The White House has increased budget funding for Mars related projects by $ 1 billion. It is provided in the budget proposal for 2026.
Planet Mars PHOTO: Adevărul
NASA is preparing to prioritize the launch of missiles to Mars in 2026, a drastic change of priorities that coincide with President Donald Trump’s interests and benefits the Spacex, owned by billionaire Elon Musk.
The unexpected change occurs as a result of the 2026 budget proposal of the White House, which includes the increase of financing for Mars related projects by $ 1 billion and the promise to cover the costs of launch.
“We evaluate all the opportunities, including the launch windows of 2026 and 2028, to test the technologies that will allow the sending people to Mars,”
He told Polito Bethany Stevens, NASA spokesman.
Last month, the White House allowed it to be understood that Mars will be a priority of the Trump Administration, after the president met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, indicating in a press release after meeting the two and Italy will be associated for a mission next year.
However, NASA employees, who should normally be aware of such plans, have been left in the dark about a possible acceleration of the program for Mars, a senior official told Politico.
Although there are other companies in the race to produce missions for such missions, Musk’s Spacex has announced that he intends to send one of his rockets to the planet in 2026.
Colonial ambitions and technological realities
Changing NASA priorities could also contribute to a goal expressed by Trump during his inauguration speech, to send the first astronaut to Mars.
Although the new NASA plan is in accordance with the interests of Trump and Musk, it may be faced with negative reactions from the legislators who have legally requested the space agency to maintain a long-term human presence on the month or near it.
Last fall, Musk announced that his company’s first mission on Mars will take place in 2026, probably when the next earth -transfer window – that is, the moment when the two planets are favorably aligned, which will happen in November 2026.
The co-founder Tesla has long promoted an ambitious plan to establish a self-sustainable colony on the red planet to save humanity from extinction.
He previously predicted that a crew landing could take place in 2026, and the human presence on Mars could become a reality before 2030.
“It is not about going to Mars to visit once, but it is about making a multi-placement life, so that we can expand the scope and the scale of consciousness to better understand the nature of the universe and to ensure the long-term survival of civilization in the case, we hope to be unlikely, in which something terrible happens,” Musk told the host Fox News Jesse Watters earlier this week.
He said that departure on Mars serves as an insurance plan for men, predicting that the earth will be somehow incinerated by the sun in “Hundreds of millions of years.”
Musk has been supporting the idea of colonizing the red planet for over two decades and actively promoting missions to Mars, frequently wearing T -shirts with the “Occupy Mars” slogan.
However, scientists have said that Musk’s holidays on Mars will not happen too soon because of the complicated design and mission for the Starship of Spacex, among other concerns. Previous test flights resulted in spectacular explosions.
