US Vice President Mike Pence has announced an accelerated goal of putting Americans back on the moon within five years “by any means necessary,” a challenge accepted by NASA’s top official.

Pence, chairing a meeting of the administration’s National Space Council in Huntsville, Alabama, declared, “We’re in a space race today, just as we were in the 1960s.”

“It’s time to redouble our effort,” he said. “It can happen, but it will not happen unless we increase the pace.”

Pence warned that if NASA can’t put astronauts on the moon by 2024, “we need to change the organisation, not the mission.”

“The space agency must transform into a leaner, more accountable and more agile organisation, and must adopt an “all-hands-on-deck approach,” he said.

NASA had previously been aiming to return astronauts to the lunar surface by the year 2028.