- Trump won praise for the ongoing space race between billionaire Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos.
- Trump claimed that he was responsible for renting the facilities needed for the launch from the two billionaires.
- He also claimed that he “reopened” NASA. The agency has never been closed.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
Former President Donald Trump praises himself The ongoing space race Between billionaire Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos.
On July 11, Trump called Fox News program “Sunday Morning Futures”, Hosted by Maria Battiromo, and stated that his government leases the facilities to Branson and Bezos so that they can enter space.
“They like launching rocket ships. I made it possible for them to do this. I actually said to my people,’Let the private sector do it,'” Trump said to Battiromo.
“These guys want to come in with billions of dollars. Let’s rent their facilities because, you know, you need certain facilities to launch rockets. We have these facilities. We have the best facilities,” Trump said.
Contrary to Trump’s statement, although Branson and Bezos did test and launch rockets from government facilities, the terms of these agreements predated Trump’s presidency.
Branson was already advancing rocket testing in 2014, when he used the state-owned Mojave Aerospace Port to launch VSS enterprise.
Billionaire, who Explosion over New Mexico on July 11, Embarked on his journey From a commercial spaceport in Las Cruces, New Mexico, called U.S. Spaceport. Virgin Galactic Repositioning its space shuttle test To commercial facilities by 2020.However, he agreed to become the main tenant of the facility-this is Owned and operated by the New Mexico Spaceport Authority —— Back to 2011, Long before Trump took office in 2017.
Jeff Bezos runs the blue origin space enterprise From the 165,000 acres he bought in western Texas. And although Bezos Did rent a space in Florida From the U.S. Air Force building a launch pad for an orbital launch vehicle, which happened on September 2015, A few years before Trump took office in January 2017.
Bezos is Ready to take off From Launch site owned by Blue Origin July 20 with his brother Mark Bezos in the Texas desert In a space capsule on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. The Bezos brothers will accompany 82-year-old pilot Wally Fink with Unidentified bidder who bid $28 million Seats on the flight. Blue Origin plans to turn the Amazon billionaire Carmen line, A point 62 miles above the ground, a few miles above the ground 53.5 mile mark Branson must.
Meanwhile, Branson returned to Earth on July 11. Reach the edge of space in a one-hour round trip of a rocket plane,He told CNN It is “far more extraordinary than (he) can imagine.”
In the same phone call, Trump continued to attribute the space race to Space Force will launch in 2019.
He also claimed that he reopened NASA, Although the agency has never been closed.
“It was closed, grass growing in the cracks of the runway, and out of control people. Now it is a vibrant and unbelievable place,” Trump said, referring to NASA. “It’s a closed and silent field, and I am very, very proud of the Space Army.”
