Trump Flips on Space Goals, Tweets "Mars of Which Moon Is A Part".
MARQUARDT: Checking some of today's other top stories. A Texas prosecutor says that investigators have connected a confessed serial killer to more than 60 murders across 14 states. Seventy-nine- year-old Samuel Little is currently serving three consecutive life sentences for murder in California. According to the FBI, Little has confessed to killing women between 1970 and 2005, 35 years. Police say a fifth teen has been arrested in connection with an attack on a lesbian couple on a bus in London. Four other teenagers were arrested yesterday on suspicion of robbery and causing grievous bodily harm. One of the women shared this image which was taken just moments after the attack on May 30th. She says that she shared her story on Facebook to raise awareness and that in the aftermath found that many of her friends had also been harassed because of their sexuality. Someone in California is now half a billion dollars richer, half a billion. A single ticket matched all six months of last night's $530 million mega millions jackpot drawing. They are 17, 19, 27, 40, 68, and the gold mega ball, 2. The jackpot is the seventh largest in the history of the game. Congratulations to them. President Trump's newest NASA tweet has confused everyone on social media. In this tweet, the president appears to be backing off his earlier goal of putting Americans back on the moon by 2024. And as Brian Stelter now explains, it's onto Mars.</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Hey there. Yes, this is a bit of a flip-flop from President Trump but it's a flip-flop that makes many space geeks very happy. They want to see America or some other country land on Mars and that's what Trump is now emphasizing. Here in a tweet on Friday, he's saying, for all the money we are spending, NASA should not be talking about going to the moon. We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing including Mars, of which the moon is a part, defense, and science." Now it's a little bit confusing there, Trump saying that the moon is part of Mars. I think what he means is that there's been a lot of talk within NASA and among outside researchers about returning to the moon and then using that as a kind of a staging area or a pre-effort on the way to Mars. That is a popular view among experts, but I spoke with Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins recently who disagrees. He says the goal should be Mars, that should be the focus. In fact, he was quite critical of Trump when I spoke with him earlier this week.</s>STELTER: Do you think president Trump is realistic when he talks about his vision for going to Mars?</s>MICHAEL COLLINS, FORMER U.S. ASTRONAUT: No. I think his vision is going back to the moon. I don't think he is too much aware of Mars. Maybe he doesn't understand that there is a planet Mars.</s>STELTER: Quite a jab there from a former astronaut toward President Trump. But now Trump is talking more about Mars. In this new tweet, he's emphasizing that's where he wants to see NASA focusing. The question, of course, as it often is with President Trump is, whether his tweets carry the weight and impact of a policy or whether they're just one man's opinions, in this case, one very powerful man's opinions. We will see if NASA ends up commenting or making any changes as a result of the president's new statement saying he wants to focus on Mars, not the moon. Brian Stelter, CNN, New York.</s>MARQUARDT: All right, our thanks to Brian Stelter. Tomorrow night, see what happens when victims and offenders of violent crimes meet face to face on the new CNN original series, "The Redemption Project with Van Jones". Then stay tune for "United States of America with W. Kamau Bell". That's tomorrow night starting at 9 Eastern and Pacific only on CNN. Hello, thanks for joining me, I'm Alex Marquardt in this afternoon for Fredericka Whitfield. The first of the Democratic presidential debates is less than three weeks away already. And this really a monster field of candidates is out on the campaign trail this weekend, with the bulk of them descending on the first in the nation voting state of Iowa. Nearly a dozen of those chasing the Democratic nomination are in Des Moines today with many of them attending Pridefest which is the --