Trump has commanded NASA to send a manned spacecraft to Moon. The Orion capsule that will land on the river of the Moon will be unmanned but Trump and his advisers want it to have a passenger.
Trump has instructed NASA to move faster and change their timeline and schedule just to do what he wants. Mail Online has reported that NASA's acting administrator has commanded top staff to spectacularly speed up their plans of sending man outside Earth. It will be the first time a man will go beyond the orbit of the planet since 1972.
Moreover, the NASA staffs were tasked to measure the possibility of putting an astronaut to Exploration Mission-1, the first integrated flight of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. It was designed to launch no earlier than 2018. But it looks like Trump wants it to be earlier. though it is hard and requires tons of time and work, there are also many new opportunities and possibilities that could be gained with this mission, said Robert Lightfoot, who was previously the space agency's acting Associate Administrator.
According to Washington Post, Trump wants to let China know that U.S. is still at the top when it comes to conquering space. "What I hear being discussed is the potential for some time within the first Trump term being able to go and do an Apollo 8 mission," said Bob Walker, an adviser to the Trump transition team and a former congressman who chaired the House Science Committee, Tuesday.
Newt Gingrich, another Trump adviser wants NASA to be more entrepreneurial. NASA is becoming less and less risky and innovative with their programs, said Gingrich. NASA should encourage billionaires and entrepreneurs to invest in them and their programs by showing the world they can do these things, added Gingrich. He also wanted to make NASA more commercialized and free it from the government so it can work at its own pace. He also thinks that Mars can be orbited during Trump's second term.
