[AngryData]

I don't see how Musk could help in any way. He isn't an engineer, and the problems with space exploration are still pure engineering problems. You might as well be asking the CEO of Ford to come to your house and help you replace your cam bearings on a Nissan.

[SJC_Hacker]

> the problems with space exploration are still pure engineering problems

The problems are engineering at a cost which is politically acceptable.

If we wanted to, we could really go to Mars. It would just be really expensive - e.g. not a cost the public is current willing to bear.

[notahacker]

He isn't an engineer but does have considerably more willingness to listen to and understand engineers than the rest of the administration.

If nothing else, he's aware that there's a bit more involved in getting humans to Mars on any timeline than just rockets, and slashing the budget of the only entity working on those problems might not speed up getting there...

If course, he also knows enough to know nobody's sending manned missions to Mars in the next launch window regardless of whose in charge, and he's been quite fond of breaking stuff recently so I'm not sure we want Elon in charge either.