No, NASA Is Not "Going to Mars very soon".
AP FACT CHECK: Trump promises not just the moon, but Mars
“TRUMP: “Prime Minister Abe and I have agreed to dramatically expand our nations’ cooperation in human space exploration. Japan will join our mission to send U.S. astronauts to space. We’ll be going to the moon. We’ll be going to Mars very soon.”
THE FACTS: Not very soon. The U.S. will almost certainly not be sending humans to Mars in his presidency, even if he wins a second term.
The Trump administration has a placed a priority on the moon over Mars for human exploration (President Barack Obama favored Mars) and hopes to accelerate NASA’s plan for returning people to the lunar surface. It has asked Congress to approve enough money to make a moon mission possible by 2024, instead 2028. But even if that happens, Mars would come years after that. International space agencies have made aspirational statements about possibly landing humans on Mars during the 2030s.”
I’d be shocked if a NASA crewed mission got astronauts to Mars by the 2040s. If the next Administration keeps the lunar focus, then that will realistically consume their attention and resources for the next two decades or so, just like what ISS did in the 1990s and 2000s.
Why I always advocated for space based ships first .. once we hit the first gravity well .. we will not be leaving anytime soon on NASA’s current budget.
I thought Elon Musk was saying his spaceships will be going to Mars soon. NASA could just buy flights from Musk.
Or not. Remember, that statement merely says America, it doesn’t say anything about NASA astronauts… And it should be noted that the only Americans to fly into space on an American built spacecraft from American soil since 2011 were not working for NASA.
Of course “very soon” is all relative. The AP fact checks using a claim Trump did not make (i.e. we will be returning to Mars withing Trump’s presidency).
“Soon” is relative, and the first Mars landing is probably going to happen within one Saturn year. But most people hearing the words, “very soon” wouldn’t think in terms of 30 years.
Also the assumption that the U.S. media is making (there is almost nothing about this in the foreign media, including the Japan Times…) is that this is about sending astronauts to Mars and not NASA participation in the upcoming JAXA mission to Phobos or the next NASA rover.
Here is a link to the full transcript. Note that the note on increased space cooperation is at the very end after many far more important things are discussed. In fact that quote above edited out the start of the sentance pulling it out of context in terms of importance. The missing words are – “And finally today”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/…
“We” is also relative. Keith said he (Trump) means NASA, but it doesn’t have to. Coming from Trump, “we” would not be humanity in general…but it could be U.S. New Space. He’d totally claim it as part of his legacy if he wins re-election and SpaceX launches people to Mars anywhere in the early through the mid 2020s.
The AP fact checker basically just failed Economics 101 in terms of what Tariffs are. In terms of the second item, I will just note that the President stated it would be America is going to Mars, not specifically NASA astronauts…
Your terminology must not be precise – you mean you think that America will lead a mission? You know that pence has said many times that it will be American boots on the Moon – you think that he refers to boots made in America – but possibly worn by a Japanese citizen?
The only way to interpret the many statements by the Administration is that they want US citizens on the Moon by 2024. The statements by the Administration mean that they want Japan to contribute resources and then watch from the ground as US citizens go to the Moon.
You’re making the same mistake Dr. Matula was commenting on. All Americans are not NASA astronauts. If Mr. Bezos used his own money to send himself to the Moon, that would be a US citizen on the Moon. But not a NASA astronaut. The same thing applies to Mr. Musk and Mars. Well, Mr. Trump might object to a nationalized US citizen who is originally from South Africa. Who knows? But you get the idea.
No i stand by what I wrote, including my comment that Thomas Matula, PhD is using very vague wording. Does trump even know the details of the Lunar program? Almost certainly not, he just blurts stuff out. In his boasting, trump claims that U.S. astronauts will go to space and does not distinguish between government employees and people who work for companies. Between him and what pence has said – the conclusion is clear that they think that people that fly into space should be U.S. government employees and U.S. citizens. This is clearly a nationalist program and Japan is being offered the chance to contribute to the program and sit on the ground watching U.S. citizens fly to the Moon.
