroglyph is also known—is probably one of the enigmas most beloved by scientists who specialize in plasma physics. This graphic representation can be found and appreciated in the archaeological legacies of dozens of ancient cultures around the world—cultures with no apparent connection or contact—prompting many intrepid scientists to consider the “squatter” more as an event of magnificent proportions common to different cultures, rather than a vague and repetitive representation of human anatomy.

A New Theory for an Old Universe

Even so, the squatter does not represent the point of origin for this fantastic theory.  It is but a lucky piece of evidence found among the great current of vanguard thought known as “The Electric Universe.”

Proponents of the Electric Universe (such as is titled the work of Donald Scott, one of the pioneers of the idea) maintain that plasma, an energetic state of matter, is the substance and force that both fills and governs the totality of nearly all elements existing in the universe. Confronting such an idea may make possible radically new explications of familiar theories such as the Big Bang, dark matter, and Einstein’s general relativity, among others.

But when proponents of the Electric Universe theory hold that plasma—recognized as the fourth state of matter and a substance filling 99.9 percent of the known universe—is responsible for planetary attraction instead of gravity, the idea is often dismissed or even ridiculed by conservative scientists.

What’s certain is that the behavior of electricity between the warm gases and giant magnetic fields of the stars is an area that currently lacks the necessary study to either validate or refute this curious theory. To study such fields could indicate a new understanding of these phenomena, such as the energy of gamma rays, the acceleration of the expansion of the cosmos, and the tremendous discharges of energy which were said to have occurred once long ago, in the skies of remote times.

A Question of Electricity

The behavior of electricity in warm gases at cosmic magnitudes is still a discipline in its infancy. Yet this understanding applied to different electromagnetic fields may provide an idea of how a spatial discharge could take on a quasi-human form in ancient times.

The gigantic “electric” ray of plasma would resemble a human torso represented in the figure of the “squatter,” and the discs of energy traversing the axis of the body would be spread far, like waves going in opposite directions, giving the look of arms and legs. The profile view of a third element, a central “thread” that circles the body, would appear like two points condensing toward both sides of the figure, completing the most common representation of the picture.

In this way, the repulsion among the discs together with the axis of electricity would have given place to one of the most spectacular visions that ancient humanity could have had the joy of appreciating: a great being with open arms and arched legs.

According to graphic vestiges, the figure of the squatter could be appreciated from all points of the globe. Its form appears recorded in cultures of Arizona, Armenia, New Mexico, Venezuela, Spain, Italy, the Alps, the Middle East, and China among others.

Popular Negation, the Stigma of New Theories

But the squatter may not be the only unique celestial spectacle presented to the ancient world. Different patterns repeated in petroglyphs across the entire planet could be taken to note nebulas or abysmal explosions.

For years, scientists have only recognized the sun, the moon, and other direct representations found in the cultural ancestry as vivid observations of the celestial vault, chalking up images of gods, humans, and animals to imaginary aggregates of the artists. But many modern archeologists, like Anthony Peratt, have started to validate these “intrusions” in ancient mythology as substantial facts of existence.

In the same way that the idea of a flat Earth was replaced by the round globe reality we know today, as geocentrism was displaced for heliocentrism and as the theory of relativity ousted years of Newtonian ideology, the Electric Universe threatens to produce a total upheaval of all modern theories of the cosmos.

Frequently discredited, the pioneers of this new science may not be far from running into the same luck as Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, who were only granted their due after years of neglect and derision.

For more information:
http://members.cox.net/dascott3/index.htm
http://www.the-electric-universe.info/welcome.html
http://www.catastrophism.com/texts/electricity-in-space/
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/5-6-1/29185.html
http://www.thunderbolts.info/

Mars: The Mysterious Red Enigma

By Leonardo Vintini, Epoch Times

I remember being transfixed by the first lander image to show the horizon of Mars. This was not an alien world, I thought. I knew places like this in Colorado and Arizona and Nevada. There were rocks and sand drifts and a distant eminence, as natural and unselfconscious as any landscape on Earth. Mars was a place.

—Carl Sagan, “Blues for the Red Planet” Cosmos series 

For decades scientists have debated whether human life on the planet could ever be a feasible option considering Martian geology, water reserves, and other obstacles to be overcome in a future colonization. Despite these concerns, many still insist Earth’s frozen friend could be a new frontier. But as the idea is explored, it provokes some curious questions. Are we really prepared to think about Mars?

