[ad_1]
"Despite all the money we spend, NASA should NOT talk about going to the moon, which we did 50 years ago, and should be focused on our much larger projects, including Mars. (of which Moon is a part), Defense and Science! "
– President Trump, in a tweet
So, uh, yes. . . there is a lot to unpack here.
First, let's recognize the merit: it's a fact that American astronauts landed on the moon 50 years ago (no matter what the conspiracy theorists say).
But the president may want to revisit the space policy directive he signed during his first year in office, which said NASA was to return to the lunar surface. He could also review the great speech that Vice President Pence made this spring, in which he gave NASA a five-year deadline for the Moon mission. And it might be interesting to revisit his administration's request that Congress add $ 1.6 billion to NASA's budget for this purpose (perhaps Pell Grant recipients will want to recover it?).
NASA has defined its lunar ambitions as a stepping stone to a possible human mission on the Red Planet, to which Trump was referring to as "Moon" part of Mars.
But just in case, it seems interesting to note for the record: The Moon is a satellite of the Earth.
In fact, the Moon is probably described with the utmost accuracy as part of our own planet. The rocks reported by the Apollo astronauts show that the lunar material has chemical fingerprints almost identical to those found on Earth. Scientists believe that the Moon was formed from debris produced during an ancient and gigantic collision between Earth and a now extinct protoplanet called Theia.
Mars has two moons called Phobos and Deimos, whose names come from Greek words for "panic" and "dread". But these small bodies, and the planet on which they gravitate, can be between 34 million miles and 249 million miles from our moon at some point.
2019 © The Washington Post
This article was originally published by The Washington Post.
[ad_2]Source link
