[Los Angeles] The retired Air Force general and astronaut, who was the second man to walk on the moon, endorsed President Donald J. Trump for a second term in a statement released by his Aldrin Ventures office here.
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“America is a nation of bold ambition, hope, and energy. We are a nation of free thought, free association and free movement,” said retired Air Force Brig. Edwin E. “Buzz”Aldrin Jr., who was the lunar module pilot of the July 20, 1969, first lunar landing mission.
“Most citizens rightly consider it an honor to cast their vote for a leader they believe will best serve the Nation – our government by, for, and of the people,” he said.
“For me, for the future of our Nation, to meet enormous challenges, and for the proven policy accomplishments above, I believe the nation is best served by voting for Donald J. Trump,” the general said. “I wholeheartedly endorse him for President of the United States. Godspeed President Trump and God Bless the United States of America.”
Aldrin said his support for the president also draws on his sense of adventure and obligation to defend the country he developed through his military service.
“We are a nation that allows the best of humanity to emerge, and we strive for great things. Only in America, the nation that I love, believe in, and took an oath to defend, do you find our spirit, the vision to break boundaries, turn impossible feats into reality.”
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The veteran of 66 combat missions in the Korea War said that he believed that Trump would continue America’s space exploration program, including pursuing the goal of reaching Mars.
“Over the years, I have seen our government’s approach to space wax and wane, a fluctuating dynamic that has disappointed me from time to time,” he said.
“Under the first Trump Administration, I was impressed to see how human space exploration was elevated, made a policy of high importance again,” the son of a World War II aviator said. “America saw a revitalized interest in space. His Administration reignited national efforts to get back to the Moon and push on to Mars – programs that continue today.”
Aldrin said he also appreciated that Trump reinstituted the National Space Council and created the U.S. Space Force. “The Nation’s defense was enhanced with the creation of the U.S. Space Force– increasingly important as space becomes a contested domain.”
The 90-year-old West Point graduate has not been known as an active participant in partisan politics, but in 2010, he backed President Barack Obama’s controversial decision to shut down NASA’s Constellation Project, the effort to return to the moon, in a HuffPost op-ed “President Obama’s JFK Moment.”
The President courageously decided to redirect our nation’s space policy away from the foolish and underfunded Moon race that has consumed NASA for more than six years, aiming instead at boosting the agency’s budget by more than $1 billion more per year over the next five years, topping off at $100 billion for NASA between now and 2015. And he directed NASA to spend a billion per year on buying rides for American astronauts aboard new, commercially developed space vehicles-that’s American space vehicles. Other NASA funds will go into developing and testing new revolutionary technologies that we can use in living and working on Mars and its moons.
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Aldrin also supported Trump’s emphasis on private space exploration, as exemplified by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
“I have been enthused and excited by the great advancements in the private sector space economy, led by visionaries like Elon Musk,” he said.
“These are concrete accomplishments that align with my concerns and America’s policy priorities.”