Trump gets mocked after tweeting that the Moon is part of Mars

Trump doesn’t think we should send anyone to the moon — instead, the president wants to send people to Mars. But our fearless leader seems to be confused about how planets work, and the internet is already tired. 

Despite his previous support for lunar missions, the president is over the moon. 

On Friday morning, Trump tweeted that instead of sending astronauts to the moon — because “we did that 50 years ago” — NASA needs to focus its efforts on sending people to Mars. That’s a reasonable request; in fact, NASA itself has been laying out plans to further explore the red planet aerially with a helicopter in 2020. 

But Trump didn’t mention the advancements NASA has made toward that goal, and instead continued, “They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!” 

It’s unclear what he means by that. Does he believe the moon is part of Mars? While it’s true that Mars has its own moons — two, actually! — the moon we landed on 50 years ago, our moon, orbits planet Earth. 

Here’s the most likely explanation: Trump probably got turned around, but his tweet has some factual backing. 

NASA has an extensive plan in place to sustainably build up resources on the moon, and use that to launch further missions to Mars. It wants to build a base on the moon, called the Gateway, which would act as a stepping stone to exploring deeper into space. The organization says “exploration of the moon and Mars is intertwined,” and establishing a lunar base is an opportunity to “test new tools, instruments, and equipment that could be used on Mars.” Essentially, the moon would serve as a test drive for human journeys to Mars, since it’s significantly closer than the 34 million mile trip to the red planet. 

So it’s possible that Trump heard that plan and condensed it into his own version. Reporters noted that the plan was recently discussed in a Fox News segment. 

That didn’t stop other Twitter users from mocking Trump’s tweet, though. 

It isn’t the first time Trump’s actively shouted about the final frontier. He raised eyebrows last year with plans for a military branch he dubbed the “Space Force,” which would protect us from all the very obvious threats of the galaxy. But like Vox notes, NASA’s 2024 plans for the Gateway is already very ambitious, and getting enough funding in time is dubious. 

Until then, the president will probably continue yelling about it.