Donald Trump’s approach to US space policy could throw up some surprises, especially with Elon Musk on board.
What can be expected of a second Trump administration on space policy? In short, a mixture of continuity and change. There will be much continuity across military, civil and industrial space policy as these rarely diverge between political parties. Changes usually involve minor or incremental bureaucratic shifts.
This article is the opinion of the authorS, Bleddyn Bowen, Durham University and P.J. Blount, Durham University, and not necessarily that of the UK Defence Journal. If you would like to submit your own article on this topic or any other, please see our submission guidelines.
Nevertheless, Trump’s swooning speech embracing Elon Musk, along with the SpaceX founder’s appointment to lead a new department of government efficiency could indicate a different approach to the industrial and human spaceflight aspects of space policy.
Illustrating the potential for continuity, the increasing commercialisation of Nasa projects and services under the first Trump administration was actually the result of policies initiated during the Obama years. Changes, such as Trump’s striking establishment of the US Space Force and the re-establishment of US Space Command in 2019, were mostly bureaucratic and organisational. They did not fundamentally alter US military space capabilities.
The US has continued decades-long projects such as the modernisation of GPS and the development of sophisticated systems to, among other things, identify, monitor, track and follow objects in space – from satellites to debris. These systems include highly manoeuvrable spacecraft, including the X-37B spaceplane and the GSSAP and Silent Barker satellites.
Even the US Artemis programme to return humans to the Moon is a continuation of the first Trump administration’s grandiose vision. The Biden administration did not undo it and furthered other longer-term space policies such as transferring more space tracking duties from the Pentagon to the civilian Department of Commerce.
Moving some space tracking duties away from the military is more conducive to developing a Space Traffic Management regime, which should reduce the risks of accidental collisions in outer space. This was the focus of a document called Space Policy Directive-3, issued by the first Trump administration in 2018.
Still, there are questions about what changes or uncertainties can be expected. The space journalist Marcia Smith notes that Trump’s disposition towards Artemis, SpaceX and Elon Musk and Mars exploration could see more funds funnelled into US human spaceflight programmes.
This may be at the further expense of Earth and atmospheric sciences at Nasa and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which have been cut during the Biden era.
Efficiency drive
Vice-president-elect J.D. Vance will chair the National Space Council, which develops policy on civil, commercial, international and national security. Many of the first Trump administration’s space policy successes can be traced to the council. Given the influence Musk seems likely to have in the new administration, the National Space Council could be seen as duplicating or being in conflict with the objectives of SpaceX’s founder.
Musk will co-lead the department of government efficiency, which will “dismantle government bureaucracy” and “slash excess regulations”, among other things. So could the council become a casualty of these drives? If it survives, its future potential depends on who is named as the executive secretary, a position that has significant power.
If the council becomes purely industry driven and shaped by personal rule, it could destroy a balance struck during the first Trump administration between enhancing US space industry and performing as a collaborative leader within the international community. Future policy may continue reducing perceived and real regulatory burdens on the commercial space sector and international partnerships.
International relations
On the international front, there’s uncertainty over whether a US ban on the testing of weapons that can destroy satellites will survive this Trump administration. These are known as direct-ascent kinetic-energy anti-satellite (Asat) weapons.
Neither the Obama, first Trump, nor Biden administrations oversaw an Asat test, which often involve launching missiles from Earth to intercept and destroy a satellite in orbit, despite Indian and Russian tests in 2019 and 2021, respectively. The Asat test ban declared by vice-president Harris in 2022 effectively formalised a longstanding bipartisan approach.
Revoking the ban could undermine the US’s international position in the development of international norms and regulations in space, as many other states have agreed to the moratorium. The test ban has provided much-needed momentum into UK-led discussions at the UN general assembly and an Open Ended Working Group that aims to identify common threats and responsible behaviour in outer space. If the Asat test ban is rescinded, that momentum could be undone.
It could also return the UN to a decades-long logjam over a Russian and Chinese-sponsored draft treaty that aims to control the use of weapons in space. Critics say the draft treaty is full of loopholes and it is opposed by the US and UK. However, US withdrawal from the Asat test ban would be consistent with Trump’s rhetoric on offensive space operations found in Space Policy Directive-4.
Contrary to the bellicose rhetoric, the first Trump administration drove more international involvement and cooperation in its Artemis lunar exploration programme. It is unlikely that the new Trump administration will seek to withdraw from the Outer Space Treaty (OST) of 1967, which governs the exploration and use of bodies such as the Moon, because the Artemis programme explicitly reinforces key provisions of the OST. The US lunar programme does this through the Artemis Accords, a set of principles designed to enable the peaceful and sustainable use of space.
