The Atlantic by Marina Koren 3/8/2018
As he praised the work of SpaceX, the president seemed to undermine the efforts of his own space agency.At the end of a meeting at the White House on Thursday, President Donald Trump, flanked by members of his Cabinet, gestured to the table in front of them.
“Before me are some rocket ships,†the president said. “You haven’t seen that for this country in a long time.â€
On the table stood model replicas of three rocket-launch systems, two of which are in use today and one that is still in development. Trump launched into remarks full of praise for the spaceflight industry in the United States. He highlighted private spaceflight companies and the “rich guys†who run them.
“We’re letting them use the Kennedy Space Center for a fee and, you know, rich guys, they love rocket ships,†Trump said. “That’s good. That’s better than us paying for them. And I noticed the prices of the last one, that they said it cost $80 million. If the government did it, the same thing would have cost probably 40, 50 times that amount of money. I mean, literally, when I heard $80 million—you know, I’m so used to hearing different numbers with NASA.â€
At a glance, Trump’s remarks at the Thursday meeting sounded like cheerful compliments from a president proud of his nation’s spaceflight activities. But when you consider the details of NASA’s long-term strategy, they’re quite baffling. Trump offered praise for both commercial and federal space efforts. But he seemed, for a moment, to favor SpaceX over NASA.
More:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/donald-trump-nasa-spacex-falcon-heavy/555182/
