Humans on Mars by 2024? President Donald Trump set that time frame today, almost certainly in jest, during a congratulatory video call to the International Space Station and its record-setting commander, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson.
The purpose of the orbital linkup from the Oval Office was to recognize Whitson’s new status as the U.S. record-holder for most cumulative time in space – “534 days and counting,” Trump noted.
But the topic soon turned to Mars, and how soon humans would be journeying to the Red Planet. When Trump asked Whitson what the time frame was, Whitson noted that the bill he signed into law last month called for the journeys to begin in the 2030s.
“Well, we want to try and do it during my first term, or at worst during my second term,” Trump replied. “So we’ll have to speed that up a little bit, OK?”
“We’ll do our best,” Whitson said, amid smiles and laughter.
NASA’s current schedule calls for the first test flight of the heavy-lift rocket it has designated for Mars journeys, the Space Launch System, to lift off in 2018 – but that schedule is virtually certain to slip to 2019 or 2020. It’ll take several more flights to lay the groundwork for deep-space missions.
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