Trump's other vanity project: manned Mars landing by 2020.

[SunSeeker]

Then, something happened. Trump “suddenly appeared distracted, distant,” wrote Sims. “I could sense the gears inside of his head starting to turn. I was losing him.” As the clock ticked down, Trump “suddenly turned toward the NASA administrator.” He asked: “What’s our plan for Mars?”
...
Lightfoot explained to the president — who, again, had recently signed a bill containing a plan for Mars — that NASA planned to send a rover to Mars in 2020 and, by the 2030s, would attempt a manned spaceflight.
...
“Trump bristled,” according to Sims. He asked, “But is there any way we could do it by the end of my first term?” Sims wrote that he leaned in toward Lightfoot and made him an offer. “But what if I gave you all the money you could ever need to do it?” Trump asked. “What if we sent NASA’s budget through the roof, but focused entirely on that instead of whatever else you’re doing now. Could it work then?”
...
In the bathroom mirror, Trump smirked and said to himself, “Space Station, this is your President.” He told Sims to go ahead into the Oval, assuring him, “I’ll be right in.”

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/trump-offered-nasa-unlimited-funding-to-go-to-mars-by-2020.html

[duforsure]

1. He knows he's losing the shutdown issue,

So he's now trying to bait and switch to another issue so he can water down his losing from his wall and his shutdown for something over 70% of the American people don't want.

[SunSeeker]

2. Even NASA doesn't want to drop everything for a manned trip to Mars.

It is sheer lunacy and extremely dangerous to astronauts lives to rush something like that. Plus it would mean halting much more practical and cost effective projects currently underway.

[Boomer]

17. You missed the timeline

This article describes events in April of 2017.

[TheBlackAdder]

34. According to MAGAts, there's already an established child sex colony on Mars.

[DFW]

3. Some might prefer curing cancer

Others prefer to go to Mars.

Gotta get yer priorities straight, dontcha know............

[SunSeeker]

4. Curing cancer does not involve him being President Space Commander, so it's a nonstarter. nt

[DFW]

6. Yeah, tell me about it

They don't give him a fancy hat and a Buck Rogers award for dedicating a drive to curing cancer, just some stupid Nobel Peace Prize, or something useless like that. Besides, then he'd have to go to one of them "soshalist" Scandinavian countries to receive it.

[oberliner]

13. Barack Obama revives call to put humans on Mars by the 2030s

Barack Obama sought Tuesday to reinvigorate his six-year-old call for the US to send humans to Mars by the 2030s, a mission Nasa has been slowly and quietly pursuing.

The White House was calling attention to government contracts awarded to six companies to build prototypes for “habitats” that could sustain human life in deep space. One such privately developed habitat – an inflatable room – is already attached to the International Space Station. Obama also said that within two years, private companies like SpaceX and Boeing will taxi astronauts to the space station with Nasa as a customer.

“These missions will teach us how humans can live far from Earth, something we’ll need for the long journey to Mars,” Obama wrote in an op-ed on CNN’s website. He said the ultimate goal was for humans eventually to stay on the red planet “for an extended time”.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/11/obama-mars-mission-nasa-habitats-space-travel-2030

[SunSeeker]

24. Obama started a national program to cure cancer.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/265671-obama-launches-effort-to-cure-cancer-once-and-for-all

Obama was not doing it as a vanity project, making a ridiculous request to turn a 20-year project into a 2-year project to use to brag about himself in his reelection campaign like Trump is doing. There's a big difference between stating a NASA goal of a Mars landing in the "2030s" when Obama won't even be in office and Trump wanting it in 2020 so he can use it for personal aggrandizement. Capiche?

Obama supported science, unlike Shitler. He wanted the US to cure cancer AND go to Mars, among many other goals. He could multitask. But curing cancer was clearly his priority over going to Mars, since he appointed Biden to lead a task force and got an increase in National Institutes of Health (NIH) cancer research spending for the first time in more than a decade.  As Biden said, "This is our moonshot." 

So what you are suggesting by spamming this thread with that old Guardian piece is dead wrong.

[oberliner]

28. The suggestion is that Mars exploration is an exciting idea

Obama was on it long before Trump.

[SunSeeker]

33. That is not the "suggestion" you were making.

[beachbum bob]

5. trumps limited intelligence and education allows him to think this was possible. Takes 10 years

to plan such a mission IF all the things that need to go right, do go right with money and technology.

[watoos]

7. Trump saw how JFK inspired the nation,

by his speech about going to the moon. Trump wants to be a JFK, wants to outdo JFK and go to Mars. The problem is that JFK had something that Trump will never get, charisma. I remember JFK, Donnie, and you are no JFK, never will come close.

[SunSeeker]

9. JFK also had a PLAN.

What Kennedy was proposing wasn’t something that caught NASA by surprise, it was what NASA had brought to him.

This part of that same speech gets a lot less replay.

Kennedy: But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

This section shows just how much time Kennedy had spent going over this plan before he took it to the public. He wasn’t running with a wild-eyed vision. He was proposing something that the scientists had already carried to his office. It’s the opposite of Trump’s off-the-cuff proposal for an instant Mars program.

