The United States is to send four astronauts to the moon by 2020, the country’s space agency, NASA, has announced.
The NASA administrator, Michael Griffin, said that the astronauts would travel in a new shuttle.
The last manned mission to the moon was the Apollo 17 rocket in 1972.
In advance of today's official announcement, there has been criticism of the plans, reported to cost $100 billion, from some politicians in Washington.
They point to the US government’s current budgetary challenges posed by the Iraq war and the relief effort following Hurricane Katrina.