When it comes to candidates for future colonization, Mars is a promising place. It’s comparatively close and accessible—a whole lot more welcoming than what we would probably find exploring dozens of planetary systems at far greater distances. As far as other contenders, it’s a better candidate than our moon, according to Robert Zubrin, former chairman of the National Space Society. Perhaps because humankind has long been able to actually see Mars in the night sky, some believe that fate has favored humanity with a possible second home.

Even so, the red planet still remains some distance from our Earth, such that modern technology has yet to place a single human being on its soil. The result is a kind of intimacy barrier in that this seemingly close acquaintance we have so ingratiated has never become a true friend. The data we have tells us that its surfaces are frozen and its atmosphere is currently too inclement for human life, but it may not have always been that way. Experiments on the Martian surface, and the thousands of photographs and resonance images sent from orbiting satellites, have shown us with almost total certainty that Mars had at one time possessed liquid water. There is evidence for a Martian past with rain, rivers, lakes, and even a modest ocean. Mars is also rich in carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen—essential resources for supporting life. These are the characteristics that most distinguish Mars as a definitive candidate for future colonization.

While the Martian atmosphere does show some promise, its –58 F below zero temperatures and ultraviolet radiation would make even a brief stay rather uncomfortable.  Some have suggested thawing the Martian icecaps and the banks of water hidden under its powdery surface to make the planet more inhabitable. But even so, water is not the only mystery hidden within the planet. There is still much to know about our red neighbor, though the answers often elude us.

Since the 1960s, Mars has seen dozens of orbiters, landers, and other earthly visitors, but most have ended in varying degrees of failure. Some jokingly blame the “Galactic Ghoul”—a fictitious space monster intent on stopping exploration of the red planet—for the costly setbacks. 

 

Ancient Civilization?

Another mystery to ponder is the distant Martian past, as some believe that civilizations have already existed there. Aside from what appears to be pyramids and other structures seen on a part of the planet known as Cydonia, many are intrigued by what appears to be a giant face planted on Martian soil. While the European Space Agency has insisted that the “face” as seen in a photo taken during the 1976 Viking mission is simply a photographic distortion, the former curator of Astronomy & Space Science at the Springfield Museum of Science in Massachusetts, Richard C. Hoagland, believes otherwise. 

“Long before men looked at Mars and dreamed of going there one day, someone may have looked at Earth and watched it rise, green and sparkling, before a Martian dawn.  We have seen the evidence—a collection of enigmatic artifacts lying in the reddened Martian sands—and it is staggering: the possible ruins of a City, crumbling for all too many years back into the windswept wastes of the fourth planet of the sun,” writes Hoagland in the introduction of his 2002 book, “The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever.”

Further Exploration

Whether Mars enjoyed a past civilization is up for debate, but most agree that to make future colonization a reality, extensive research and exploration is still required. In the last few years President Bush has proposed a manned mission to the red planet, but the cost for such a project would be astronomical.

Till the end of his life, the astronomer Carl Sagan was an outspoken advocate for a manned mission to Mars. He was not daunted by cost, arguing that public officials had lost comparable sums in the savings and loans scandal. Yet Sagan remained practical concerning loftier goals. “The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand,” writes Sagan in his 2004 book, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.”

Maybe a colonized Mars will one day be a reality—a solution to the dilemma of the population explosion that nips at the heels of humanity. But for now, still too little is known about the inhospitable red planet to turn it into a trustworthy friend. Aside from actually getting there, fundamental problems of obtaining food and energy resources would also be significant hurdles to overcome. Even within our small blue home called Earth, we continue to struggle with these issues.

Russian Boy Reveals Past Life Experience on Ancient Mars

Boriska Kipriyanovich was discovered in 2003 at age 7 during a camping trip when he revealed memories he had from a past life on Mars and Lemuria long, long ago. He also warned of a catastrophic event, like a global flood, that he believed would happen on Earth in 2009 and 2013. He was featured in Russian media until news spread to the west. 

Boriska's parents say he remarkably began speaking when he was just a few months old. He could read, write, and draw when he was just 2 years old, and he talked about alien civilizations. Boriska began reading latin astronomy books when he was 4 years old. 

According to him, when he lived on Mars it was damaged by nuclear war and he was a spaceship pilot but not the cliche disk-shaped flying saucers powered by plasma turbines.

They were "airplane type. They were triangular. There were ships like a drop," said Boriska. Ships with plasma engines were limited to travel only in the solar system on high speed. The ships in a shape of a drop were carrying other ships."

