Inauguration Day 2025: Losing little time, Trump indicators a slate of government actions : NPR

Elon Musk reacts as President Trump delivers his inaugural tackle after being sworn in because the forty seventh president of the USA.

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Kevin Lamarque/Pool/AFP/Getty Pictures

President Trump vowed to ship astronauts to Mars throughout his second inaugural tackle. “We are going to pursue our Manifest Future into the celebs,” he stated, promising to ship astronauts to plant the American flag on Mars.

Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO and Trump ally, was seated behind the president and gave a vigorous thumbs up on the comment.

Trump’s remark may sign a shift within the federal authorities’s focus towards the Pink Planet. Whereas Congress reauthorized NASA’s funds with a concentrate on moon exploration final 12 months, touchdown people on Mars is a serious objective of Musk’s SpaceX.

The corporate is creating Starship, the most important rocket ever constructed, with the last word objective of reaching Mars.

However federal regulators have restricted the testing of the rocket, which might discharge tens of 1000’s of gallons of contaminated water into the protected wetlands that encompass the check website in Boca Chica, Texas. Such rules could possibly be eased beneath the brand new Trump administration.

Final week, the experimental starship exploded over Puerto Rico throughout its seventh check flight.

NASA has the Perseverance rover on a Mars mission now. Earlier this month, the company introduced methods to simplify its mission of retrieving priceless samples stashed on the rover, with the objective of creating it cheaper.

At a rally at Capital One Enviornment, Musk stated, “We’ll take DOGE to Mars,” referring to the Division of Authorities Effectivity, the incoming administration’s new cost-cutting effort that Trump has tapped Musk to guide. “I imply, are you able to think about how superior it is going to be to have American astronauts plant the flag on one other planet for the primary time? How inspiring would that be.”