The President told the astronauts they need to speed up
Bahahahaha Trump is telling astronauts to hurry up and get to Mars in the next three years.
At a push, he wants people on the planet by the end of his second term, which would come in 2025 if he were to be elected again. The President told the astronauts that they need to speed up to meet his target.
Does Trump think the astronauts do the engineering? Does he think astronauts are the only people there are at NASA?
Nasa’s plan of a mission to Mars by the 2030s was already highly ambitious. It has been funded through a bill that Mr Trump just recently signed into law – which the astronauts had to remind him of during the video.
It wasn’t clear whether or not Mr Trump was joking about the new, highly ambitious target. Putting people on Mars will require technical and specialist equipment far beyond any space mission so far, which astronauts pointed out during the call was only now being invented and built.
It was a huge feat to get the Rover to Mars. But when you add humans you’re on a whole different level of difficulty and expense. I think the ambition to put humans on Mars is bonkers, frankly. Send more Rovers, instead.
The President has actively supported exploration of other planets like Mars, even taking funding away from Nasa’s earth science work to focus instead on missions into our own solar system. And he is being supported by Elon Musk, who also wants humans to move to Mars and is invested in doing so through his SpaceX private spaceflight company.
Sigh. All about the flash and the cowboyism, at the expense of exploration and new knowledge.
Most people I know think that. A student in my class this morning was saying we will be on Mars in the next couple of years because the astronauts said we have this great new technology that can purify the urine for drinking water.
A professional non-fiction writer I know who is writing a book about the moon talked to astronauts, psychologists, and engineers, and concluded we would soon be colonizing the moon. No conversations with astronomers – or with biologists, who know exactly how easy it is to build a living colony on the moon (spoiler: it isn’t. It’s damn hard to build ecosystems on earth; the moon is a lot longer trip, with little ability to carry a lot of stuff on the ship for colonization, and it has no running water or atmosphere. That all sort of complicates things).
Why would Trump want new knowledge. He already knows things. Except for the history of North Korea. but he can learn that in 10 minutes. Stuff like astrophysics and rocket propulsion should take 5 minutes , tops.
Mars MAY be feasible but not at all easy and not in a few years. In fact, that’s the main existential goal of Elon Musk — to establish a backup base for human civilisation before it’s too late. Which it may well be by the time you read this (uhh, waitaminute there).
But I’m all for sending D.J.Trump ahead to Mars as a scout. He may be unusually well acquainted with the drinks.
Heaven preserve Mars or any other planet from being infested with humans.
Josh Spokes – here here.
The money it would cost to colonize Mars would be way more than enough to preserve the ecosystems on this planet. If we ever do try to leave for Mars, it will be the richest and most selfish of individuals.
Have we even managed to bring anything back from Mars at this point? Wouldn’t that precede any attempts to land humans on the surface?
“…even taking funding away from Nasa’s earth science work…”
That’s a feature, not a bug. Earth science draws unwelcome attention to climate change.
I’d agree, the idea of colonising Mars is completely bonkers, the cost and technical challenges are enormous and the payback negligible. Mars is a freezing cold desert with almost no atmosphere. Send more robots. Excellent idea Rrr, send Trump.
Despite the ‘colonise the moon’ fantasies of the 50s and 60s, our nearest neighbor is still completely free of human colonists, for exactly the same reasons, it’s pointless. The idea of space travel is nonsense, it’s all Hollywood’s fault.
Trump is definitely not a rocket scientist.
I have no problems with sending humans to Mars. And since Trump’s all fired up to see it done, I say we jam him into a space capsule and send him on his way. It shouldn’t be too hard to sell him on a headline like: “Wild applause as Trump becomes first president in space.”
Elon fucking Musk. He seems almost as incapable of saying something not stupid as Trump himself is.
While I appreciate the idea of sending Trump has some attraction given certain mission parameters (we can go with a somewhat smaller payload, and thus a less costly booster, for example, if, as I think is the consensus here, there’s no particular interest in bringing him back), this seems to me to violate exobiology/biocontamination guidelines in grand fashion…
As this is not only sending a potential contaminant, but sending one we know all too _well_ is both noxious and aggressive.
AJ, while I agree in principle, I think it depends to some not insignificant degree on the mission target.
Rrr… Hrm… Now that you mention it, we really _should_ take a closer look at Phobos.
(You know… Before it breaks up in another few tens of millions of years.)
Not to mention the innumerable asteroids, or rather the more unknown outer plutoids of recent discovery. >:-}~
On third thought, wouldn’t it be very very fitting for the great plutocrat to make a yuuge bigly Plutocrater?
(Imagines pitching this to whichever space agency…)
(Cons) Sure, yeah, at 32 AU, it’s kinda pricey/lengthy… Even waiting to do a nice slingshot off Jupiter, it’s still hardly a weekend jaunt…
(Pros) _But_, at the end of this, we get a _hilarious_ retronym!
Gallantry under the gallows. What else to do?
Phobos is still too risky. Pluto would take too long. So we have a payload (freeloader?) in search of a mission…..
Hmmm… I’m reminded of a quote that I think, might be appropriate.
“Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
I propose that Mr. Trump be sent to explore the sun. At as close a range as possible.
A Trump mission to the sun would:
1) remove a clear and present danger from the biosphere
2) would help reduce the risk of unleashing a “noxious and aggressive” potential contaminant on the rest of the solar system at mission completion (I’m thinking Galileo/Cassini here) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUJEmJyr3t0
and 3) save him money on spray-on tan.
Win, win, win!
Not Bruce, if I steal the idea for a Trump sun-mission for a play, and give you credit, would you have any objections? I’m still working on one that occurred to me when watching an old movie in which a bunch of cats (pussies) suddenly ran through an executive office (thanks to the Ritz Brothers), much to the consternation of the occupant of the office.
No objections at all. Go to. Good luck and thanks!