When Neal Armstrong took "one small step for man," he knew that the exploration of Earth's moon had just begun.

Almost four decades after his first landing on the moon, NASA has announced a priority shift back to the Apollo Program.

NASA's return to the Apollo Program would mean a move away from the current progress of the shuttle missions and the International Space Station.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said the shift of focus largely was due to how unsuccessful the development of the space shuttle and space station programs have been. Griffin said both programs were mistakes.

If it were up to him, Griffin said he wouldn't have approved the space shuttle plan due to difficulties that NASA has been facing with maintaining the program both financially and technologically.

NASA's focus now is sending astronauts to the moon again.

The new space carrier to the moon will be called a crew vehicle and will look similar like the old Apollo capsule. According to NASA, the new crew vehicles will be three times bigger than the older Apollo capsules, allowing four astronauts to travel at a time.

Ideally, the new crew vehicles could be used again after re-entry about 10 times.

Equipped with the lunar lander, twice as many astronauts could stay on the surface of the moon than on the Apollo missions. NASA's new Apollo missions would plan to stay on the moon for four to seven days conducting research, gathering fuel and setting up an outpost for future visits. Once an outpost is established, the crew could stay on the surface for up to six months.

Aerospace engineering professor David Spencer said that even though it would be a completely different mission, with the use of newer computer technologies and modified space suits, there would be a lot of similarities compared to the old shuttle missions.

For example, the new Apollo Program will still use the same type of fuel, rocket motor technology and main engines from the shuttle. Other similarities include the use of the same assembling center at the Kennedy Space Center, and the launch pads to fire the rockets, Spencer said.

As for the missions itself, Spencer said it is a positive change.

"NASA's been looking for a mission, and the new moon mission is just what the agency needed," he said.

If the new Apollo program works out, there will be outposts on the polar ends of the moon, which contain concentrated amounts of hydrogen in the form of water ice and the abundance of sunlight, and both can be used to refuel the lunar vehicles.

Spencer said the long-term impacts could be colonization on the moon and eventually Mars, something Spencer said he thinks is "inevitable."

Some students welcomed the idea of the program's new direction.

"It's a great idea ... that there's somewhere to go if something happens to Earth," said Jillian Knowles (freshman-premedicine).

Aaron Emhoff (senior-civil engineering) agreed it's a great idea that NASA is looking at other options. However, there are others who aren't so sure.

"I think they should still focus on the International Space Station also, it's better for the nation," said Mike Reilly (senior-civil engineering).

Sam Roberts (freshman-animal bioscience) said that it's good to make new progress and technology, but worried that the money might be taken out of areas such as education to compensate for the change.

Still, some, like Spencer, are hopeful that the new Apollo Program will be a success. "The first person to step on Mars may be a student right now, may be from my son's fifth grade class, or a student at Penn State," Spencer said.

Spencer said those most involved in the new Apollo missions won't be current astronauts or NASA employees, but students today.

"It's for your generation," Spencer said.