Trump touts Space Force, moon and Mars plans in State of the Union address

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And a gallery guest was a kid with Space Force ambitions.

Space exploration got a couple of shout-outs in President Donald Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night (Feb. 4).

During the nearly 80-minute speech, Trump touted the recent establishment of the Space Force — the first new U.S. military branch to be stood up since the Air Force in 1947 — as one of his administration's key accomplishments thus far. 

And one of the president's special guests for the State of the Union, which is held every year in the House of Representatives chamber of the U.S. Capitol building, was a kid with Space Force dreams.

Related: Presidential Visions for Space: From Ike to Trump

President Donald Trump speaks during his State of the Union address on Feb. 4, 2020. (Image credit: WhiteHouse.gov)

"In the gallery tonight, we have a young gentleman," Trump said. "And what he wants so badly — 13 years old — Iain Lanphier, he is an eighth-grader from Arizona. Iain, please stand up. Iain has always dreamed of going to space. He was the first in his class and among the youngest at an aviation academy. He aspires to go to the Air Force Academy, and then he has his eye on the Space Force. As Iain says, 'Most people look up at space; I want to look down on the world.'"

President Trump also referenced NASA's Artemis program of crewed lunar exploration. Artemis aims to put astronauts on the surface of the moon by 2024 and use Earth's nearest neighbor as a training ground for crewed missions to Mars in the 2030s. 

Related: In photos: President Donald Trump and NASA

NASA originally targeted 2028 for the human lunar landing, which will be the first since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, but Vice President Mike Pence announced an accelerated timeline in March of last year. (Last month, the House Science Committee introduced an appropriations bill that would re-target 2028 for the lunar landing. But that bill has a long way to go before being enacted as law.)

"In reaffirming our heritage as a free nation, we must remember that America has always been a frontier nation. Now we must embrace the next frontier: America's manifest destiny in the stars," Trump said during last night's speech. "I am asking Congress to fully fund the Artemis program to ensure that the next man and first woman on the moon will be American astronauts, using this as a launching pad to ensure that America is the first nation to plant its flag on Mars."

We'll soon see what kind of funding he has in mind; the White House is expected to unveil its 2021 federal budget request on Monday (Feb. 10). 

President Trump has made a fair bit of space news during his first three years in office. There's the Space Force, of course, and Space Policy Directive-1, which officially set the nation's human spaceflight program on its moon-to-Mars path. (President Barack Obama had directed NASA to get people to Mars, but to use an asteroid as a stepping stone.)

Trump has also signed two other space policy directives, which deal with space traffic management and the regulation of commercial activities in space, respectively. And in 2017, Trump resurrected the National Space Council (NSC), which helps steer American space policy.

Pence chairs the NSC, which had last been active in the early 1990s, during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Shmuel
    An inspiring speech, as usual. Don't worry, I'm not taking everything he says precisely, just in general terms. But I'll tell you, I do not feel comfortable about a "Space Force". We are keeping the military out of Antarctica, why do we need a Space Force? We work well with Russia in space, why do we need military there? OK, a few satellites, but a whole branch of the armed services? Seems a bit much to me.
    Reply
  • Truthseeker007
    Shmuel said:
    An inspiring speech, as usual. Don't worry, I'm not taking everything he says precisely, just in general terms. But I'll tell you, I do not feel comfortable about a "Space Force". We are keeping the military out of Antarctica, why do we need a Space Force? We work well with Russia in space, why do we need military there? OK, a few satellites, but a whole branch of the armed services? Seems a bit much to me.

    Well it seems our so called leaders and the leaders of most of the world want to militarize everything. A lot of it is our fault though because we still keep signing up for these programs around the world. Although I do understand in some countries they have no choice then to sign up for a military program. We even had that ourselves during Vietnam when people were forced for what may be deemed as a useless war where many lives were lost for both sides. You wonder for how many more generations longer will humans war with each other?
    Reply
  • Eric the Dread
    Does the Space Force not exist? Is the 1.6 billion increase request for Nasa's moon ambitions, disingenuine? Give me facts, as to why these are all just lies; not just spin.
    Reply
  • Eric the Dread
    Shmuel said:
    An inspiring speech, as usual. Don't worry, I'm not taking everything he says precisely, just in general terms. But I'll tell you, I do not feel comfortable about a "Space Force". We are keeping the military out of Antarctica, why do we need a Space Force? We work well with Russia in space, why do we need military there? OK, a few satellites, but a whole branch of the armed services? Seems a bit much to me.
    Antarctica has no strategic military value; space does. Any of our current forces can deploy to Antarctica if needs be; this can't be said of space. I get the ideal scenario, where space remains a utopia of human exploration and cooperation; but like sea and air, it's not realistic. In truth, that situation ended the moment space became a medium for lobbing nuclear warheads and deploying spy satellites.
    Reply
  • Eric the Dread
    It's not rational to doubt all things said by an individual; particularly so, if it's from someone sitting in the White House.
    Reply
  • Thejasonmondragon
    I don't really bother with quotes that don't operate without a level of common sense. I'd like to assume we are adults who understand at least that much. I wonder what The internet collected conscious maturity level is. I think there may be a way to calculate that both as a whole and based on network communities like Space.com and it's demographics for age and level of intelligence based on comments questions and answers, as well as empathy. Maybe Space.com can do a email blast to it's subs to take a personality test because it's fun both for the user and the network to collect that data if the user chooses to share after receiving a copy of their personality after a few questions. Then Space.com would learn more about it's audience and adapt. Just an idea.
    Reply