{"id":19026,"date":"2017-03-22T17:05:40","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T09:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacexs-elon-musk-isnt-smiling-over-nasa-authorization-for-mars-missions\/"},"modified":"2017-03-22T17:05:40","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T09:05:40","slug":"spacexs-elon-musk-isnt-smiling-over-nasa-authorization-for-mars-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacexs-elon-musk-isnt-smiling-over-nasa-authorization-for-mars-missions\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX\u2019s Elon Musk isn\u2019t smiling over NASA authorization for Mars missions"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_308437\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-308437\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-308437\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170205-elon-musk-630x427.jpg\" alt=\"Elon Musk\" width=\"630\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170205-elon-musk-630x427.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170205-elon-musk-768x520.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170205-elon-musk.jpg 1063w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-308437\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elon Musk has his sights set on going to Mars. (SpaceX via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>President Donald Trump may be beaming&nbsp;over a newly signed law that&nbsp;calls on NASA to look into sending astronauts to Mars by 2033, but not Elon Musk.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX\u2019s billionaire CEO is aiming to put his fortune behind a push to send up to a million settlers to Mars, starting as early as the mid-2020s.<\/p>\n<p>In a back-and-forth series of tweets with Recode\u2019s Kara Swisher, Musk made clear that he\u2019s looking for much more than words from the federal government when it comes to Mars missions.<\/p>\n<p>The exchange started with Swisher\u2019s reaction to Trump\u2019s signing of the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017, which confirms the space agency\u2019s commitment to deep-space exploration and the journey to Mars:<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/karaswisher\/status\/844356099989913600<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">@karaswisher I am not. This bill changes almost nothing about what NASA is doing. Existing programs stay in place and there is no added funding for Mars.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 22, 2017<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">@karaswisher Perhaps there will be some future bill that makes a difference for Mars, but this is not it.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 22, 2017<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">@elonmusk thx for clarity. I would love to know more<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) March 22, 2017<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Recode says Musk didn\u2019t immediately respond to Swisher\u2019s interest in a follow-up, but it\u2019s fairly clear where he\u2019s coming from.<\/p>\n<p>The authorization bill lays out the sense of Congress for Mars exploration. However, it doesn\u2019t commit any new funds, or set up any new programs to get there. That would have to come in later legislation that\u2019s still little more than a twinkle in a senator\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n<p>Musk has big plans for Mars: Last year, he laid out a strategy to build giant spaceships to take 100 settlers at a time to Red Planet outposts. He said he expected to spend the bulk of his personal fortune, currently valued at $13.4 billion, on the decades-long&nbsp;effort \u2013 but even if that\u2019s the case, SpaceX would need NASA\u2019s buy-in.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"President Trump Signs S. 442\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9HzadC1imjQ?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>SpaceX plans to start its Mars campaign in earnest with a robotic Dragon mission in 2020, fronted by the company but with NASA as a potential customer. That kind of financial and logistical support could be what Musk is looking for in future legislation.<\/p>\n<p>To be sure, lawmakers made much over this week\u2019s signing of the authorization bill. The most egregious example was a comment from U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, who said the legislation could turn Trump into \u201cthe father of the interplanetary highway system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But you can\u2019t take everything that a member of Congress says seriously. After all, when Trump noted how risky an astronaut\u2019s job was, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, helpfully suggested that \u201cyou could send Congress to space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat a great idea that could be,\u201d Trump replied.<\/p>\n<p>Hmm \u2026 on second thought, maybe Cruz better be careful what he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk has his sights set on going to Mars. (SpaceX via YouTube) President Donald Trump may be beaming&nbsp;over a newly signed law that&nbsp;calls on NASA to look into sending astronauts to Mars by 2033, but not Elon Musk. SpaceX\u2019s billionaire CEO is aiming to put his fortune behind a push to send up to [&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":[2539,1045,367,4467],"class_list":["post-19026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-elon-musk","tag-mars","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19026"}],"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=19026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}