Trump tweet throws space policy into chaos

[Elderberry]

Space News by Jeff Foust — June 7, 2019

 President Donald Trump disrupted months of civil space policy development in a single tweet June 7, suggesting that NASA should not return humans to the Moon.

“For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago,” he wrote. “They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!”


Donald J. Trump
‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon - We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!
12:38 PM - 7 Jun 2019

Trump’s tweet came shortly after a segment on the television network Fox Business where Jeff DeWit, NASA’s chief financial officer, was interviewed by host Neil Cavuto shortly after the agency rolled out its low Earth orbit commercialization plans. That included a discussion of the policy, announced by Vice President Mike Pence in March, to land humans on the moon within five years.

I thought we would advance beyond that,” Cavuto says. “I thought either we would target Mars or… Why this? Why now?” The comment was first noted by Media Matters for America, a media watchdog group.

“What we’re doing now is enabling a sustainable presence on the lunar surface,” DeWit responded. “We still need to drive that innovation and complete those technologies that will allow us to have a sustained presence on Mars.”

It also came a day after CNN published an interview with Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, who has previously argued that NASA should go to Mars rather than return to the moon. Collins, in that interview, was critical of Trump. “I don’t think he’s too much aware of Mars,” Collins said. “Maybe he doesn’t understand that there is a planet Mars.”

More: https://spacenews.com/trump-tweet-throws-space-policy-into-chaos/

[Elderberry]

Trump’s confusing tweet about “Mars (of which the moon is a part),” explained

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/6/7/18656865/trump-moon-mars-tweet-artemis-whaaa

NASA is working on a hasty 2024 moon mission. Trump now says the moon is so 50 years ago.

A month ago, President Donald Trump was very gung-ho about his administration’s plan to return humans to the moon by 2024.

In fact, he called for NASA’s budget to be increased by $1.6 billion to get the effort off the ground.

But on Friday, it appeared he’d soured on the idea of returning to the moon. Why? It’s so 50 years ago.

here’s a lot about this tweet that’s confusing — especially the part that implies the president thinks Mars is a part of the moon. It’s not. (Johannes Kepler is rolling over in his grave!)

But Trump was likely referring to NASA’s plan to build up resources on and around the moon in a sustainable way. In other words, the idea that whatever we build for a moon mission should also serve future missions to Mars, or beyond in our solar system. This has been the plan all along: establish a more permanent human outpost around the moon so we can better prepare for a much longer and harder journey to Mars or beyond.

Why did the president tweet this confusing garble? It’s possible it was in reaction to a segment on the Fox Business channel.

So what is the NASA game plan?

More at link.

[Elderberry]

After all SJL asked the NASA officials at JPL whether the Pathfinder succeeded in taking pictures of the American flag planted on Mars by Neil Armstrong in 1969.

So why go to the Moon?

[Sanguine]

A tweet threw them into chaos?  They must be perpetually on the edge of it.

[Elderberry]

White House reiterates human moon missions on the path to Mars

Space News by  Jeff Foust — June 8, 2019

https://spacenews.com/white-house-reiterates-human-moon-missions-on-the-path-to-mars/

A day after President Trump appeared to cast doubt on NASA’s plans to send humans to the moon, a White House official said the moon remained a goal of the agency’s programs as a step towards Mars.

In a luncheon speech at the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference here June 8, Scott Pace, executive secretary of the National Space Council, said that efforts to return humans to the lunar surface by 2024 were ongoing, but that NASA and the administration should devote more attention to long-term aspirations of human Mars missions.

Pace was scheduled to speak at the conference long before President Trump’s comments in a June 7 tweet that appeared to criticize current plans. “For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago,” he wrote. He said NASA should emphasize other objectives, including Mars.

Pace didn’t address the tweet in his prepared remarks, but when asked by an audience member in a subsequent question-and-answer session about the tweet, referred to a statement by a White House official June 7 noting that Mars was a long-term goal of NASA’s human spaceflight efforts. “We have asked Congress for additional resources to get to the Moon by 2024, which will enable us to get to Mars roughly a decade after creating a sustainable presence on the lunar surface,” the official said on background.