President Trump, like the rest of us, wants to know when we're sending people to Mars

President Trump video-called the International Space Station on Monday, as one does, and he had some pretty pressing questions he wanted answered. "Um, Mars," Trump began. "What do you see [as a timeline] for actually sending humans to Mars? Is there a schedule and when would you see that happening?"

On the other end of the line was astronaut Peggy Whitson, who has just broken the record for logging the most time in space of any American. Casually bobbing in the ISS, she told Trump: "Well, I think as your bill directed, it will be sometime in approximately the 2030s."

She added: "Unfortunately, space flight takes a lot of time and money, so getting there will require some international cooperation, to get it to be a planet-wide approach, in order to make it successful … but it is so worthwhile doing."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

That wasn't cutting it for Trump. "Well we want to try to do it during my first term, or at worst during my second term," he said with a smile. "So we'll have to speed that up a little, okay?" Jeva Lange