It has been half a century since the space agency landed people on the Moon during the legendary Apollo series and Dr Tyson thinks it is an outrage. The popular science communicator was speaking at the World Government Summit in 2018 on the subject of the future colonisation of space. He argued that NASA should have built on its success and should now be using companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX to do its smaller jobs.
He said: “Space shuttle cargo – why was NASA bringing cargo to the Space Station? Like why?
“If NASA wants to be a frontier agency, you bring in corporations to do the routine things that they can do efficiently and effectively.
“That’s what SpaceX has been doing recently.
“SpaceX brought up some supplies to the Space Station and the headlines were about a new era in space – what will happen next?
“They just took cargo to the space station, cargo!”
Neil deGrasse Tyson was furious at NASA (Image: GETTY/YOUTUBE)
Dr Tyson was speaking at the World Government Summit (Image: YOUTUBE)
That should have been happening decades ago
Dr Tyson scolded the space agency, moving on to his issues with their proposed mission to Mars.
He added: “That should have been happening decades ago, anything that ever happens that is routine by a government, it should then be farmed out to private enterprise and paid by the government.
“The government can have whatever reasons they need – geopolitical, for security, economic, whatever they want.
“Just look at Mars, actually let’s talk about Antarctica, which is warmer and wetter than any place on Mars.
“I don’t see people lined up [to go there] – I want to have condos in Antarctica – but it stops [most] people, it will never stop someone with ambition.
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Moon landing timeline (Image: GETTY/DX)
“Mars has got a lot of attention in the last few years since Mars One, announced by Bas Lansdorp.”
Dr Tyson went on to reveal a clever way a private company has come up with to fund its mission to Mars.
He continued: “To me what was intriguing about this is the Dutch were explorers way back, mostly with economic interests.
“And we have a Dutch person doing the same thing now with Mars.
“He wants to create a permanent human colony of four people beginning in 2032 and he’s got investors.
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NASA landed on the Moon 50 years agov (Image: GETTY)
Tyson wants to send people back to the Moon (Image: GETTY)
“How is he going to fund it? He’s going to televise it like the Olympics.
“It takes nine months to get there and a lot of time to film, but that’s a plan.
“What distinguishes Mars One is that when you go, there are no plans to bring you back.
“So the one in MarsOne stands for one-way.”
Dr Tyson previously revealed one way that the space agency would land on Mars “in 10 months”.
He said: “There are only two ways we can get to Mars – one is if China says they want to put military on Mars – we’d be there in 10 months.
NASA has plans to put humans on Mars (Image: GETTY)
MarsOne plans to colonise the Red Planet in the 2030s (Image: MARSONE)
“One month to design, build and engineer the spacecraft, nine to get there.
“You don’t want war to be the driver, even though that’s what got us to the Moon.
“We don’t remember that era being war-driven, but the Russians were our threat and the Moon was the new high ground.”
Dr Tyson went on to make a surprising admission about the famous Apollo 11 mission.
He continued: “So another completely noble goal, at least in capitalist culture, you do it because there can be a strong economic return to your culture or nation.
“If we were really candid with ourselves, we wouldn’t actually remember our role in that Space Race as pioneers, because, in fact, we were primarily reactive to what Russia did, not proactive.
NASA budget over the years (Image: GETTY)
“They put a Sputnik [satellite into orbit], we go ballistic literally and figuratively and we founded NASA.
“Then they put a human in orbit, we put a human in orbit, everything we did was a reaction.”
In November 2015, Administrator Bolden of NASA reaffirmed the goal of sending humans to Mars.
He laid out 2030 as the date of a crewed surface landing, and noted that planned 2020 Mars rover would support the human mission.
However, in March 2019, Vice President Mike Pence declared “American Astronauts will walk on the Moon again before the end of 2024, by any means necessary”.
This reportedly pushed back the space agency’s Mars aspirations.
