The White House declared this Friday that the U.S. space agency has been revitalized under the Trump administration, after releasing a video of the presidential speech at Kennedy Space Center that garnered over 240,000 views within a few hours.
"Years of failed leadership led to the near-total collapse of space exploration in the United States. Not under the Trump administration. Thanks to President Trump, NASA is BACK, and Americans will be the pioneers of the next generation of space travel, to Mars and beyond," posted the official White House account on the social media platform X.
Trump delivered the speech during the aerospace summit UP Summit/MAX POWER, held at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, in front of around 500 business leaders, investors, and officials.
"Being American means inheriting the legacy of our greatest pioneers, explorers, inventors, and innovators... Now, our nation is ready to once again prove the skeptics wrong — and to take the next giant leaps for all of humanity," he noted.
The main announcement of the day was the creation of CapeWeek, an annual aerospace and technology exhibition called "The Great American Aerospace and Technology Expo," which will be held at the former shuttle landing strip of the KSC — a stretch of over four kilometers — on a site of approximately 769 acres.
The first edition is scheduled from March 27 to April 2, 2028, organized by NASA, the state of Florida, Space Florida, and private promoters, aiming to surpass the size and impact of the .
The organizers estimate that attendance will exceed 500,000 visitors annually once the event reaches its full maturity, with a cumulative economic impact of 5 billion dollars over ten years.
Trump justified the initiative by pointing out that it has been more than thirty years since a new aircraft was unveiled on American soil and that major aerospace contracts and headlines have gone to Europe.
"These foreign countries do not dominate aviation or the aerospace sector; they don't even come close. We do, and under the Trump administration, we believe that the future of those industries should be showcased right here in the United States," the president stated.
In space matters, Trump reiterated the goal of returning astronauts to the Moon before the end of his term and establishing a permanent lunar base.
He also announced that NASA will launch "within the next two years" the first nuclear-powered spacecraft bound for Mars, while the Deputy Undersecretary of Energy, James Danly, specified that a nuclear reactor will depart for the Moon from Cape Canaveral in 2028.
The NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, accompanied Trump at the event and presented him with a commemorative plaque intended to be installed on the old runway as a symbol of the site's relaunch. Trump referred to him as "the best administrator in the history of NASA."
The speech comes months after the Artemis II mission successfully completed the first crewed flight around the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, with four astronauts who set a record for the maximum distance achieved by humans, at 406,771 kilometers from Earth.
In August 2026, Trump had already signed a presidential memorandum that made Mars an explicit target for NASA and promoted commercial architectures for crewed missions to the red planet, also setting the goal of exceeding 1,000 launches and re-entries annually by 2030.
"Our ambition is back. Our drive is back. Our leadership is back. NASA is back. And, above all, the most important thing: the United States is back," Trump declared to those present at KSC.
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