Later in the day, President Obama traveled to Florida, where he defended his new space exploration policy in a speech Thursday to NASA employees at the Kennedy Space Center. Obama emphasized his commitment to the human exploration of space, announcing he will add $6 billion to NASA’s annual budget over the next five years.

President Obama: “We will actually reach space faster and more often, under this new plan, in ways that will help us improve our technological capacity and lower our costs, which are both essential for the long-term sustainability of space flight. In fact, through our plan we’ll be sending many more astronauts to space over the next decade.”

Obama also says he expects NASA to send humans to orbit and then land on Mars by the mid-2030s.