What Will A Second Trump Term Mean for Space Policy?

[TomH]

For the record, I did not start this thread. Originally, the post you see below was in the middle of this thread. All posts prior to mine were excised and transferred elsewhere, leaving my post as first in the queue. yg1968 created this thread and his original post is four posts below this one. I have asked the mods to reposition his post to the top of the thread, but they have not done so.

See the original, original thread post below: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=61826.msg2639506#msg2639506

What Will A Second Trump Term Mean for Space Policy?
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/what-will-a-second-trump-term-mean-for-space-policy/

I am creating this thread with Marcia Smith's article but it is meant to be a general discussion thread on space policy under the second Trump Administration.

Some posts split/merged here as the new thread head, as they are a better match in this thread than the new NASA Administrator thread.

[edit: zubenelgenubi]


Musk will not name the director, however Trump said he'd put Elon in charge of massive budget cutting. I imagine he would take a red pen to Orion and especially SLS. That's obviously a conflict of interest, but that's par for the course for 45/47.

[Perchlorate]

No.  Par for the course for 45/47 is 72.

[Proponent]

Musk will not name the director, however Trump said he'd put Elon in charge of massive budget cutting. I imagine he would take a red pen to Orion and especially SLS. That's obviously a conflict of interest, but that's par for the course for 45/47.

One person's waste is another person's meal ticket. Orion/SLS still has lots of support among Republican legislators. With Sen. Shelby gone, support is weaker, but I'll be amazed if Trump (or Vance, who is probably planning to become president whenever his boss leaves) wants to take on several Republican delegations.

[DanClemmensen]

Musk will not name the director, however Trump said he'd put Elon in charge of massive budget cutting. I imagine he would take a red pen to Orion and especially SLS. That's obviously a conflict of interest, but that's par for the course for 45/47.

Musk cannot accept a government position while he is CTO (or whatever) of SpaceX and Tesla. He would need to take a leave of absence and create a wall between himself and those companies. I hope he realizes that getting to Mars will happen faster if he stays where he is.

[yg1968]

What Will A Second Trump Term Mean for Space Policy?
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/what-will-a-second-trump-term-mean-for-space-policy/

I am creating this thread with Marcia Smith's article but it is meant to be a general discussion thread on space policy under the second Trump Administration.

[Brovane]

Musk will not name the director, however Trump said he'd put Elon in charge of massive budget cutting. I imagine he would take a red pen to Orion and especially SLS. That's obviously a conflict of interest, but that's par for the course for 45/47.

IMHO - Red-lining SLS/Orion at this time would almost certainly kill the chance of boots on the ground on the lunar surface before the end of Trump's term.  SLS/Orion will be closely looked at for continuing presence on the moon (Artemis V+)but I predict consistency for the Artemis program the next several years.  Trump wants to have that photo op of him calling the astronauts from the lunar surface from the oval office. 

[Greg Hullender]

The most interesting thing to watch will be whether Elon can actually get SLS/Orion cancelled and most/all of that budget redirected to his Mars project.

[yg1968]

The most interesting thing to watch will be whether Elon can actually get SLS/Orion cancelled and most/all of that budget redirected to his Mars project.

I don't expect Musk to even talk about SLS in his committee's report. It's too specific.

[KSC Sage]

The most interesting thing to watch will be whether Elon can actually get SLS/Orion cancelled and most/all of that budget redirected to his Mars project.

I don't expect Musk to even talk about SLS in his committee's report. It's too specific.

There are a lot of people in NASA at KSC worried that SLS Block-1B will be canceled. 

[leovinus]

The space nerd in me is very cautiously optimistic that there will be a push for "Flags on Moon and Mars" any which way. This suits Trump as he is all about pump and circumstances, grand gestures, and beating China. It will suit Elon as he just wants to go to Mars and a little detour via the Moon to optimize tanking,  depots, long term space endurance, is just another deep space goal to fly safely to Mars.

The scary downside here for a concerned citizen is that the talk about cutting budgets (to invest elsewhere ? and where precisely? ) might mean that the victims are SLS, Orion, and even the US democracy. Elon gives the impression that his primary goal is to leave Earth in the next one or two decades and therefore it seems of secondary priority what happens to US democracy. The secondary goal is scarily in line with Trump rhetoric.

For now, it looks to me like the issues, tensions and good space work will bring us more of the ISS politics. We detest the illegal invasion of Russia into the Ukraine and associated killing and still, we play "nice doggy" on the ISS as part of diplomacy.

So where do we go from here? Many changes. Even potential upsides but personally I am very worried about the enormous downsides here. Let's hope Congress will a stabilizing factor but the evidence of the GOP antics in recent years is contrary to such an effort. Hopefully experienced civil servants and NASA people stick around  to lead the wave of changes into a reasonable future for all of us.

[RedLineTrain]

It's clear that a second Trump term will mean a whole lot more activity in space.  The new space cadets will be in charge and overall that will mean more space funding from the government and from the private sector.  Doesn't make sense to lose focus on that by trying to save programs from the past era.

[edzieba]

I can't imagine things going much different than in the first term: no attempt to cancel SLS, attempts to cancel broad swathes of other NASA programmes (e.g. Earth Science, public outreach, etc) generally without success. Could go for a re-run of Artemis and take some existing programmes and combine and slap a new branding on them, but I can't see that working a second time.

More fundamentally, Mike Pence is not VP, so there's little chance of anyone being in a position who both actually cares about space in general - let alone NASA programmes specifically - and has the political cache needed to go against Congress to make any changes and is willing to spend that cache to cancel SLS (rather than any other pet project).

