Trump Ditches Musk's Dream Of Mission To Mars Faster Than An Exploding Starship

President Donald Trump has marched in lockstep on policy with White House squatter Elon Musk since he was elected to a second term in office. However, Trump might not be on board to fund a crewed mission to Mars, a long-time goal of his campaign's biggest backer. Mars is Musk's white whale. He wants to die on the Red Planet and give his sperm to populate a Martian colony.

Trump made his priorities known during a Fox News interview last Sunday. Tesla's newest salesperson said, "Is it number one on my hit list? No. It's not really. But it is something that would be, you know, it would be a great achievement." That's a big shift in enthusiasm compared to his Joint Address to Congress last week. Standing in the House Chamber, Trump said that the country is "going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond."

The time for Trump to actually reach his target has already passed. There are only two launch windows for a Mars mission left during Trump's second term in office, according to SpaceNews. The next window is in late 2026, far too soon for any project starting from scratch today. The window after that is in late 2028, during the campaign for the next presidential election. It's a nine-month trip to Mars, so the country would have a new commander-in-chief for the landing unless Trump clumsily maneuvers his way into an unconstitutional third term.

The White House is going in the opposite direction when it comes to funding NASA, as the space agency is expected to see its $7.3 billion science budget halved in the 2026 federal budget. NASA is already considering that the Artemis program is in jeopardy, and it's thinking about canceling the Space Launch System, the rocket slated to get Artemis astronauts to the Moon. Boeing is preparing to lay off half its staff dedicated to the SLS. Everyone is seemingly waiting for the Trump Administration to pull the plug.

While it is difficult to financially justify a rocket $6 billion over budget, space exploration programs aren't business ventures. They are intended to achieve an arbitrative goal with the tangible benefits discovered all the way. President Kennedy didn't consider the massive economic and technological impact the Apollo program would have when he set out the goal of reaching the Moon before 1970. Today, Musk won't hesitate to say how SpaceX could reach the Moon faster and cheaper than NASA without actually trying to do it.