He even used space portals. "Portal is the same like teleport. It slows down time and opens a kind of portal where time is speeding up fast... I can't say exactly. It opens on one side and in a few seconds or even minutes if the transfer is far away, it opens in another area of space.

Martians were 7 feet tall, live underground, breathe carbon dioxide, and are immortals that stop aging at 35 years old. There were different Martian races that fought against each other with different weapons and developed cultural differences since they stopped communicating and trading with each other. 

Supposedly, the ancient Martians had strong relations with Earth's ancient Egyptians and traveled between the two. He believes there's Great Sphinx of Egypt can be unlocked from behind an ear, which can change the world. 

There was a Jupiter Project to turn Jupiter into a second sun by sending capsules of some kind of energy or bombs but the wars on Mars interrupted this. During this war, everyone on Mars was killed and their souls were saved into special crystal Merkabas that could transport the souls to Earth and elsewhere, but some were broken. Boriska learned some of these things from a kind of Martian internet. 

...WOW! No wonder Elon Musk is trying so hard to get to Mars. This is a fascinating story with lots of information truth-seekers can cross-checking with other known information, such as pyramids and face monuments on Mars. What do you think about this? Let us know with your comments below. 

PROJECT PEGASUS: Government Attempt At Teleportation & Time Travel

Hollywood is not in short supply of science fiction movies and TV shows involving questionable government organizations conducting unethical experiments or handling top-secret missions. In the abundant and growing collection of audio-visual work in the sci-fi genre, there are a good number of compelling flicks that explore fringe and pseudoscientific topics like teleportation and time travel.

For example, in the 1984 film classic “The Philadelphia Experiment,” a government experiment ended up transporting two sailors from a ship in a harbor in Philadelphia in the year 1943 to the Nevada desert in 1984. In the 1995 neo-noir sci-fi movie “12 Monkeys,” a prisoner from 2035 is sent back to the past to prevent the release of a deadly virus that erased most of mankind’s population. And if you’ve watched Fox’s TV series “Fringe,” you probably saw FBI agents getting caught up in a strange world where parallel universes and alternate timelines were possible.

While these tales of fiction are surely fascinating, one can’t help but wonder if there’s any semblance of truth in them at all. Was our government ever involved in grand undertakings that experimented on the possibility of teleporting human beings to a distant place and perhaps even transporting them to a different time?

Some people will say “yes” to this question either because they simply believe in its possibility or because they claim to be personally involved in something like it. One example of this is the strange and unverified case of Andrew D. Basiago, whose purported participation in a top-secret government experiment program he referred to as “Project Pegasus” will be the topic of this video.

Who is Andrew D. Basiago?

Once upon a time, Andrew D. Basiago was nothing more than a Washington lawyer with a respected reputation. But beginning in 2004, this supposedly highly-esteemed image of his was called by some into question when he started to openly and publicly claim that, as a child, he was part of a top-secret program of the United States government under the banner of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA called “Project Pegasus.”

Alleged Participation in DARPA Experiments

What exactly did a seven-year old kid do for the next five years as a participant of Project Pegasus? Well, Basiago claims that between 1968 and 1972 - a time when the United States was fixated on the space race - he was a part of several experiments that allegedly teleported children through space and time.

In a 2012 interview with the Huffington Post, Basiago explained that the reason the kids were used as subjects of Project Pegasus was to determine the mental and physical effects of time jumping on children. He also revealed that children were better able in adjusting to the strains of moving forward and backward through time.

As for how teleportation and time travel was made possible, Basiago credits a teleporter technology purportedly developed by Nikola Tesla - a legendary pioneer in mechanical engineering - prior to his death in 1943. Bending the time-space continuum is supposedly achievable by harnessing what Tesla called “radiant energy,” and a curtain of this “latent and pervasive energy in the universe” is accessible through a machine made up of “two gray elliptical booms” measuring around eight feet tall which were built 10 feet apart.

When participants of Project Pegasus entered the radiant energy field, they found themselves inside a vortex-like tunnel before they reached their destination. During his stint in the program, Basiago alleges that he went back in time to attend Abraham Lincoln’s historical Gettysburg address in the latter half of the 19th century. According to Basiago, he can even be spotted in a photograph captured during the event.

