Welcome to Axis ProRata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter about the collision of tech, business, and politics.

Sponsored by Bridge Bank. Be bold. Venture wisely. I'm Dan Permac. On today's show, Uber gets ready for its IPO, and Democrats battle over electronic tax filings.

But first, walking on the moon.

So last week, Vice President Mike Pence told NASA that the Trump administration wants

humans back on the moon by 2024.

That at the direction of the president of the United States, it is the stated policy

of this administration and the United States of America to return

American astronauts to the moon within the next five years. And let me be clear, the first woman and

the next man on the moon will both be American astronauts launched by American rockets from American soil.

So Pence referred to this initiative as urgent, although we don't really know yet if it was

sparked by concerns over things like international competition or maybe just presidential whim.

Either way, it is a major escalation for NASA, whose plan had been to do this five years later.

And it's a direct challenge not only to agency leadership, but also to Boeing, which is already under all sorts of pressure,

because Boeing is involved in the development of a heavy lift rocket that would probably be required for such a hasten mission.

Now, Pence didn't offer too many other specifics,

such as how NASA will pay for it. That will be up to Congress, which means that putting

Americans on the moon may be directly correlated to how much Americans care about putting

Americans on the moon. In 20 seconds, we'll go deeper with Axiostpace editor, Merriam Kramer. But first,

this.

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