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President Donald Trump reportedly offered NASA "all the money you could need" to land on Mars by the first term of his presidency, according to a New York Magazine article citing a next memoir of a former communications officer at the White House.
In "The Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days at the White House", former White House Strategy Director for White House Communication Strategy, Cliff Sims, remembers that immediately before a phone call with astronauts aboard the International Space Station, fascination for sending humans to Mars during his first term.
In the private dining room with NASA officials, Trump would have questioned his audience about the possibility of landing on Mars. Robert Lightfoot Jr., Acting Administrator of NASA, explained that the United States would try to land on Mars in 2030.
"But can we do it here by the end of my first mandate, "asked Trump, according to the Sims.
Sims writes that it's "s & ## "Animate" in the room because of Trump's abrupt question shortly before a televised phone call with the space station. NASA officials reportedly made great efforts to coordinate their activities with the Space Station, which could only be reached for a certain period of time because of "orbital mechanics".
"All I could think about was that we had to be in front of the camera in three minutes … And yet, we are discerningly discussing the need to reduce the calendar by a decade. from NASA for sending a piloted flight to Mars, "Sims would have written. . "And apparently out of nowhere."
Trump, who seemed "distracted", would have asked Lightfoot: "But what if I gave you all the money you could need to do it?"
"What if we send NASA's budget behind, just focusing on that rather than what you are doing now, could it work then," Trump asked.
Lightfoot recalled logistical hurdles to Trump, who appeared to be "visibly disappointed," according to Sims.
The report said that there was only a few seconds left, but Trump walked into a bathroom to check his appearance, looked at himself in the mirror and said, "Space Station, it's your president. "
Trump asked his previous question to astronaut Peggy Whitson aboard the space station.
"What do you see as the moment to actually send humans to Mars," Trump asked Whitson during the call.
After Whitson had pointed out the technical and legislative challenges that such an effort would imply, Trump seemed to joke that he wanted to complete the space mission "during my first term, or at worst during my second term ".
"So I think we need to speed things up a bit," Trump said.
A month before his phone call, Trump signed a $ 19.5 billion bill to fund NASA. The draft law required NASA to commit to exploring Mars and would have been the first of its kind in seven years.
Sims, who worked on Trump's presidential campaign, now runs a consulting firm specializing in the sale of computer equipment. "Team of Vipers" is # 7 on Amazon's bestseller list at the time of writing this article. Its release is scheduled for January 29.
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