Donald Trump is a shocking person but an even more shocking president. He often pushes boundaries and says as well as implements plans when most others would be more conservative. One of his latest plans is no different.
Trump has recently inquired as to whether NASA can put astronauts onboard the space launch system rockets. This is shocking because this was supposed to be an unmanned mission and the first mission for the Space Launch System rocket. In fact, the people over at NASA administration did not intend to put people on the Space Launch System for about a decade and after other flights had gone well and far more testing had been done.
Trump is constantly campaigning
Some people believe Donald Trump may be pressuring NASA to man this launch in order to have good publicity for the 2020 election. This new type of rocket from NASA is supposedly one of the most powerful rockets ever and if the launch went well it would certainly be good publicity for America.
However, the problem with both moving up the launch date and putting astronauts abroad is it has not been fully tested or prepared. A lot goes into getting a launch ready for NASA and requires tons of testing and safety precautions.
NASA is willing to try
NASA and America have been at the top of space exploration for some time. Americans were even the first on the moon. In other words, NASA is obviously full of very smart people from all over the world, and they are willing to try this risky new plan.
Some of the officials at NASA have released a statement saying they are willing to do some testing and see if the timeline can, in fact, be moved up in order to potentially have a manned launch by 2019. However, even if the launch is somehow moved up it will require tons of work from NASA. In fact, NASA will have to redo the launch pad at the Kennedy Space center.
While NASA feels that is possible it definitely will require lots of hard work for many men and women. One thing Trump may not be calculating into his plans are the risk to the astronauts that would ride aboard the rocket. Surely even Trump can see risking human lives for publicity is a bad idea.