Trump pledges ‘golden age’ of space travel

From left, Gen. John 'Jay' Raymond, U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, unfurl the U.S. Space Command flag during a ceremony to establishment of the U.S. Space Command in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to blast more rockets into space in a push to boost U.S. space travel, including to Mars and the Moon, the White House said Thursday.

The United States is competing with China in the race to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030, more than 50 years after humans first walked the lunar surface.

The policy aims to “reinvigorate America’s leadership in space transportation,” enabling over 1,000 launches and reentries on U.S. soil every year by 2030.

In a memorandum published Thursday, Trump called on U.S. space agency NASA to “facilitate commercial transportation to and from the moon, to facilitate commercial robotic access to Mars, and to explore commercial avenues to send humans to and from Mars.”

NASA is already pushing to create a lunar surface base and plans to use robotic vehicles to build infrastructure that future human explorers to the Moon could eventually make use of.

The president also encouraged private investment in U.S. space exploration and called on his government to identify additional sites to launch and land spacecraft.

NASA is aiming in 2027 to test an in-orbit rendezvous between its spacecraft and at least one lunar lander, which billionaire Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are racing to develop with their rival firms SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the lofty goal of ferrying humans to Mars and setting up colonies on the neighboring planet.