CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida -- A return to the moon is in sight as Vice President Mike Pence revealed on Wednesday the astronauts who will be launching in a few years. A group of 18 astronauts were. NASA astronauts Suni Williams, left, Barry "Butch" Wilmore, center, and Mike Fincke, right, watch as a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard is rolled out of the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 Wednesday, May 18, 2022, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, ahead of the Orbital Flight. The Apollo program was conceived during the Eisenhower administration in early 1960, as a follow-up to Project Mercury.While the Mercury capsule could support only one astronaut on a limited Earth orbital mission, Apollo would carry three. Possible missions included ferrying crews to a space station, circumlunar flights, and eventual crewed lunar landings.. The program was.