He also claims that he also got to transport multiple times to Ford’s Theater on the night of the president’s assassination. And because he was teleported to Ford’s Theatre in 1865 at several starting points in his present, he even encountered versions of himself during his visits. This led him to conclude that while the technology used for Project Pegasus had real-life uses as a teleportation machine, there would chaotic consequences if the government decided to frequently use it for time travel. He also believed that what they accomplished in the program did not just involve bending time and space since they somehow also accessed “alternative realities on adjacent timelines.”

Alleged Teleportation to Mars

Aside from his alleged involvement with DARPA and Project Pegasus, Basiago also regards himself as a “discoverer of life on Mars.” He claims that during the 1980s, he was teleported to Mars as one of the ambassadors of Earth that made contact with the existing civilization of our neighbor planet. At some point during his Mars mission, he encountered a dinosaur - particularly a Martian Plesiosaur.

As if human-eating dinosaurs on Mars don’t sound sensational enough, Basiago also revealed that among those who got to teleport to planet Mars just like him in the 1980s was President Barack Obama himself. Obama supposedly went by a different name during the Mars teleportation program. This name was Barry Soetoro, which researchers claim Obama actually used for his college transcripts when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.

2016 & 2020 Presidential Campaign & Government Transparency Agenda

Basiago’s dedication to disclose the truth about the U.S. government’s secret activities involving teleportation and time travel technologies is so relentless that he announced his intentions to launch a U.S. presidential campaign in 2016. His platform largely focuses on the disclosure of classified information about advanced technologies, time travel, extraterrestrial existence and secret space programs.

Clearly, his attempt at getting elected as the new president of the United States failed. However, it looks like Basiago is already making plans to run for president one more time at the forthcoming 2020 elections if his official website, Andy2020.Net, is any indication. If successful, he hopes to usher in a “new era of truth, reform, and innovation” for the American people.

Many have dismissed Basiago’s strange claims as nothing more than the fantastical ramblings of an eccentric man with a deranged mind. Others, of course, would dare to look beyond the bizarreness of his allegations and attempt to spot the little grains of truth in the unbelievable things he says, especially since he is not the only whistleblower that made similar claims.

How about you? What do you think of Andrew Basiago’s story? Do you think he really got to travel in time and teleport to Mars? And even if his claims are completely bogus, is it nonetheless possible that the U.S. government did operate or is still operating top-secret programs similar to this so-called Project Pegasus?

---

SOURCES:

1.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/28/andrew-basiago-seattle-attorney-time-travels_n_1438216.html

2.https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Andrew_Basiago

3.https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/marte/marte_vida02.htm

4.http://andy2020.net/proposals/

5.http://exopolitics.org/tag/project-pegasus/

Elon Musk Creates Mega-Rocket That Will Carry Astronauts To Mars

This artist's rendering made available by Elon Musk on Friday, Sept. 29, 2017 shows SpaceX's new mega-rocket design on the Earth's moon. With the 350-foot-tall spacecraft, Musk announced that his private space company aims to launch two cargo missions to Mars in 2022. (SpaceX via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX chief Elon Musk's elaborate plan for a mega-rocket to carry astronauts to Mars may have some down-to-Earth applications.

At a conference in Australia on Friday, Musk said if you build a ship capable of going to the moon and Mars, why not use it for high-speed transport here at home. He proposes using his still-in-the-design phase rocket for launching passengers from New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes flat.

Los Angeles to New York, or Los Angeles to Honolulu in 25 minutes. London to Dubai in 29 minutes.

"Most of what people consider to be long-distance trips would be completed in less than half an hour," Musk said to applause and cheers at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk gestures as he delivers a speech at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, Friday, Sept. 29, 2017. Musk's elaborate plan for a mega-rocket to carry astronauts to Mars may have some down-to-Earth applications. (Morgan Sette/AAP Image via AP)

A seat should cost about the same as a full-fare economy plane ticket, he noted later via Instagram.

Friday's address was a follow-up to one he gave to the group last September in Mexico, where he unveiled his grand scheme for colonizing Mars. He described a slightly scaled-down 348-foot-tall (106-meter-tall) rocket and announced that the private space company aims to launch two cargo missions to Mars in 2022.

"That's not a typo," he said, pausing, as charts appeared on a large screen. "Although it is aspirational."

Two more cargo missions would follow in 2024 to provide more construction materials, along with two crewed flights. The window for launching to Mars occurs every two years.

For the approximately six-month, one-way trips to Mars, the SpaceX ships would have 40 cabins, ideally with two to three people per cabin for a grand total of about 100 passengers. Musk foresees this Mars city growing, and over time "making it really a nice place to be."

