'Space Station, this is your President': The bizarre tale of Trump's childlike obsession with gettin [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

‘Space Station, this is your President’: The bizarre tale of Trump’s childlike obsession with getting to Mars
MATTHEW CHAPMAN, ALTERNET
22 JAN 2019 AT 20:05 ET



If there is one thing that evidently transports President Donald Trump to a state of wide-eyed, childlike wonderment, it is space travel. But Trump doesn’t have any apparent understanding of NASA’s goals or technological challenges — he just wants them to be the biggest and best at everything during his presidency, with no clear idea of what that means.

Nothing better demonstrates this than a conversation Trump had with former acting NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot, Jr. in April 2017, as detailed by former White House communications official Cliff Sims in his new book, Team of Vipers, and reported by the Daily Intelligencer.

During a congratulatory videoconference with astronaut Peggy Whitson, who had just broken the record for the longest continual spaceflight by an American, Trump asked, “Tell me, Mars — what do you see a timing for actually sending humans?” Whitson said that, “Well, I think as your bill directed, it would be in the 2030s. Unfortunately, spaceflight takes a lot of time and money, so getting there will take some international cooperation.”

While that scene was visible to the public, Trump had apparently been pestering Lightfoot about a Mars mission for several minutes before the cameras started rolling:

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