The 2024 presidential election is finally over. Donald Trump has been reelected by the voters.
This calls for a fresh look at space policy. Here are some hopefully helpful suggestions.
First, Trump should nominate a new NASA administrator quickly. Biden’s pick, Bill Nelson, was nominated and confirmed by May 2021. But his predecessor, Jim Bridenstine, was nominated in September 2017 and not confirmed until April 2018. Considering the problems facing NASA and its programs, a new administrator should be installed quickly so that he or she can get to work addressing them.
The new NASA administrator should have political skills, though not necessarily be a former politician like the last two. He or she should have business experience, considering NASA’s reliance on commercial space. The nominee should be familiar with space policy issues, though not necessarily have a technical background.
The new administrator will have to examine how NASA does what it does with a goal of finding out why most of its major projects take longer and cost more than expected. Examples include the International Space Station, the James Webb Space Telescope, the Mars Sample Return mission and the VIPER rover. The new NASA chief should have help from a proposed Government Efficiency Commission led by Elon Musk.
The new administrator needs to deal with the Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon and on to Mars. Artemis II, which will send astronauts around the moon, and Artemis III, which will land people on the lunar surface, are still slated for 2025 and 2026 respectively, but those dates are very much in doubt.
Recently, NASA revealed that it had discovered the cause of the concerning Orion heat shield erosion that occurred during the Artemis I flight. But the space agency did not reveal the cause, a troubling lack of transparency. The cause and solution of the heat shield anomaly may affect the date of the Artemis II mission. The new NASA administrator must be more forthcoming about such problems.
With the successful capture of the SpaceX Super Heavy, NASA is increasingly optimistic about the Starship’s ability to serve as a lunar lander for the Artemis return to the moon. According to Space Flight Now, SpaceX will start testing in-orbit refueling in March 2025, a crucial milestone in developing the super rocket as a deep space vehicle. The test campaign should conclude sometime in the summer of 2025.
The lunar lander version of Starship still has to perform an uncrewed lunar landing before NASA will allow it to carry astronauts to the moon. As Ars Technica suggests, a more realistic date for the next human moon landing is late 2028.
The Federal Aviation Administration has thrown up regulatory roadblocks against Starship’s testing program, threatening unacceptable delays in the Artemis program over and above the usual technical and fiscal impediments. Something will have to be done to speed up the process, particularly important since China seems to be developing its own version of the Starship rocket. The idea of China beating NASA back to the moon because of red tape is unthinkable.
It might be a good idea to revamp the Artemis program entirely, perhaps eliminating the Space Launch System and relying more on commercial systems like Starship.
Commercial Crew is another troubled NASA program, While the SpaceX Crew Dragon is doing quite well, taking astronauts to and from the International Space Station and even conducting private missions such as Polaris Dawn, the same cannot be said about the Boeing Starliner.
Boeing is considering selling its space division, including Starliner. Could another company, say Blue Origin, fix the troubled spacecraft and turn it into a viable alternative to Crew Dragon? Should NASA look for another alternative such as a crewed version of Dream Chaser? In any case, the space agency needs at least two ways to send astronauts to and from low Earth orbit.
What to do with VIPER, the planned roving lunar water prospector, is a question NASA should decide quickly. Currently, the space agency is waiting until “early next year” to decide its fate. It needs to either make a partnership with a commercial company or get more money from Congress to get the rover on the lunar surface. Finding water is crucial for long-term exploration of the moon.
We have a chance for a reset that will enable a space future for the United States and the world. All we have to do is to reach out and take it.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
