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Mars NASA United States Government Politics

Trump Offered NASA Unlimited Funding To Put People on Mars by 2020, Report Says (nymag.com) 600

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."

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Trump Offered NASA Unlimited Funding To Put People on Mars by 2020, Report Says

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  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:23PM (#58015146)

    What makes you think this will be different?

  • Just realised... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by YuppieScum ( 1096 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:25PM (#58015160) Journal
    ...that he reminds me of Verruca Salt - "I want it NOW!"
    • by ItsJustAPseudonym ( 1259172 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:56PM (#58015442)
      He needs the same answer: "Little girl, don't touch that squirrel's nuts!"
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24, 2019 @01:03PM (#58015490)

      Well, he asked, didn't he? Isn't that what a leader is supposed to do? How is a real estate developer supposed to know the intricacies of space travel?

      I mean, Obama didn't know jack about health care, so he went to the insurance lobby for help. And you guys LOVE that.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:25PM (#58015172)

    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

    • by jwymanm ( 627857 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:32PM (#58015230) Homepage
      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?
      • Yeah, Trump is famous for his wit. I would say that the factual reporting, er, I'm sorry "hit pieces", should probably keep coming until people stop defending the stupid shit he does.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bob4u2c ( 73467 )
      Exactly.

      Bosses sometimes ask this to see what the bottleneck is. Sometimes you cite things they can control; like I would need about $1Mil to get the equipment for just testing that idea, or I would need at least a team of 12 people for a year to finalize the plan. Those are things a boss can effect if they see the project as worthwhile to them.

      Now if you come back and say, if we launched today all the supplies and a person. To get them there by that date they would need to travel at a speed that wou
      • by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @01:55PM (#58015884)

        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.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

          Q1. "Can we get someone to Mars before the end of my first term with infinite money?"
          Q2. "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.

          I agree that they're subtly different. The first one has a concrete goal, one that's not achievable but also still admits reasoned answer as to why it's not achievable. Therefore it's more effective in identifying bottlenecks. The second one seems more likely to lead to answers that use more money than necessary. But I'm not understanding how Q2 would be a vanity request?

          (I'm being obtuse. You of course meant to imply that Q1 is the worse request. I'm disagreeing with your assessment of the questions.)

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

          Isn't that why we raced Russia to the moon and won? For vanity? To be first?

    • All the companies I worked for where the bosses were that stupid are out of business now. Most of them didn't even make it 4 years.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Yes well, Trump's exposure to the business world was through the Mom and Pop operation he was running. No board of directors, no public books. He could be as stupid as he liked because he was always able to shift financing to another group of marks. This shows up in The Grifter's 4-7 bankruptcies, depending upon how you count them.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Yes, bosses do come up with schemes that only a non-engineer would think possible. But they shouldn't come up with schemes a competent manager would know is impossible. That's not to say bosses that bad don't exist, but usually their careers stall in middle management.

      What we are looking at is something Europe grappled with in the 1840s: the incompetency of hereditary aristocrats. The only new wrinkle here is the use of electronic media to construct a more flattering public image.

    • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @02:25PM (#58016090)

      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 [inverse.com], why is NASA so slow? Maybe I should just send more government money to SpaceX. Why do you think you deserve it instead?"

  • by CrashPoint ( 564165 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:26PM (#58015180)
    We could absolutely put people on Mars by 2020.

    But if you want them to be alive when they get there, it'll take a bit longer.
  • like ADHD (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ... casually chatting about ... seemingly out of nowhere.

    This is how people with a very high IQ think and act. Almost like ADHD, except very focused.
    This is just an observation, not an endorsement or denial of President Trump. I've worked w/people
    like this. You look at their results, not the traveled path they took getting there 'cause chances
    are you wouldn't understand it.

    And you might see an easier way to their answer, but remember, you saw their answer and thus
    were influenced by it.

    CAP === 'ranked'

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 )

      I've seen Trump. Trust me. ADHD seems way more likely than high IQ.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      It's also a leadership methodology used by very experienced leaders. Of people involved in space programs, Korolev comes to mind. Get your engineering team, and then ask them to do the impossible. Offer them infinite support. Listen to them tell you it's impossible anyway. Ask for timetable with infinite resources.