So trump was talking about people going to the Moon and if people work hard enough they could twist that into “the U.S. is leading an effort to go to the Moon” which is possibly what Thomas was claiming. But that is NOT the program being discussed. Since the program being discussed mandates that the crews fly on SLS and in Orion – those are both government developed systems like Apollo and Shuttle – there is NO chance that NASA would offer a seat to a Boeing employee.
I worked Spacelab for a long time and worked with International people in the KSC O&C Building and here in Houston a lot – they brought enormous value to the Shuttle program. We need them along on any Lunar program – but that is not what the Administration is talking about or promising anyone.
When trump talks about Mars that is a very fuzzy claim, any speculation about who goes and on what vehicle is a waste of time.
But there is more than one program. DearMoon is a joint Japanese-American effort to go around the Moon. At the moment it doesn’t include any NASA or JAXA astronauts, but will be Americans and Japanese (and probably a few other nationals) traveling around the Moon. Landing is the next logical follow-on mission. In terms of cooperation between NASA and JAXA, JAXA is proposing to provide one of the modules for the Gateway.
Obviously you are joking? The DearMoon “project” is just speculation and dreaming – there is very very little real hardware, testing, planning or anything behind it. Maybe SpaceX could get everything together, they have done tremendous work, but this is orders of magnitude more than they have done before. Even an Apollo 8 type mission requires flight proven hardware, teams of experienced people, etc etc. SpaceX does not have that hardware or that team yet. This would be the SpaceX team recruiting AA ball players and taking on the Astros. Your talking about landing is just your invention. And Gateway is also a LONG way from flying – who knows what kind of modules will be there? Will it be reduced to a simple station or not?
You are just making this stuff up and it shows. We all like SpaceX but we can’t just attribute lots of capability to them because we like them.
“The DearMoon “project” is just speculation and dreaming – there is very very little real hardware, testing, planning or anything behind it.”
ROFLOL
What do you call the two prototype Starships SpaceX is building at the moment, spaceships that are expected to start flight testing this year? Or the Raptor powered Starhopper that will resume flight testing in the next week or so?
Starship will be flying routinely into orbit long before the dead end Saturn V replica (aka SLS) even makes its first flight…
And the Starship doesn’t need any Gateway.
FYI
https://www.inverse.com/art…
Trying to be polite here. Those people that could fly into space are very glad that you are so far removed from any real decision making. Recall that we are talking about going to the Moon by 2024 – and you are thinking that we could use some prototype that has never flown, is not completely designed? You are proposing that the first vehicle ever completed would fly the mission. Where are the billions of dollars needed going to come from?
Elon may talk confidently but where are we gonna find people that would agree to fly to the Moon on a vehicle that will have essentially zero flight experience, zero testing? When will SpaceX finish designing, building, testing any of this? It is easy to sit behind a desk here and dream away the reality of spaceflight but those of us that have done this for a long time will hopefully ignore ideas that are little more than suicide missions.
Yes the DearMoon mission is a fantasy that could come true – given lots of time, lots of money, and lots of work. A prototype is NOT a flight ready vehicle and you don’t have time to do any sort of test series. So they are going to start testing soon – similar to how the experienced Dragon capsule team is testing the Crew Dragon? Testing often reveals problems that must be solved.
It all depends on what “soon” means.
I’m tipping 2045 for the first landing. In fact, I’d advocate delaying crewed missions to Mars until we have developed safer, quicker and cheaper means to get people and payload there, and we’ve established an appropriate level of surface habitat facilities prior to the first crewed missions. There should not be a “Mars Race’. We should also focus on building up lunar base infrastructure first, before we tackle Mars.
I doubt NASA will be going anywhere anytime in the forseeable future. $1.6B was never enough, especially with the way in which NASA overruns and now that it looks like they won’t be getting that much extra, there is little hope. This time around it was kind of fun to see Bridenstine and Shatner and Rowe all cheering, but all too soon it appears it was a false start. It was never real. NASA will not be making it happen. My hope is with Musk.