Donald Trump Will Call For a Return of Human Space Exploration – Inverse

During his address to Congress Tuesday night, President Donald Trump will make a call for Americas space program to reemphasize human spaceflight and exploration, reports PBS NewsHour report citing an unidentified senior administration official.

PBS NewsHours John Yang wrote on Twitter that Trump will call for return of manned space exploration. Its entirely unclear what is meant by a return to human space exploration, and exactly what that entails different from current operations being pursued by NASA, which still regularly sends astronauts to the International Space Station.

Those remarks, if true, could go a number of ways during Trumps speech. The president may be referencing the fact that America itself has not been able to launch any astronauts into space from U.S. soil since 2011, when the Space Shuttle program was shuttered. The agency has since relied on Russian Soyuz launches to get its astronauts to the ISS even while U.S.-Russian relations have deteriorated to a new low since the Cold War.

The agency is seeking to rectify the problem with the Commercial Crew Program, which would hand over the task of ISS launches to U.S. spaceflight companies like SpaceX and Boeing. Unfortunately, the two companies have repeatedly forced delays on the program, which could put NASA in a fraught position of having reopen negotiations with Russias space agency to secure more seats on future Soyuz launches for another year or so.

So Trump may be calling for the United States to speed up the process of conducting its own crewed launches once again.

Tuesdays speech also comes a day after SpaceXs surprise announcement that it intends to send two private citizens on a flight around the moon and back in 2018. His remarks may be a simple allusion to this mission. Given how bullish many in his administration are on the prospect of increased commercialization of space, the president might simply plan to reflect positively on SpaceXs plan.

Another thread that these remarks might weave into may have to do with the idea of going back to the moon. Internal chatter in the administration suggests the president wishes to redirect some NASA resources toward a crewed mission to the moon. That plot thickens with NASAs recent initiation of a feasibility study that will consider turning its uncrewed 2018 Orion mission to the moon, into a crewed one.

Trump is expected to deliver his speech at 9 p.m. Eastern. Itll be on every channel, probably.

Photos via Getty Images / Pool

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Donald Trump Will Call For a Return of Human Space Exploration - Inverse