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/1828769

NASA came to him with the proposed mission, not the other way around. His charisma and leadership helped sell that plan to the American people. Trump has none of that.

[smb]

10. It Would Inspire Me...

...if we sent Trump to Mars, one way. He should be able to grow plenty of potatoes with all the crap he spews.

[Reasonable Doubter]

31. Brilliant!

And he would blend perfectly into the color scheme

[Botany]

8. Outside of not having the vehicle to get to mars, a mars landing craft that can also take ...

... off from mars, the space suits for the mission, the personal for the mission, the money for the mission,
the engineering, and the knowledge to keep the people from getting hurt by the radiation in space the
mission is doable.

[oberliner]

11. Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars

One of my earliest memories is sitting on my grandfather's shoulders, waving a flag as our astronauts returned to Hawaii. This was years before we'd set foot on the moon. Decades before we'd land a rover on Mars. A generation before photos from the International Space Station would show up in our social media feeds.

I still have the same sense of wonder about our space program that I did as a child. It represents an essential part of our character -- curiosity and exploration, innovation and ingenuity, pushing the boundaries of what's possible and doing it before anybody else. The space race we won not only contributed immeasurably important technological and medical advances, but it also inspired a new generation of scientists and engineers with the right stuff to keep America on the cutting edge.

...

We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America's story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time. Getting to Mars will require continued cooperation between government and private innovators, and we're already well on our way. Within the next two years, private companies will for the first time send astronauts to the International Space Station.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/11/opinions/america-will-take-giant-leap-to-mars-barack-obama/index.html

[SunSeeker]

14. OFFS, Oberliner. A manned mission sometime in the "2030s" is very different from 2020.

NASA first wants to send a rover. That is the current plan. Then, by the 2030s, a manned mission is their goal. Obama was describing what NASA was talking about. He was not trying to cram down an already wildly difficult 20-year goal down to 2 years so he could use it to brag about himself in time for his reelection campaign, like Trump is trying to do. Obama obviously would not be in office in the 2030s. That was NOT Obama's vanity project, it was NASA's goal. Trump's and Obama's statements on a Mars mission are not comparable.

You defending Trump? Are you suggesting what Trump said is comparable to what Obama said? WTF is the point of your post?

[oberliner]

30. Dreaming big about Mars is exciting

The Obama op-ed was pretty inspirational to me.

[SunSeeker]

32. Trump is not "dreaming big." He is endangering lives for an insane vanity project.

Obama's NASA statements are not comparable to Trump's vanity project, so why bring them up in this thread?

Never mind. The answer is obvious.

[brooklynite]

12. Does Trump realize we don't even have a launch vehicle anymore?

For either a Mars mission or his "Space Force"?

[ansible]

19. Sadly this. Even the combined resources of the entire planet wouldn't make this work for decades

A manned Mars mission is more overwhelming than people realize. And the lack of a launch vehicle is just part of the problem. Radiation alone is a bigger issue than scifi fantasy stories ever bothered to mention, just trying to create a spaceship capable of protecting the astronauts on a 10 month trip is a massive undertaking that will cost TRILLIONS.

[chwaliszewski]

15. Unbelievable...

no, wait....it's believable.

[malaise]

16. Let me tell you a story

I was driving one day listening to a local talk show discussing crime. A female calls and says that she would like to know how come they solve crimes in one hour on Law and Order and can't do it elsewhere.
I had to park my car I was laughing so much.
All of the Con's thinking is based on life in his TV bubble.
He is an ignorant asshole who knows nothing about science, engineering or anything else outside of ripping off people, feigning importance and grabbing women by their parts.

[genxlib]

18. Lets just tell him we sent Matt Damon

And then show him clips from the Martian for the next 2 years

[SammyWinstonJack]

22. Ha!

[no_hypocrisy]

20. WH timetables versus NASA timetables

If you remember in February 1986, Challenger was to have the first civilian, a schoolteacher, on board, and she would even give a lesson from "space". It was a cold day, esp. for Florida. NASA balked as the safety and efficacy of the blast-off were not absolute. Reagan's WH argued and insisted on not delaying Blast Off only for sake of optics. The mission wasn't delayed; it wasn't scrubbed. It went ahead. And the Challenger exploded and all the members on board, including the teacher died.

My point: Manned mission to Mars by 2020. I could make a list of stuff that could go wrong. It isn't the money. It's the preparation, experience, and expected AND unexpected surprises -- and likely WH interference again.

[Dave Starsky]

21. It's not even remotely possible.

Trump is crazy. And stupid.

[SunSeeker]

26. Thank you for reminding us about Reagan"s role in the Challenger disaster.

Thanks for posting.

[Mike Nelson]

23. This is why...

… we need science-minded leaders.

[liberaltrucker]

25. If he's on board and it's a one way mission...

I say give NASA the whole damn Federal budget.

[exboyfil]

27. NASA spent about 3-4% of the Federal budget

for the run up to the Apollo mission. The highest dollar spent was $6B in 1966. That would be $50B today. I have seen quotes up to $1.5T to get to Mars.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

29. Only if he relocates there

Somebody should whisper in his ear that he should build a #TrumpTowerMars