Scott Hubbard, an adjunct professor at Stanford University and a former director of NASA's Ames Research Center, calls it "a bold transportation architecture with aspirational dates." A demonstration of some sort in the 2020s will add to its credibility, he said in an email. And while more details are needed for life-support systems, "Kudos to Elon and SpaceX for keeping the focus on humans to Mars!"

This artist's rendering made available by Elon Musk on Friday, Sept. 29, 2017 shows SpaceX's new mega-rocket design at the International Space Station. With the 350-foot-tall spacecraft, Musk announced that his private space company aims to launch two cargo missions to Mars in 2022. (SpaceX via AP)

Former NASA chief technologist Bobby Braun, now dean of the college of engineering and applied science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, also sees Musk's plan as a step in the right direction, building on technologies SpaceX already has demonstrated, like reusable rockets.

"While the timeline and capabilities are certainly ambitious, I'm bullish on U.S industry's ability to carry out challenging and far-reaching goals," Braun wrote in an email. "It's great to see the private sector lead in this way, and I hope we see more of it."

NASA is charting its own path to what it calls the "Deep Space Gateway," beginning with expeditions in the vicinity of the moon in the 2020s and eventually culminating at Mars. The space agency has handed much of its Earth-orbiting work to private industry, including SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Boeing.

Earlier Friday in Adelaide, Lockheed Martin presented its vision for a "Mars Base Camp" in partnership with NASA. Astronauts could be on their way in about a decade, the company said. This first mission would orbit the red planet, rather than land.

Musk intends to finance his $10 billion Mars endeavor by using a rocket that's smaller than the one outlined last year. Fewer engines would be needed: 31 versus the originally envisioned 42. Its lift capability would be 150 tons, more than NASA's old moon rocket, the Saturn V.

This artist's rendering made available by Elon Musk on Friday, Sept. 29, 2017 shows SpaceX's new mega-rocket design on Mars. With the 350-foot-tall spacecraft, Musk announced that his private space company aims to launch two cargo missions to the red planet in 2022. (SpaceX via AP)

He wants one type of booster and spaceship that can replace the company's current Falcon 9 rocket, the soon-to-fly Falcon Heavy rocket designed for heavier satellites, and the Dragon capsule presently used to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, and, as soon as next year, station astronauts.

That way SpaceX can put all its resources toward this new system, Musk said. Revenue from launching satellites, and sending supplies and crews to the space station, could pay for the new rocket, he said.

Musk said the same spaceship for moon and Mars trips — long and cylindrical with small shuttle-like wings — could fly to the space station. He said the mega-rocket could be used to establish a lunar settlement, with spaceships being refueled in Earth orbit versus creating a vital fuel depot at Mars.

The mega-rocket doesn't have a name but for now is called BFR. The B is for big; the R for rocket. As for the F, well, you get the idea.

___

Online:

SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com/

Super Solar Storm Hits Mars with Dazzling Aurora

On September 11, 2017, a strong coronal mass ejection from our sun hit Mars, dazzling NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft's sensors. 

This Mars aurora was 25x brighter than any seen before and double surface radiation levels!

View fullsize

These images show the sudden appearance of a bright aurora on Mars during a solar storm in September 2017. The purple-white color scheme shows the intensity of UV light seen on Mars’ night side before (left) and during (right) the event. A simulated image of Mars for the same time and orientation has been added, with the dayside crescent visible on the right. The auroral emission appears brightest at the edges of the planet where the line of sight passes along the length of the glowing atmosphere layer. The data are from observations by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument (IUVS) on NASA’s MAVEN orbiter. Note that, unlike auroras on Earth, the Martian aurora is not concentrated at the planet’s polar regions. This is because Mars has no strong magnetic field like Earth’s to concentrate the aurora near the poles. Image credit: NASA / University of Colorado.

“When a solar storm hits the Martian atmosphere, it can trigger auroras that light up the whole planet in UV light. The recent one lit up Mars like a light bulb,” said Dr. Sonal Jain, a member of MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument team and a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

“An aurora on Mars can envelope the entire planet because Mars has no strong magnetic field like Earth’s to concentrate the aurora near polar regions.”

“The energetic particles from the Sun also can be absorbed by the upper atmosphere, increasing its temperature and causing it to swell up.”

The strange thing about this large-scale event isn't its size but rather the timing. You see, our sun's activities follow an 11-year cycle with a peak in the middle, yet this massive solar storm occurred during a usually calm time. So this begs the question of what caused such unusual behavior. 

