One of many United States’ most well-known house explorers is backing Donald Trump for president.
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second particular person ever to stroll on the moon, endorsed Trump in an announcement in the present day (Oct. 30), lower than per week earlier than the Nov. 5 presidential election.
“Over time, I’ve seen our authorities’s strategy to house wax and wane, a fluctuating dynamic that has disenchanted me from time to time,” the previous moonwalker wrote in the assertion, which was launched by Buzz Aldrin Ventures LLC.
“However beneath the primary Trump Administration, I used to be impressed to see how human house exploration was elevated, made a coverage of excessive significance once more,” Aldrin added. “Beneath President Trump’s first time period, America noticed a revitalized curiosity in house. His administration reignited nationwide efforts to get again to the moon, and push on to Mars — packages that proceed in the present day.”
NASA is doing a lot of its moon-to-Mars work by way of its Artemis program of lunar exploration, which was established in 2017 to assist obtain the formidable targets laid out by Trump’s Area Coverage Directive-1.That directive instructed NASA to return astronauts to the moon, then ship folks to the Crimson Planet.
Associated: In pictures – President Donald Trump and NASA
The 94-year-old Aldrin gave different causes for his endorsement as nicely. For instance, he cited Trump’s 2017 resurrection of the Nationwide Area Council after a quarter-century hiatus, his push to create the U.S. Area Pressure (which occurred in December 2019) and the advances in non-public spaceflight that occurred throughout Trump’s first time period.
“These are concrete accomplishments that align with my considerations and America’s coverage priorities,” Aldrin wrote. “For me, for the way forward for our nation, to fulfill monumental challenges, and for the confirmed coverage accomplishments above, I imagine the nation is finest served by voting for Donald J. Trump.”
Aldrin is not the one former NASA astronaut to throw his title behind a presidential candidate. For instance, each Jose Hernandez and Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) have endorsed Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I could not be extra assured that Vice President @KamalaHarris is the best particular person to defeat Donald Trump and lead our nation into the long run. She has my assist for the nomination, and Gabby and I’ll do all the things we are able to to elect her President of america,” Kelly wrote in a publish on X this previous July.
Kelly’s spouse is former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot within the head throughout a public occasion in January 2011. Since then, each Kelly and Giffords have campaigned for stricter gun-control legal guidelines, amongst different coverage priorities.