100 days of Trump: The space challenge. From Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the Moon!” to Trump’s “Who’s ready to go to Mars?”

Considered one of the most inspiring speeches by a U.S. president, John F. Kennedy’s 1962 “We choose to go to the moon” address went down in history. Seven years later, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface. Now, president Donald Trump asked astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer “Who’s ready to go to Mars?” and moved the 2030 deadline for human exploration on the Red Planet by ten years.

It all started with the ‘Space Race’

The Soviet Union and the United States’ fight for supremacy in spaceflight capability started back 1955, two years before the Russians sent the Sputnik 1 satellite into Earth’s low orbit. Then it got even more competitive after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961.

The U.S. responded by sending Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight on 5 May and then, on February 20 1962, bringing back astronaut John Glenn after his successful three-orbit mission around the Earth. But the United States wanted to achieve even more. Project Apollo, was the third United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and was dedicated to President John F. Kennedy’s national goal of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth”. On July 20, 1969, the goal was reached: astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Lunar Module on the Moon.

Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. During these six spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon.

The Space Task Group convened in 1969 to set recommendations for the future US civilian space program. It included plans for permanent space stations in Earth and lunar orbit, perhaps a base on the lunar surface, and the first human flight to Mars as early as 1986 or as late as 2000.

But back to the Moon…

Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the moon” speech

In 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy delivered one of the most inspiring speeches in history, one that changed how both Americans and people from all over the world viewed space exploration. Kennedy did it by condensing the human history to fifty years and saying “if America’s new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.”

In front of a large crowd gathered at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, on September 12, the 35th President of the United States said the following:

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

Behind the speech, which came at a time Americans had the perception that the United States was losing the Space Race with the Soviet Union, was a pragmatic fact: NASA needed a $5.4 billion budget and people had to support the national effort to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth.

“Who’s ready to go to Mars?” The $19.5 billion question

More than half a century after Kennedy’s speech comes Donald Trump’s question: “Who’s ready to go to Mars?”. The 45th and current President of the United States asked astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer if they’re ready and when they see it happening during a live video call from the White House to the International Space Station (ISS). The conversation took place just a month after Trump signed the S.442 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017.

“I’m very proud that I just signed a bill committing NASA to the aim of sending America astronauts to Mars. So we’ll do that. I think we’ll do it a lot sooner than we’re even thinking. So which one of you is ready to go to Mars?” Trump said.

“We are absolutely ready to go to Mars. It’s going to be a fantastic journey getting there, and very exciting times, and all of us would be happy to go,” Peggy Whitson replied.

And while the S.442 bill aims to send American astronauts to Mars by 2033, Trump advanced a different target during his call with Whiston and Fischer:

“Well we want to try and do it during my first term or at worst during my second term, so we’ll have to speed that up a little bit, ok?”.

“We’ll do our best”, Whitson and Fischer replied laughing.

The road to Mars starts with a strategic study

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017, by July 2017, an independent, non-governmental systems engineering and technical assistance organization must be contracted to study a Mars human space flight mission to be launched in 2033.

The study shall include a technical development, test, fielding, and operations plan using the Space Launch System, Orion, and other systems to successfully launch such a Mars human space flight mission by 2033; an annual budget profile, including cost estimates, for the technical development, test, fielding, and operations plan to carry out a Mars human space flight mission by 2033; and a comparison of the annual budget profile to the 5-year budget profile contained in the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2017.

By the end of November 2017, the appropriate committees of Congress will receive an assessment from the NASA Advisory Council explaining whether the proposal for a Mars human space flight mission to be launched in 2033 is in the strategic interests of the United States.

NASA and its partners have already sent orbiters, landers and rovers, dramatically increasing human knowledge about the Red Planet and paving the way for future human explorers. The Curiosity rover has gathered radiation data to help NASA protect future astronauts, and the upcoming Mars 2020 rover will study the availability of Martian resources, including oxygen.

There is much to learn as scientists expand humanity’s presence into the solar system: Was Mars once home to microbial life or is it today? Can it be a safe home for humans? What can the Red Planet teach us about our own planet’s past, present and future?

NASA is already studying potential “Exploration Zones” on Mars that would offer compelling science research and provide resources astronauts can use.