DEMS/NASA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump has spent days feuding with progressive House Democrats, but on Friday [7-19-19] he stoked another conflict, pitting his NASA chief against the first men to travel to the moon as they debated traveling directly to Mars. During a gathering in the Oval Office to commemorate Saturday’s 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Trump grilled NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine and former astronauts Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin over the logistics of putting a man on Mars as well as the recent progress of NASA…But, he asked, is it possible to bypass the moon and go straight to Mars?…The administrator added that an additional wrinkle of Mars travel is that the red planet is only on the same side of the sun as Earth about once every two years. ‘So we have to be prepared to stay on Mars for long periods of time; we prove that out — on the moon — then we go onto Mars.’”
–Caitlin Oprysko, “Trump pits NASA chief against Apollo 11 astronauts,” Politico, July 19, 2019 3:58 pm