Earth’s atmosphere serves as the doorstep to the rest of the universe with an all-new frontier just waiting to be explored and discoveries waiting to be made. It’s been more than 40 years since any human (that we know of) has stepped foot on a celestial body other than the earth, and Elon Musk plans to send a manned mission to mars as early as 2022 via his prized SpaceX rockets that are, in fact, very promising. However, on the other side of the spectrum, President Trump signed legislation S. 442, which provides funding of $19.5 billion to NASA and a goal (or ultimatum) to get to Mars by 2033.

At face value, the funding and goal to get to Mars seems promising, as that means that NASA isn’t going to experience the same funding cuts as other science agencies in the mix. It looks so good, in fact, that Recode co-founder, Kara Swisher, tweeted to Musk saying “Somewhere @elonmusk is smiling.” As it turns out, though, Musk has a completely different view and isn’t really happy at all. See, Musk wanted added funding for the Mars mission, while in fact, this bill does nothing of the sorts. His replies on twitter say it all:

“ @Karaswisher I am not. (smiling) This bill changes almost nothing about what NASA is doing. Existing programs stay in place, and there is no added funding for Mars.” He continued in a second tweet, saying that maybe there will be a bill in the future that makes a difference, but this one isn’t it. And, he’s not the only expert who thinks that way either. Scott Pace, the director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, thinks it's more of a vote for stability than it is a great leap forward.

Keep reading for the rest of the story

Things Actually Get Worse

While this bill does secure funding for NASA, it could actually affect missions that are related to earth and its environment. According to Business Insider,, the bill will cut multiple NASA initiatives, including the Office of Eduction, the Plankton, Aerosol,Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE,) the Orbital Carbon Observator-3, the Deep Space Climate Observatory, and the CLARREO Pathfinder missions. Of course, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise as President Trump doesn’t seem to be too concerned with Earth’s climate anyway. What do you think? Should we be focusing more on Earth’s climate and what’s going on at home first, or should getting to Mars and expanding our capabilities of space travel be a high priority? Let us know what you think in the comments section below. And, in case you’re wondering, the chart below shows the differences between Earth and Mars:

Earth

Mars

Diameter

7,926 miles

4,220 miles

AVG distance from the sun

93,000,000 miles

142,000,000 miles

Temperature

-126F to 138F

-285F to 88F

Force of gravity

100LB

38LB

Day length

24 Hrs

24 Hrs 40 Min

Land mass

148.9 million km2

144.8 Million km2

People

7 Billion

0


|