President Trump paid tribute to the crew of Artemis II by bringing them on stage during his Fourth of July speech on the National Mall Saturday night.
“I assume you’re going to be heading to Mars,” Trump told the astronauts. “We’re going to be going to Mars very soon, and I think that’s something that we do have in mind.
“And we’re going to do the moon, and we’re going to go from there. We’re going to go to Mars, and we’re going to continue to be way ahead.”
“Some people smiled, they thought it was foolish, and now they’re finding it’s one of the most important things that we’ve done,” Trump added.
“We were losing to China and to Russia in space, and now we’re leading them by giant steps, and it’s a great thing.”
Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen completed their mission on April 10, becoming the first humans to reach the Moon since the Apollo era after a successful 10-day lunar flyby aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft.
They were joined on stage by Harrison Schmitt, the last living person to have walked on the Moon when he took part in the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
