How NASA might change under Donald Trump

Although details remain in flux, the transition team is reviewing NASA and his activities began to write the potential executive order for changes to the space policy under the Trump Administration.

Sources familiar with the five-person team, which has spent the last six weeks evaluating the space agency and its exploration plans, are careful to note that such teams are advisory in nature. They do not formally set policy nor is their work always indicative of the direction of the incoming presidential administration.

However, in trying to establish clear objectives for NASA and civilian space policy, the ideas under consideration reflect the Trump administration’s desire for “big changes” at NASA, both in terms of increasing efficiency and speed of their programs.

Not business as usual

The transition team was faced with an agency that has a plethora of field centers—ten scattered throughout the United States, as well as a formal headquarters in Washington, DC—and large, slow programs that cost a lot of money and are slow to deliver. results.

“This will not be business as usual,” said a person familiar with the group’s meetings. The mindset that drives their deliberations is a focus on results and speed.

Donald Trump will be inaugurated as president for his second term a little less than a month from now, on January 20. On that day he is expected to sign a number of executive orders on the issues he has been campaigning for. This could include space policy, but more likely that will wait until later in his presidency.

A source said the space transition team has been working off of ideas that Trump has talked about publicly, including his interest in Mars. For example, during a campaign speech this fall, Trump referred to the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, who played a significant role during the campaign both in terms of time and money, and of his desire to settle Mars.

“We’ll drive into space over Russia and China… That’s my plan, I’ll talk to Elon,” “. Trump said in September. “Elon will get those rocket ships because we want to get to Mars before the end of my term, and we also want to have great military protection in space.”

Ideas to consider

The transition team discussed possible elements of an executive order or other policy directives. They include:

• Setting the goal of sending humans to the Moon and Mars by 2028
• The cancellation of the expensive Space Launch System rocket and possibly the Orion spacecraft
• Consolidating the Goddard Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center into the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama
• It maintains a small administrative presence in Washington, DC, but otherwise moves headquarters to a field center
• Rapid redesign of the Artemis lunar program to make it more efficient