[yg1968]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1854534490636329405

Starship is now more than twice as powerful as the Saturn V Moon rocket and, in a year or so, it will be three times as powerful at 10,000 metric tons of thrust.

More importantly, it is designed to be fully reusable, burning ~80% liquid oxygen and ~20% liquid methane (very low cost propellant).

This enables cost per ton to orbital space to be ~10,000% lower than Saturn V.

Starship is the difference between being a multiplanet or single planet civilization.

Building a new world on Mars is now possible.

[yg1968]

Speaking of the human exploration of Mars, Trump had already talked about making this possible under his second term. See the prior thread on this:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=57682.0
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11433423/Trump-promises-plant-American-flag-MARS.html

See also this video for a more recent version of his Mars human exploration proposal:

[RedLineTrain]

More fundamentally, Mike Pence is not VP, so there's little chance of anyone being in a position who both actually cares about space in general - let alone NASA programmes specifically - and has the political cache needed to go against Congress to make any changes and is willing to spend that cache to cancel SLS (rather than any other pet project).

That is opposite of the truth, I'm happy to report.  Remember that Vance is a protege of Peter Thiel, who was the first outside money into SpaceX and was a member, like Musk, of the Paypal M afia.

[DanClemmensen]

Musk will not name the director, however Trump said he'd put Elon in charge of massive budget cutting. I imagine he would take a red pen to Orion and especially SLS. That's obviously a conflict of interest, but that's par for the course for 45/47.

IMHO - Red-lining SLS/Orion at this time would almost certainly kill the chance of boots on the ground on the lunar surface before the end of Trump's term.  SLS/Orion will be closely looked at for continuing presence on the moon (Artemis V+)but I predict consistency for the Artemis program the next several years.  Trump wants to have that photo op of him calling the astronauts from the lunar surface from the oval office.

That would require Artemis III. It does not require Artemis IV, so no Gatway, SLS Block 1B, ML-2, or Blue HLS.

More aggressively, SLS/Orion, Artemis II and III can be replaced by SpaceX-only missions using Dragon for Earth-LEO and LEO-Earth plus Ship/Depot/Tanker for LEO-NRHO and NRHO-LEO plus Starship HLS for landing.

[TomH]

With Sen. Shelby gone, support is weaker, but I'll be amazed if Trump (or Vance, who is probably planning to become president whenever his boss leaves) wants to take on several Republican delegations.

The Senate Launch System was designed by Senators Shelby, Hatch, Hutchinson, and Nelson. All are gone from the senate and Nelson will also be gone from NASA in two and a half months.

[TomH]

The most interesting thing to watch will be whether Elon can actually get SLS/Orion cancelled and most/all of that budget redirected to his Mars project.

I don't expect Musk to even talk about SLS in his committee's report. It's too specific.

There are a lot of people in NASA at KSC worried that SLS Block-1B will be canceled.

I would not be surprised to see something like, In that code already requires that when an existing launch system already meets the requirements of a program, the government shall not design its own new system, said policy should be extended to situations where new commercial launchers meet or exceed the same launch parameters at a lower cost, the government's launch system must be suspended or terminated in favor of the less expensive system.

[DistantTemple]

The most interesting thing to watch will be whether Elon can actually get SLS/Orion cancelled and most/all of that budget redirected to his Mars project.

I don't expect Musk to even talk about SLS in his committee's report. It's too specific.

There are a lot of people in NASA at KSC worried that SLS Block-1B will be canceled.

Speculation - I know nothing about law!
*Against Musk strongly influencing NASA & US Gov space policy directly:
  -Leaving SLS alone for a bit longer will make it look even more of a dinosaur and more wasteful - compared with SX's assumed coming accelerated success.
  -May appear to be anti-competitive, improper influence (for a contractor) or illegal.
*For Musk strongly influencing NASA & US Gov space policy directly:
  -Trump casts aside such scruples!
  -Musk is supposedly going to be in charge of "government efficiency". SLS is inefficient!
  -Musk is an expert, and government should avail itself of his input.
  -Musk's desire to accelerate space development will infect, motivate, and shape the view of those he will now come into contact within the Trump sphere.
  -SX is very likely to achieve amazing milestones during Trump's coming term, including landing humans on the moon, and sending Starships to Mars, with amazing supporting technology. This will: 1, shame the SLS etc for its poor progress and ridiculous cost; 2, Will make SLS superfluous.
  -SX's coming amazing milestones will be ideal for politicians to celebrate. Space and the Artemis program have progressed slowly (apart from SX) and expensively with few major successes for politicians to boast about. In this coming term, all the promises will suddenly be fulfilled!!!!
  -SLS teams may even be disheartened, and feel morally challenged, as Starship successes multiply, and the cost per launch drops from 1/20 of SLS cost towards 1/100 of it!!! and beyond.
  -Blue Origin will soon finally get some visible success with New Glenn, giving a second backup contractor, also vastly cheaper than SLS.
  -Assuming Musk does save the government money in "efficiency" elsewhere, Trump's character suggests he may want to direct funds to SpaceX as a "Quid Pro Quo".
  -Starship will likely launch "private" astronauts from earth and land them on the moon by the end of this Trump term.

IMO Trump's victory, and Elon's alliance with him condemns SLS. Once Starship has orbited, landed and been reflown, and demonstrated inflight refilling once, support for SLS will be near impossible. My bet is SLS will not survive into 2026.

 

[catdlr]

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