      You will very quickly see which engineers are good at their job, as they'll start thinking in ways they haven't thought when they were focused on getting budgetary acceptance. And that's how Korol

      • Re: like ADHD (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @01:31PM (#58015700) Homepage

        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.

      • by Falos ( 2905315 )

        "Get me engineers who don't give a fuck" is how we got the Juicero.

        Yeah. They got it done. Congratulations.

  • Businessman (Score:5, Funny)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:31PM (#58015218)
    Trump's one of those "businessmen" who think two women can bring a baby to term in 4 1/2 months.
    • and they might even survive [google.com]. Yeah, it's technically 4.83 months, but since when is any construction project on time?

      That said, it's probably not a good idea if you value human life. And at any rate it's really just a distraction/vanity project. I'll believe Trump is concerned for our future when he makes good on his campaign promise of Universal Healthcare.
  • Worth asking... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    How is this different than any other business? A CTO with a million things on their plate may come to you and ask if you can speed up SAP deployment to a year.

    It's a good question. If your constraint is funding or inter-company politics, a motivated CTO can fix that. There are limits to how fast you can speed up some projects, but what's the harm in asking?

    Ditto for Mars. The President might have some interesting conversations if he made a phone call to Musk asking the same thing. Grant a contract or two

    • Re:Worth asking... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @10:26PM (#58018614)

      How is this different than any other business? A CTO with a million things on their plate may come to you and ask if you can speed up SAP deployment to a year.

      It's a good question.

      It's not a good question if you're about to give a presentation about the current deployment plan in 3 minutes and the CTO is suddenly acting pissed off and now wants it done before his contract re-negotiation.

      1) If the CTO cared that much they could have asked the question before the big presentation.
      2) The SAP deployment is for the company, not to pad the CTO's resume
      3) It's your big moment, giving the presentation on all your hard work. Now the CTO is pissed off at you for no good reason and you're thinking about their unreasonable request.

      You know I once saw a brilliant person taste a paint chip because they were curious about the taste.

      Therefore if Trump starts eating paint he must be brilliant also!!!

  • by maroberts ( 15852 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:37PM (#58015282) Homepage Journal

    ..he would have said "No, Mr President we can't get it done for 2020 but we can get it done for the end of your second term if you start the funding right now.!

  • by Ferretman ( 224859 ) <ferretman&gameai,com> on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:38PM (#58015292) Homepage
    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
  • by crow ( 16139 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:43PM (#58015342) Homepage Journal

    If he asked the same question of Elon Musk, he would have had a yes. Of course, Elon has a long track record of missing deadlines, but if SpaceX didn't have to use profits from regular launches to fund their Starship program, they could probably move it forward faster.

  • This would be little more than another pork trough for Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

  • Whatever happened to that plan for a private company to send two people on a flyby of Mars? It probably couldn't happen by the end of 2020, though.

    I think the best Nasa might be able to do by 2020 would be to send a small mammal, like a mouse, on a flyby of Mars. I'd say its chances of survival would be 50/50 at best, but it would give us a good idea of the danger involved. Landing it on Mars might also be possible, but launching it back to Earth after that probably wouldn't be. Which would turn it into

  • by Bromancer ( 5669524 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @12:58PM (#58015462)
    I can't begin to describe how immensely sad this makes me at so many levels. At what point did the techies become such losers? I can remember a time, when we would examine the seemingly impossible, buck up, and meet the challenge. We have by no means met the edge of technology or solved all the problems we can solve. Like so much in life, it comes down to will, and you guys are a a complete bunch of pussies.

    I want you to think about this. Really, truly, deeply think about this, and opportunity that was just lost. The space program has by and large been stalled. There is constant talk of going somewhere or doing something, sometime, which always seems to be 20 years away. Bureaucrats have been hired, who are more interested in job security than achieving. We have had a series of presidents, both republican and democrat, who have half assed the space program. We have lacked drive. We have lacked purpose. Now, an increasing number of people are losing interest that there is talk of far reducing funding or cancelling altogether. Why chase dreams when we can pay for more mundane practical stuff. It IS a good question.

