by Should NASA return to the moon or go straight to Mars? Continue to focus on climate science or turn away?
President-elect Donald Trump’s second term alongside SpaceX CEO and new consigliere Elon Musk could mean a big bang for the US space program.
The cheeky billionaire duo share a sense of unrest and a hunger to make history – traits that are tailor-made for space exploration.
In short, “It’s going to be a wild ride,” said George Nield, president of Commercial Space Technologies, a consulting group for the private space industry. “People are tightening their seat belts and hoping for the best.”
Trump’s fascination with space is nothing new.
During his first term, he famously created the Space Force and revived the National Space Council under the chairmanship of the vice president.
Most notably, he launched the Artemis program with the goal of landing Americans on the moon later that decade and serving as a stepping stone to Mars. But even then he was skeptical about the need for the moon.
“We want to get to Mars before the end of my term,” he declared during the 2024 campaign — an ambitious goal that Musk has long advocated.
“There’s a good chance we’ll at least reconsider the Artemis program — whether that means accelerating it or even skipping the moon and focusing on Mars,” said Nield, a former senior FAA official.
Such a shift would be jarring for a program expected to cost more than $90 billion.
The Artemis 2 crew is scheduled to fly past the moon in September 2025 for the first time since Apollo.
China’s plans could also blunt any turnaround.
Beijing has its sights set on the moon’s south pole – the same target as Artemis – and it is unlikely that Trump will allow China to plant its flag there unchallenged.
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The question then becomes which rocket will power these missions.
NASA’s newly certified Space Launch System (SLS) was sharply criticized, particularly by Musk, for being exorbitantly expensive due to its lack of reusability. In contrast, SpaceX’s Starship prototype, which is fully reusable, has dazzled with its potential to revolutionize space travel.
Trump lavished praise on Starship in his election victory speech, highlighting SpaceX’s achievement of capturing the rocket’s booster stage with its launch tower’s giant “rod” arms. Could Starship replace SLS? Many in the space industry believe this should be the case.
But Musk’s growing influence is cause for concern.
After pouring tens of millions into Trump’s campaign, he will now chair a panel tasked with cutting red tape and improving the “efficiency of government,” including at the agencies that oversee SpaceX.
Critics fear Musk could use his role to tinker with environmental regulations – long a sticking point for his company’s Starship launches – or to influence NASA and Pentagon contracting.
SpaceX is already benefiting from lucrative offers to ferry astronauts to the ISS, launch defense satellites and provide internet through its Starlink constellation network.
Musk’s job is to “provide advice and guidance from outside the government,” Trump said, a phrase that Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, finds troubling.
She suggests the choice of language is intended to blur the lines about what applies inside and outside government, “and so avoid the application of conflict of interest rules.”
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Musk’s commission could also recommend shrinking NASA’s sprawling network of 10 centers across the country – a perennial idea often thwarted by senators who want to protect local jobs.
“This is probably a good idea,” Nield said, although it could provoke strong opposition.
And if space has long been politically neutral, Elon Musk’s involvement could cause an outcry among Democrats.
Outgoing President Joe Biden has made climate change a NASA priority like never before.
Under Trump’s first term, NASA canceled programs such as the Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) and the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite – both of which were later revived – and downplayed climate change in strategy documents.
Clues to Trump’s direction will come from his election as NASA administrator. Its first candidate, Jim Bridenstine, was a Congressional supporter.
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