Without a Mask or Wife Melania, Donald Trump Travels to Florida Again for Rocket Launch

President Donald Trump traveled back to Florida on Saturday for the second chance to see SpaceX and NASA's joint rocket launch — the first manned space mission in the U.S. in nearly a decade.

Trump was joined at the Kennedy Space Center by Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence. First Lady Melania Trump, who joined her husband for the initial trip, was scheduled to travel back to Florida, but stayed behind in Washington, D.C., according to The Washington Post.

Days before on Wednesday, Trump and his family arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, mostly maskless, and left disappointed after the rocket launch was postponed due to inclement weather conditions. After a highly anticipated countdown, the launch crew pulled the plug on the launch 17 minutes before liftoff.

Trump was set to deliver remarks live from the space center following the launch, but the president, his staff, and the First Family all quickly boarded Air Force One and returned to Washington D.C. after the launch was delayed.

It's not clear whether Trump will speak following SpaceX and NASA's second attempt on Saturday.

Ivanka Trump, the president's 38-year-old daughter and senior adviser, was the only member of the immediate Trump family seen wearing a mask while NASA officials gave the First Family a tour of the Kennedy Space Center facilities. Ivanka's two children were also photographed wearing masks alongside their mother, while husband and fellow White House senior adviser Jared Kushner was not wearing one.

RELATED: Mostly Maskless Trump Family Heads to Florida for SpaceX Rocket Launch Scrubbed Due to Weather

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The president and his political allies' recent refusal to don a mask in public has drawn outrage, as critics label Trump's inaction as a dangerous message to send to the American public in the midst of a pandemic that's killed more than 100,000 people in the U.S. alone as of this week.

A New York Times tracker following the latest confirmed data from the coronavirus pandemic shows at least 1.7 million people in the U.S. have had a confirmed case of the virus. Health officials have suggested the real numbers on confirmed cases and deaths from the virus are likely more than what's been reported, given that not every person who carries the respiratory illness gets tested.

"Every leading doc in the world is saying you should wear a mask when you're in a crowd," Joe Biden, Trump's likely 2020 Democratic opponent, told CNN earlier this week. "Especially when you know you're going to be in a position where you're gonna inadvertently get closer than 12 feet to somebody."

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The Trumps and members of the president's White House staff were photographed at the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday loosely abiding by health officials' social distancing recommendations. The Centers for Disease Control has suggested all people wear masks while in public and suggested that people social distance by at least 6 feet from other people when possible.

Trump's dismissal of his own health officials' recommendations hasn't been masked much, itself. “The CDC is advising the use of non-medical cloth face covering as an additional voluntary public health measure,” he announced in April, immediately following up by adding, “It’s voluntary, so you don’t have to do it.”

Trump also said: “This is voluntary. I don’t think I’m going to be doing it.”

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty White House senior advisers Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, along with their two children, visit the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, May 27.

Evan Vucci/AP/Shutterstock President Donald Trump (red tie) tours the Kennedy Space Center facility in Florida on Wednesday, May 27, alongside Vice President Mike Pence (second from left) and members of the Trump family.

Despite the president's refusal, his own federal health officials have continued to voice their recommendations in the face of Trump's direct contradictions.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases and the face of Trump's coronavirus task force, said earlier this week that wearing a mask in public is simply a gesture of showing "respect for another person."

"I want to protect myself and protect others," Fauci told CNN on Wednesday, adding, "and also because I want to make it be a symbol for people to see that that's the kind of thing you should be doing."

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