NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said Sunday the United States would be on Mars today if it weren’t for the “political risk.”
In an interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” Bridenstine said President Donald Trump is on board “100%” with returning to the moon in five years, but is focused on “putting an American flag on Mars.”
“There’s two risks, there’s technical risk and then there’s political risk,” he said of moon and Mars shots. “We would be on moon right now if it weren’t for the political risk — we’d be on Mars quite frankly by now had it not been for the political risk.”
He said by political risk, “I’m talking about funding.”
“In the 1990s and early 2000s we made efforts to go back to the moon and to Mars and in each case, the program took too long and cost too much money,’ he said. “[W]hat the president said is in order to retire the political risk we want to go faster, go back to the moon in five years… they amended the budget and that’s where we are.”
Bridenstine also said he talked to Trump after a controversial June 7 tweet that questioned NASA’s return to the moon effort.
“I talked to him after that tweet . I wanted to make sure we were in alignment. We absolutely are,” he said. “And in fact he said to me, ‘I know we have to go to the moon to get to Mars, but he said, ‘what will be that generational achievement that will inspire all Americans? It is putting an American flag on Mars. Make sure you’re committed to the flag on Mars.’”
Bridenstine added that “we go to the moon so we can learn how to live and work on another world and ultimately have more access to the solar system than ever before to get, no kidding, to Mars.”
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