Just a few days ago, thanks to Cliff Sims, former White House communications aide, and his book we found out that Donald Trump wanted NASA to send Americans on Mars by the end of his first term. The American President even wanted to allocate an unlimited budget to NASA for that purpose. However, the US space agency, via administrator Robert Lightfoot Jr., turned down the offer because the mission would’ve been impossible.
Trump reportedly told Lightfoot that his administration would’ve sent “NASA’s budget through the roof,” but only if the US space agency focused entirely on sending humans to Mars. But it is impossible to prepare and launch such a mission until 2025 when a second Trump’s term would end.
According to scientists, sending humans to Mars is astronomically challenging. While a journey to the Moon would take only three days, a trip to the Red Planet would take six months, at least.
Donald Trump Wanted NASA To Send Americans on Mars By The End Of His First Term – NASA Turned Him Down Because Would’ve Been Impossible
“In engineering, we think about orders of magnitude. Any food you bring to Mars has to last two orders of magnitude longer than what you’d bring to the Moon. There’s more than 100 times as many days for astronauts to get sick or injured. There’s two orders of magnitude more radiation than on a trip to the Moon,” said Dale Skran, vice president of the National Space Society.
“That’s not just a linear increase in difficulty. It’s exponentially harder,” also said Casey Dreier, senior space policy advisor for the Planetary Society. “Money can get you so far, but any engineer would tell you that throwing more engineers at a problem doesn’t make it get solved faster,” he added.
“The concept that enough money can accomplish anything by any time in engineering is fallacious. I’m sure you’ve heard the engineering expression ‘you can’t get nine women to have a baby in one month, and I’m sure that’s true regardless of how much you pay them,” also said Daniel Adamo, the co-founder of the Space Enterprise Institute.
Vadim is a passionate writer on various topics but especially on stuff related to health, technology, and science. Therefore, for Great Lakes Ledger, Vadim will cover health and Sci&Tech news.