Trump wants to “plant the Star-Spangled Banner on Mars” and omits the Moon and Artemis

Since the fall successes of SpaceX’s Starship, some voices have begun to speak out against NASA’s lunar program, Artemis. Some have proclaimed that it is possible to aim directly at Mars, others that the SLS launcher planned for the lunar program is too expensive and that Starship would do a better job, even if it is still far from being able to carry astronauts.

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Elon Musk, boss of SpaceX/Tesla and now a member of the presidential cabinet, who has nothing to do with the re-election of his new friend Donald Trump, has a declared supreme ambition “to send humanity to Mars to make it a multiplanetary species”. He would thus appear as the being who saved the human species from possible extinction, no longer subject to the hazards of a world potentially targeted by asteroids and all imaginable catastrophes. The tycoon created SpaceX in 2002 for this purpose, literally in heaven as he listened to the speech of the new American president…

“We will pursue our indisputable destiny towards the stars”

Donald Trump explained to the crowd gathered in front of the Capitol that “the United States will once again see itself as a growing nation, one that is increasing [ses] riches, expands [son] territory, built [ses] cities, arouses [ses] expectations and door [son] flag in new and beautiful horizons. And we will continue our unquestionable destiny to the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Star-Spangled Banner on the planet Mars.”

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Should we already draw strategic conclusions from this speech by D. Trump? That’s the whole question and it’s difficult to answer. We can estimate that at such a moment, the president only wanted to galvanize his audience with a visionary speech, responding to the famous — and moving — “We Choose to Go to The Moon”” (we decide to go to the Moon), by John F. Kennedy in 1962. Certainly, the Moon is less dreamy than Mars in 2025, but even with this cautious interpretation, this does not bode well for the Artemis program which has already cost 90 billion dollars The long-term establishment of Humanity on our natural satellite seems to be completely in the background, in line with the vision of Elon Musk still repeated at the beginning. January on its X network.

An outright cancellation of Artemis would pose several problems. First of all, let’s remember that this was a promise from the 45th President of the United States of America, who was none other than… Donald Trump himself! In addition, many companies from across the Atlantic are engaged in this effort, including American states and their thousands of related jobs. And that’s without counting the Chinese who are aiming for the Moon without hesitation and at rapid speed. Abandoning them the geopolitical prestige of a permanent lunar base, wouldn’t that be a strange calculation for the Americans?

The most likely is that the Artemis program is going well, but in a version perhaps less ambitious than previously thought. The question of the Lunar Gateway lunar orbiting station is, for example, raised. The new administrator of NASA, Jared Isaacman, friend of Elon Musk and first announced Starship astronaut, does not seem the most neutral in this affair. However, he will have responsibility for this file.

It is therefore quite possible that the Moon will ultimately be nothing more than a “distraction”a repeat of the great and very perilous journey to Mars.