{"id":18982,"date":"2017-04-25T00:50:11","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T16:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/in-video-call-to-space-station-president-donald-trump-calls-for-speeding-up-trips-to-mars\/"},"modified":"2017-04-25T00:50:11","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T16:50:11","slug":"in-video-call-to-space-station-president-donald-trump-calls-for-speeding-up-trips-to-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/in-video-call-to-space-station-president-donald-trump-calls-for-speeding-up-trips-to-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"In video call to space station, President Donald Trump calls for speeding up trips to Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_327084\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-327084\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-327084\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170424-trump-nasa-630x350.png\" alt=\"Trump in Oval Office call to ISS\" width=\"630\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170424-trump-nasa-630x350.png 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170424-trump-nasa-768x427.png 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170424-trump-nasa-1260x700.png 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170424-trump-nasa.png 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-327084\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Donald Trump chats with astronauts on the International Space Station from his desk in the White House\u2019s Oval Office, flanked by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins on the left and Ivanka Trump on the right. (White House via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The purpose of the orbital linkup from the Oval Office was to recognize Whitson\u2019s new status as the U.S. record-holder for most cumulative time in space&nbsp;\u2013 \u201c534 days and counting,\u201d Trump noted.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, we want to try and do it during my first term, or at worst during my second term,\u201d Trump replied. \u201cSo we\u2019ll have to speed that up a little bit, OK?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll do our best,\u201d Whitson said, amid smiles and laughter.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Trump Congratulates Astronaut On Flight Record - Full Event\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/A9BGF8ZumnU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s 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&nbsp;\u2013 but that schedule is virtually certain to slip to 2019 or 2020. It\u2019ll take several more flights to lay the groundwork for deep-space missions.<\/p>\n<p>That means putting NASA astronauts on Mars by 2024 would be out of the question, unless Trump is&nbsp;really serious about a massive and expensive speed-up.<\/p>\n<p>Whether or not it\u2019s 2024, and whether it\u2019s Mars or the moon, Trump has made clear how much he wants to see a dramatic space mission during his administration. He returned to the subject of sending Americans&nbsp;to Mars later in the talk.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we\u2019ll do it a lot sooner than we\u2019re even thinking,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_327089\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-327089\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-327089\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170424-iss-trump-630x461.png\" alt=\"Whitson and Fischer talk with Trump\" width=\"630\" height=\"461\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170424-iss-trump-630x461.png 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170424-iss-trump-768x562.png 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/170424-iss-trump.png 926w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-327089\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer speak with President Donald Trump during a video call. (White House \/ NASA via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>SpaceX\u2019s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, has also&nbsp;set a mid-2020s time frame for crewed trips to Mars, and he\u2019s been more explicit about his willingness to fund the plan. SpaceX didn\u2019t come up by name during today\u2019s Oval Office chat, but after a bit of prompting from Trump, commercial space ventures received an orbital shout-out from Whitson\u2019s crewmate on the station, Jack Fischer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce you get them going, you better stand out of their way,\u201d Fischer said.<\/p>\n<p>Trump was joined in the Oval Office by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who came back to Earth last September after conducting the first DNA sequencing experiment in orbit; and Ivanka Trump, the president\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n<p><strong> Among other highlights from the video:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Whitson said it\u2019s \u201ca huge honor to break a record like this\u201d and become the American with the most total time racked up in orbit. She also holds the record for most spacewalks done by a woman (eight) and for the oldest woman to fly in space (57 years old). Whitson is due to stay in orbit until September.<\/li>\n<li>When Trump asked Whitson to talk about life in space, she mentioned that the station had equipment to convert the astronaut\u2019s urine into drinkable water. \u201cIt\u2019s really not as bad as it sounds,\u201d Whitson said. \u201cWell, that\u2019s good. I\u2019m glad to hear that,\u201d Trump replied. \u201cBetter you than me.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Fischer put in a strong pitch for international cooperation in space, and repeatedly said how \u201cawesome\u201d it was to be living on the International Space Station. \u201cWe work really hard up here, but it\u2019s not really work. It\u2019s just fun,\u201d said Fischer, who began his first space mission last week. \u201cIt\u2019s like playing \u2018fort,\u2019 almost, only&nbsp;you\u2019re changing the world while&nbsp;you do it.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Trump observed that \u201cthere\u2019s tremendous military application in space \u2026 We\u2019re rebuilding our military like never before. We\u2019re ordering equipment and we\u2019re going to have the strongest military that we\u2019ve ever had.\u201d The Air Force&nbsp;has conducted missions aimed at defending America\u2019s space assets, including orbital test flights of the X-37B space plane. A&nbsp;secret X-37B mission is still in progress, nearly two years after launch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump chats with astronauts on the International Space Station from his desk in the White House\u2019s Oval Office, flanked by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins on the left and Ivanka Trump on the right. (White House via YouTube) Humans on Mars by 2024? President Donald Trump set that time frame today, almost certainly in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2539,717,367,190,1078,4467],"class_list":["post-18982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-international-space-station","tag-mars","tag-nasa","tag-peggy-whitson","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}