Did you remember the time when all space news and Moon mission was only dominated by NASA? Monopoly ruled the space field until new space research centres came into existence. Donal Trump also might look into the equal rights of private space agencies.
Early Moon mission was only made possible by NASA. But with time private space agencies came into existence. These private space agencies and NASA have been working together constantly for the quest of knowledge. Agencies like ISRO, blue origin nd SpaceX have played a great role in sending Moon mission satellites to Moon. Now, they declared that they don’t mind collaborating with NASA for Moon mission and send satellites to Moon for nurturing the existing knowledge about Lunar surface.
During the time of Barack Obama several Moon missions were wiped off as he was more interested in exoplanets and asteroids, hence suggested the space agencies scrap off the Moon missions and concentrate more on asteroids, celestial bodies and planets. However, with the change in time, now when Donald Trump came into power, he is rumoured to be showing more interest in Moon missions. Hence NASA and several other space agencies have again started working on their Moon mission satellites.
Although President Trump hasn’t spoken directly about NASA’s moon mission and his personal interests in detail, people close to him and also some former NASA officials have made it clear that there is an interest in the White House to return to the moon in partnership with private space companies.
“There is certainly a renewed interest in the Moon in the Trump administration,” said John Logsdon, a former director at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute.
The rumours may not be flatter away from the truth as for the first time in more than six years, White House passed the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017. The act grants $19.5 billion to NASA for future space explorations. The only thing needed to make the bill official is President Trump’s signature.
The Space Constellation Program, which was earlier conceived by former U.S. President George W. Bush, aimed at returning humans to the moon after the initial Apollo mission in 1960s and 1970s. However, the program was cancelled by Obama, who thought that it was too expensive and repetitive. Donald Trump is rumoured to have made plans to execute the mission again.
NASA’s space shuttle program saw its final liftoff in the summer of 2011, and ever since then, the agency has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, for seats on flights launching from Kazakhstan to the ISS. It finally seems that the mission will head off to active very soon.
On the other hand, the private space agencies are very excited about these Moon missions as they have long dreamth about sending their satellites to Moon. It is known that Billionaire Elon Musk, amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the rocket company Blue origin owner have visited Trump’s cabin many times to discuss about their Moon missions.