In spite of Elon Musk agitating for it, president Donald Trump isn't interested in making a crewed mission to Mars his "number one" priority.

As SpaceNews reports, Trump was lukewarm on the goal of sending humans to the Red Planet during a Fox News interview.

"There’s a lot of interest in going to Mars," he told Fox News on Sunday. "Is it number one on my hit list? No. It’s not really."

That's despite declaring that the US would "plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond" during his speech to Congress earlier this month, a line that was met with plenty of applause.

Trump also said during the Fox interview that he was "shocked" by the reaction to his remarks about planting a flag on the planet during his Congressional speech.

"There seems to be a big interest in it," he added.

Now that Musk has infiltrated the Trump administration and installed himself and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency as the ones controlling the purse strings, the topic of traveling to Mars has become a major point of contention.

For many years, Musk has made making humanity interplanetary his number one priority, going as far as to publicly call for NASA to give up its efforts to return astronauts to the Moon.

Trump has previously sided with Musk on that point, writing in a 2019 tweet that "for all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon — We did that 50 years ago."

"They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!" he added at the time (it's unclear what he meant by the Moon being part of Mars.)

But scrapping NASA's Artemis program, which was established during Trump's first term, could prove incredibly unpopular, with Congress members voicing concerns that giving up now could end up being extremely costly.

Getting humans to Mars would likely end up being far more expensive. Preparing for the voyage could also take far more time than Musk has previously estimated.

In September, Musk predicted that SpaceX's massive Starship rocket will start making regular trips to Mars in a matter of just two years.

"If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in four years," he added at the time.

But given the most recent explosion of SpaceX's latest Starship prototype, the company is facing major headwinds in getting the rocket ready for its upcoming trip to the lunar surface, let alone Mars.

It remains to be seen how Musk will react to Trump's cooling on Mars.

Could differing opinions on where humanity should head next put further strain on their relationship? After all, Musk has seemingly made it his entire life purpose to get to the Red Planet as soon as possible.

At least the two appear to be on the same page when it comes to gutting the federal government.

NASA is reportedly facing an up to 50 percent cut to its science budget, which could end up being "nothing short of an extinction-level event for space science and exploration in the United States," according to Planetary Society chief of space policy Casey Dreier.

More on Mars: It Kinda Sounds Like NASA Is Gutting Its Plans for a Moon Landing


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