Fly to Mars in my first term, Trump tells Nasa

UNITED STATES: US President Donald Trump has challenged Nasa astronauts to get to Mars within his first term, in a phone call with spacewoman Peggy Whitson.

He added that, at worst, they should reach the planet during his second term - long before the 2030s target he signed up for in a government bill.

Trump congratulated Whitson for setting a new spaceflight record on the International Space Station yesterday. The 57-year-old astronaut has recorded 534 days in orbit, beating Nasa’s previous record holder, Jeff Williams, but she remains far short of the world mark, which belongs to Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka with 879 days.

Reading from a prepared statement, Trump asked Whitson and her Nasa astronaut colleague Jack Fischer: ‘‘What are we learning from being in space?’’

The president, who signed a bill directing Nasa to send astronauts to Mars by the 2030s, then asked Whitson: ‘‘What do you see as a timing for actually sending humans to Mars?’’ She replied: ‘‘Well, I think as your bill directed, it will be approximately in the 2030s.’’

Trump responded: ’’We want to try to do it during my first term or, at worst, during my second term, so we will have to speed that up a little bit, OK?,’’ eliciting laughter from the astronauts.

Whitson’s latest trip to space, her third, began last November. She is scheduled to return to Earth in September. The oldest woman ever in space, Whitson also set a record for most spacewalks by a female astronaut last month, when she floated outside the space station for the eighth time in her career. - Telegraph Group