All wise ancient civilizations of our great ancestors acknowledged and studied carefully, with surprising accuracy, the celestial phenomena in our skies as well as the influence these gigantic heavenly bodies have upon our earthly bodies and behavior. 

Nowadays many people hardly look up, let alone within themselves. So remember to hit the pause button to take a breather from the hustle and bustle of busy daily life to reflect upon the direction you're heading in life or, at least, enjoy the beautiful light show above. 

---

Sources:
http://www.sci-news.com/space/solar-storm-global-aurora-mars-05278.html

Pence Pledges That US Will Go To Moon, Mars, And Beyond

Vice President Mike Pence speaks in front of NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery at the National Space Council first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks with Vice President Mike Pence, right, during the National Space Council's first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Vice President Mike Pence, right, accompanied by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks during the first meeting of the National Space Council at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Vice President Mike Pence delivers opening remarks during the National Space Council's first meeting, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The National Space Council, chaired by Pence, heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space, and national security space industry representatives. (Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seated before the grounded space shuttle Discovery, a constellation of Trump administration officials used soaring rhetoric to vow to send Americans back to the moon and then on to Mars.

After voicing celestial aspirations, top officials moved to what National Intelligence Director Dan Coats called "a dark side" to space policy. Coats, Vice President Mike Pence, other top officials and outside space experts said the United States has to counter and perhaps match potential enemies' ability to target U.S. satellites.

Pence, several cabinet secretaries and White House advisers gathered in the shadow of the shuttle at the Smithsonian Institution's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to chart a new path in space — government, commercial and military — for the country.

It was the first meeting of the National Space Council, revived after it was disbanded in 1993.

Vice President Mike Pence, right, accompanied by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks during the first meeting of the National Space Council at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

But details, such as how much the new ideas will cost, were scant and outside experts said they've heard grandiose plans before only to see them fizzle instead of launch.

"We will return American astronauts to the moon, not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond," Pence said.

Space industry leaders say they and NASA are building the spaceships to get there. And they're promising that in five years, astronauts could be working around the moon
David Thompson, president of the space company Orbital ATK, said NASA's Orion capsule and super-sized Space Launch System rocket should be ready in a couple years, so flying around the moon and even making a lunar orbiting outpost is within reach. But he said a lunar landing would take longer. Blue Origin rocket company chief executive officer Bob Smith said his firm could have a lunar lander program ready within five years.

No humans have been on the moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
Only 12 men have set foot on the moon, all have been Americans.

Vice President Mike Pence delivers opening remarks during the National Space Council's first meeting, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The National Space Council, chaired by Pence, heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space, and national security space industry representatives. (Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP)

"Past presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush proposed returns to the moon and then going on to Mars. Barack Obama rerouted the moon plan to an asteroid as a first-stop with Mars as the goal. All plans had lack of money keeping them from coming true," said space expert Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation. He wasn't part of the council meeting.

"Is it going to happen? Who knows? I feel like I've been disappointed so many times I refuse to get excited," said Roger Launius, a longtime space historian.

And Gwynn Shotwell, president of SpaceX, said her company next year will launch astronauts to the International Space Station, the first American launch of people since 2011.  After the 2003 space shuttle Columbia broke apart on descent, then-president George W. Bush announced the phasing out of the space shuttle program. Eventually, NASA started building new multi-billion dollar ships, the Orion capsule and the SLS mega-rocket.

Pence several times bemoaned a U.S. space program that had fallen behind, asking space executives what they thought.

"America is out-innovating the world in space launch," Shotwell said, noting that her company had launched 13 rockets this year, more than any other nation.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks with Vice President Mike Pence, right, during the National Space Council's first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

After talking about how "we will blaze new trails into that great frontier" Pence turned the discussion to the dangers of space and how much of the U.S. intelligence system and day-to-day life are dependent on commercial satellites operating safely. And he and others outlined threats to those satellites from potential enemies that could cripple American security and daily life.

Experts worried that satellites could be destroyed and debris in orbit could ruin others. Pence asked if the U.S. should "weaponize" space.

"The choice whether or not to weaponize space is not one that we can make. We can only decide to match and raise our adversaries who are already weaponizing space," former NASA chief Michael Griffin said. "That horse is already out of the barn."

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the country needs to "deter and when necessary defeat adversaries' counter-space efforts...  We may not start it but we will finish it."

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears . His work can be found here .