    So, along comes trump. You (likely) live in California, so you reflexively hate him, no matter what he says or does. So, when he asks if you want to chase your so called dreams, for real, you withered in the moment and said no. You disgust me. You should disgust yourself, and anyone else who loves epic science. The bell was rung, and you CHOSE to be tone deaf.

    When Kennedy similarly rang the bell, better men than you rose and answered it. A whole host of knew technologies needed to be developed, but they new at its core, the moon shot was possible. Mars is the same. There are some issues to be solved, but they are not infinite. If Elon Musk offered a blank check for materials to have the best and brightest to work on this, you would faun over him, and maybe even be involved. But no, since you are small and petty, you mock and deride the effort because it was Trump.

    You can say the timing was bad. You can claim it was unfair. But anyone who has ever chased a dream knows, you have to have your elevator speech ready. You never know who you bump into to make it happen. Instead of being snarky at Trump, you should save your Ire for the fucking NASA admin who was not prepared. He was asked, and he was not ready. Pathetic.

    This was a moment in history lost. This was a moment for serious people with serious dreams. Instead, we got you. Instead of galvanizing expertise to figure out ways to meet the challenge, we will continue to support the nowhere scientists making nowhere plans for nobody. We will hand-wring and bitch that there is not money to test out solutions, since it is more fun to hand-wring and bitch than to actually tackle the problem. Again, you disgust me.
    • by jareth-0205 ( 525594 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @01:27PM (#58015674) Homepage

      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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      " You (likely) live in California, so you reflexively hate him, no matter what he says or does"

      I reflexively hate him BECAUSE of what he says & does.

      And i live in Texas.

      And fuck you.

    • by MrTester ( 860336 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @01:32PM (#58015704)
      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.
    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      I don't live in California, but I do live in the real world.

      In the real world, there is a limit to how fast you can speed up a project by dumping money on it. If you don't believe this that just means your experience with the real world is limited. Bad managers are quite generous when they're under time pressure, but a fat slug of money with a countdown clock attached doesn't make up for the lack of planning.

      Going to the Moon in eight years was feasible but expensive. Kennedy already knew this when he mad

  • by petes_PoV ( 912422 ) on Thursday January 24, 2019 @01:25PM (#58015662)
    Although it is impossible, since Mars missions are only feasible every 2 years due to orbital mechanics, the guy should have committed to it. With a huge cash injection, NASA could have made 10 years of progress in every aspect of space exploration. Hell, they might even have caught up with SpaceX in terms of rocketry.

    And after Trump's term is up ... what's the worst that could have happened? The guy gets fired and nobody is on Mars. But there would have been a lot of progress made. Maybe it would have then been possible by the end of Trump's second term?

    That is the problem with bureaucrats: they are too honest. Nobody expects politicians to tell the truth - the people they deal with should be self-serving for their causes, too.

  • And I know just the man to put in charge of this project...

  • Starting with Nancy Pelosi and the Mueller team and their 13 angry democrats.

  • What offer? There was no offer.
  • If he wants fame so much, lets send Trump on a one way trip to Mars, in fact lets send his whole damn family.
    Tell him its a revival of the TV series "Lost in space" and he is playing "Smith"

    Aim the damn thing at the sun and tell him its a short cut as Mars is on the other side.
  • Sometimes you can overcome logistical problems by simply throwing money at it.

    Other times, you could throw every last cent, ruble, kopeck, yen, yuan, won, bot, pence, etc on the planet at it and it still won't make some problems go away.

    If POTUS asks you about something like this, simply tell him that a manned Mars mission on a 1-2 year (since launching in December of 2020 would essentially be 2 years) timetable falls into the latter category.

    Hey, unlike past presidents, this one actually ASKED NASA about i

  • It's an interesting question - "can you do it?"

    My next question would have been - "What would it cost?"

    And then I'd have started asking about priorities and what they presently had on the table, etc.

    Folks sure are funny though, getting wrapped around the axle 'cause the man asked a question.

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