we could have been on Mars 30 years ago
at the peak of the Apollo era and the
early 70s NASA was already planning its
next step into the unknown its plans
included building multiple space
stations continued trips to the moon and
its first crewed mission to Mars by the
1980s
can you imagine watching astronauts walk
on Mars the same time the Walkman came
out but of course NASA never sent humans
to Mars in the 80s and here we are 30
years later still dreaming of the
possibility but the reason isn't
necessarily a matter of technology or
innovation it actually comes down to
politics as a government agency NASA's
goals are determined by the executive
branch
since its inception NASA has served
under 12 presidents and it was clear
near the start that not every president
would support NASA equally by the end of
the Nixon administration in 1974 NASA's
budget had plummeted from 4% of the
federal budget to less than 1% fully
funded Apollo missions 18 and 19 were
abandoned along with Apollo 20 at the
same time Nixon pulled NASA's focus away
from the Moon and Mars and instead
towards low Earth orbit his parting gift
was to sign into effect what would
eventually become NASA's Space Shuttle
program but this was just the beginning
so what's happened throughout all of
space history after the Apollo program
was over was we had this start stop
start stop cancel so a president comes
in like President Bush comes in and says
we're going to go to the moon back to
Mars and the next president comes in and
cancels that the next president sets
their objective the next president comes
in and cancels that the agency's unable
to sustain consistent funding long
enough to do anything it wasn't until
the space shuttle program was nearing
its end that a crewed mission to Mars
was finally considered and funded by a
u.s. President George W Bush in 2004
announced we'll give NASA a new focus
and vision for future exploration we
will build new ships to carry man
forward into the universe to gain a new
foothold on the moon as a result NASA's
constellation program was born never
heard of it that's because it was
cancelled a few years later it aimed to
send a crewed mission to the moon in
2020 and lands the first humans on Mars
by the 2030s by the time Obama was sworn
in the constellation program was behind
schedule and over budget
executed one year later Obama canceled
100% of the program's funding all that
has to change and with the strategy I'm
outlining today it will Obama shifted
NASA's focus from sending people to the
Moon and Mars to ultimately just Mars in
the process Obama asked Congress to
increase NASA's budget by six billion
dollars over the next five years as a
result NASA launched its journey to Mars
initiative in 2010 was the goal to send
humans into orbit around Mars by the
early 2030s and until recently NASA for
the most part was on track but then this
happened president Trump has relaunched
the National Space Council and at the
council's inaugural meeting in October
we unanimously approved a recommendation
to instruct NASA to return American
astronauts to the moon and from there to
lay a foundation for a mission to Mars
oddly enough the space policy under
Trump and Obama looked nearly identical
except for 63 words in those 63 words
Trump's administration has shifted the
focus once again to a moon first Mars
later initiative NASA isn't new to this
it's learned to recycle old projects to
fit new missions for instance the Orion
capsule was first developed for
constellation and has since been
redesigned for a journey to Mars but
even that can't prevent the unavoidable
changes NASA programs now face under the
new president as such we're also going
to realign the organizational structure
to best meet this new exploration focus
I've asked Steve Jersey
current head of space technology mission
director to lead an effort to design a
new organizational approach as NASA
pushes on a new possibility has grown on
the horizon privately-owned space
companies like SpaceX have also set
their sights on the red planet the
scientists and engineers at NASA are
amazing and they've done extraordinary
things but there's still a risk aversion
that doesn't allow us to do things that
are new and novel and on the edge it's
these entrepreneurs willing to take
risks and put everything on the line the
race for Mars is on while NASA is
closely partnered with SpaceX and other
privately owned space companies in
recent years ultimately it might not be
NASA who writes the next chapter in
human space exploration
you