Private Space Exploration Sees Opportunity in Trump Administration

INJOOn the eve of Sputnik's 60th anniversary, Vice President Mike Pence announced the Trump administration will direct NASA to return astronauts to the moon and partner with private spaceflight organizations in an effort to re-establish the U.S. as an exploration and commercial powerhouse.

It was the official kickoff of the revived National Space Council, which President Donald Trump tasked Pence to chair, with additional involvement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao.

These initiatives are nothing particularly new. Previous administrations have ushered NASA toward lunar and Martian goals, but turning those lofty ideas into reality is tricky and can take expensive, time-consuming bites out of pre-existing commitments the government agency has on its docket.

Experts warn that without active measures to seriously partner with commercial space travel companies, the National Space Council will serve merely as a prop.

In the past, private enterprise has often been pitted against the government in an attempt to create a space race within U.S. borders. But little sustained exploration came of the feud. Instead, a truly focused council, with policy behind its claims, may be the only way to re-solidify the nation as the juggernaut of the cosmos.

A Downward Path on Space Exploration

During his remarks at that October meeting, Pence complained that previous administrations had abandoned efforts to establish the U.S. as a leading power in space. “Rather than competing with other nations to create the best space technology,” he said, “the previous administration chose capitulation.”

That's not entirely true, of course. American space exploration has been hacked out of budgets over time. When George W. Bush requested increased NASA funds in 2004, for example, he got a bipartisan thumbs-down from Congress.

To stem that downward spiral much earlier, his father, George H.W. Bush, established the National Space Council in 1989 to serve the confluence of civil, military, and commercial space issues, but the council disbanded a few short years later, in 1993.

With its stagnant operating budget, NASA's ability to send aircraft into low-earth orbit is weak, suggested Robert Bigelow, president of Bigelow Aerospace, in 2013.

“If there is no outside help over the next 10 years, only a very modest human exploration effort is possible,” he told reporters four years ago.

One former space official disputed Pence's claim the U.S. was treading water for the past eight years. Philip Larson, a former White House space adviser in the Obama administration and current assistant dean at the University of Colorado's engineering school, pointed toward the success of SpaceX's Falcon 9 carrier rocket as proof of the success under Obama.

“I see Vice President Pence said we've abdicated our leadership in space. Meanwhile we've had 23 [Falcon 9] launches from United States aerospace companies just this year, which is almost double any other country,” Larson told IJR. “Our approach under President Obama was more focused on enabling us to go everywhere as opposed to just one place.”

Read the full story on IJR.com

Photo: Getty Images


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