With three words, President Trump fortifies a flawed perception about NASA

Enlarge / President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at the Amsoil Arena on June 20, 2018 in Duluth, Minnesota.

Fresh off an appearance at a National Space Council meeting Monday, space was evidently on his mind when President Trump spoke at a campaign rally in Duluth, Minnesota, on Wednesday night. "Our beautiful ancestors won two world wars, defeated fascism and communism, and put a man on the face of the Moon," he told his adulatory crowd. "And I think you saw the other day, we're reopening NASA. We're going to be going to space."

The crowd responded by chanting, "Space Force! Space Force!"

The most obvious response to such a comment is to laugh. NASA has never closed, of course. NASA's budget, in terms of raw dollars, has never been larger. Additionally, the Space Force has nothing to do with NASA; it is a military enterprise. And the United States, thanks to SpaceX, is launching as many orbital rockets today as almost any time in history. We have never been more in space than we are now.

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