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Trump Offered NASA Unlimited Funding To Put People on Mars by 2020, Report Says (nymag.com)

Posted by msmash on from the worth-a-shot dept.

From a report, based on a book by Cliff Sims, who worked as a communications official for Trump on his presidential campaign and in the West Wing: 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 described the uncomfortable exchange that followed the question, with Lightfoot shifting and placing his hand on his chin, hesitating politely and attempting to let Trump down easily, emphasizing the logistical challenges involving "distance, fuel capacity, etc. Also the fact that we hadn't landed an American anywhere remotely close to Mars ever." Sims himself was "getting antsy" by this point. With a number of points left to go over with the president, "all I could think about was that we had to be on camera in three minutes .. And yet we're in here casually chatting about shaving a full decade off NASA's timetable for sending a manned flight to Mars. And seemingly out of nowhere."

10 of 600 comments (clear)

  1. Just realised... by YuppieScum · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...that he reminds me of Verruca Salt - "I want it NOW!"

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  2. It is called a boss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sounds like someone is not used to having a boss. Managers ask unknowingly ridiculous things all the time. It is called having a job.

    J

    1. Re:It is called a boss by jwymanm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. It could've even just been a fun quick question to ask. Everyone is on red alert for Trump to do or say something wrong. He does that anyway but how many damn hit pieces do you need for one person?

    2. Re:It is called a boss by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're bending over backward though to assign sane and skilled leadership skills to someone who does not have them. I will illustrate it with two different questions.

      Can we get someone to Mars before the end of my first term with infinite money?

      With infinite money, how soon could we get someone to mars?

      They're subtly different but one question is an intelligent question that identifies bottlenecks. The other is a vanity request.

  3. Not Really Wrong of Him to Try by Ferretman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I imagine he was rather disappointed with where our space program is at the moment though. Can't say as I blame him.

    It'll happen eventually though.

    Ferret

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    Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
  4. Re:How the mighty have fallen by jareth-0205 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm sure you know all about it, I mean it's not exactly rocket science is it.

    The response to someone making impossible demands isn't OKAY LET'S FUCKING DO IT. Less than 2 years absolutely is impossible, of course it is. Hell it takes about 7 months to travel there. It's not a case of not being ambitious enough, it's not a case of being scared, it's a case of the very clever person in the room who knows how hard things are knows that trying to do that would be folly, waste a lot of money, and people will die.

    Fuck this macho bullshit. Hard things are hard, serious people respect that.

  5. Re: like ADHD by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's "impossible" that becomes possible when enough time and money is thrown at it and then there's impossible that is actually impossible. If you promise all the resources in the world to someone and they still say it's not possible, it doesn't mean they're bad at their job. It might just mean that it's actually impossible. If you promised me the entire world's resources devoted to sending a person back in time, I'd tell you it's impossible. Even if the entire world stopped what it was doing and devoted itself to this one task, we wouldn't be able to do it. I know that's an extreme example, but some things truly are impossible. Even if we gave NASA an unlimited budget, they couldn't safely send a man to Mars by 2020.

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    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  6. Re:How the mighty have fallen by MrTester · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh please.
    If I had been in Lightfoots shoes I wouldnt have heard this as "Ill give you all the money you need to get to Mars." I would have heard a question that, if taken seriously, would cause all of NASAs priorities to be shifted around, lots of money spent on planning/replanning but when push comes to shove and the answer becomes "no, actualy we cant make that happen in in your term" and NASA becomes Trumps latest tweet storm, jobs are lost, there IS no additional money, everything we did comes out of the existing budget and we wasted a ton of money shifting priorities.

    So "No sir, we cant" is the smartest answer there is when someone like Trump asks you to do something ridiculous.

  7. What Trump's second response should have been by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When the NASA guy tried to patiently explain why it would be 2030 when NASA was there, Trump should have responded with:

    "Well SpaceX says they'll be landing people there in 2025, why is NASA so slow? Maybe I should just send more government money to SpaceX. Why do you think you deserve it instead?"

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    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  8. Re:By 2020? by tomhath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    RTFA. The question was asked almost two years ago.

    And if you get past your derangement, it's a reasonable way to prod a bureaucrat into thinking big.