Trump, Musk set sights on Mars

President Donald Trump pledged to send American astronauts to Mars in his inaugural address Monday, to the visible delight of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who was seated near another important private sector space chief, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.

“The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons,” Trump said.  “And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”

Trump’s apparently ambitious approach to human Martian exploration resembles Musk’s increasingly aggressive Martian timeline. In September, Musk tweeted that if SpaceX’s uncrewed Starship landings on Mars went well, “the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years,” or 2028.

The U.S. space agency does not yet have an officially designated mission to send humans to Mars, though it has been sending unmanned probes to the planet for almost 60 years. NASA is currently researching several technologies necessary to send humans to Mars and back “as early as the 2030s.”

Through its Artemis program, the space agency aims to send American astronauts back to the Moon as early as 2027 aboard rockets built by SpaceX through a $2.89 billion contract. Trump has nominated businessman and SpaceX investor Jared Isaacman as his NASA administrator.

In a Washington, D.C. speech after the inauguration, Musk — who made a controversial salute during his remarks — said, “We’re going to take DOGE to Mars.” 

DOGE is an acronym for the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory committee headed at least in part by Musk and charged with reducing government spending.

“I mean, can you imagine how awesome it will be to have American astronauts plant the flag on another planet for the first time?” Musk added.

NASA did not respond to a request for comment.