With 47 signatories – including India and several developing states – the Artemis Accords show a growing global acceptance of America’s longer-term exploration plans for the Moon, as well as a belief in the continuing value of the OST.
Undermining the OST and Artemis’ international dimensions would undercut an important response to China’s own pursuit of international support for its lunar exploration programme – the International Lunar Research Station.
The real question will be whether the Trump administration can maintain the renewed interest in US space leadership that goes beyond leading in metrics and numbers and seeks to secure a long-term vision of space based on US leadership rather than dominance. The current US approach, found in initiatives such as the Artemis Accords, has been a significant shift from the early 2000s approach that eschewed multilateral discussions of norms and rules of any type.
However, Trump’s penchant for fiery rhetoric, spontaneous announcements, which may be shaped by industrial interests and the Martian gaze of Elon Musk, as well as alienating US allies, could easily undermine these efforts. Under the second Trump administration, there is a continued opportunity to make advances in space policy at both the domestic and international levels, but any such advances are likely to be in spite of Trump rather than because of him.
Bleddyn Bowen, Associate Professor in Astropolitics and Space Warfare, School of Government and International Affairs (SGIA), Durham University and P.J. Blount, Assistant Professor in the Durham Law School, Durham University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Maybe, could, might, waffle, waffle…. Trump….cited publication!
Not much of substance that can be stated with certainty, I think it was more an attempt to focus everyone on the subject and prepare themselves for change, potential upheaval and dangers under Trump. Musk is in particular an egotistic maverick, part genius, part illusionist and manipulator of truth and reality which like a Trump has self interest and populism at heart. Dangerous man if freed of any control and in alliance (if it lasts) with Trump who knows what might happen, they are effectively united only by the wish to exploit the other for their own grasp on power, influence and popularity. Will Musk try to use his position to weaken competitors? Will he overplay his hand. Will Trump let him. Could be a roller coaster ride and a dangerous environment considering the power and influence of the aerospace and military industries in the US and their strong political ties only further fuelled if China starts to pull ahead in the Moon exploitation. There will be a lot of pulling in different directions but potentially on steroids compared to the already fractious status quo. Musks ludicrous attack on the F-35 that just happens to play into his own alternative hands of course might be but a hint at what’s to come.
Musk is opinionated but he also listens to those with more knowledge than himself (at least that is what people who work with him say).
The US is on a spiral of ever increasing national debt, while China continues to grow its manufacturing base. There are only two possible outcomes to a war fought under those circumstances; a China win or a nuclear escalation.
The absolute shower that would ensue if a war broke out between China and the US would be insane. The effect on the global economy would grind most of the world to a halt.
There seems to be many conflicts of interests having Musk the head of the department of efficiency.
I find it amusing that Musk, who founded companies that employ over 150,000 people and whose market value exceeds $1 trillion dollars, is seen as some kind of bogeyman by denizens of a rapidly declining country that hasn’t produced anyone of his stature in a very, very long time. What better man than Musk to make recommendations to a President and Congress to deregulate and shrink bloated, inefficient government agencies and bureaucracy?
I found this a dishonest piece. So the Artemis accords started by Trump administration occurred despite Trump?!
South Africa produced Musk, not the declining Facist shit hole that elected Trump. At least in the UK his equivalent Farage is seen as an embarrassment.
You have a strange idea of fascism. South Africa in Musk’s childhood was a literal white supremacist ethno-state. In comparison, the US deliberately imports non-white immigrants in the interest of ethnic diversity (the green card lottery).
And yes, the UK’s attitude to people like Musk is ridiculous. I would call it jealousy but it’s not even that – more of a dull confusion at the progress happening in the world outside.
If the US is in decline, Europe and the UK are in a free fall.
Pull your head out of the BBC propaganda system.
I don’t think US is that Socialist for you to call it Fascist…
The US is hardly a ‘facist’ state, noe even a fascist one.
And Musk, having reinvented the auto and space industries, now has a chance to do more.
And plenty in the UK do not see Farage as an embarrassment – in fact, just the opposite.
Of course the US didn’t produce him either of course so a little misplaced pride and irony there methinks. Indeed if we believe his brother he is an illegal immigrant. As to what status he ends up being is still somewhat up in the air. Starship so far has managed to ur us tricks only, is very later and actually provided nothing of substance so far. I suspect the hype will be realised but when and at what cost is the biggest question, presently he has created a momentum that is going to be impossible not to finance by extensive US tax dollars almost forever. Falcon is the real success though others are really responsible for that success, Shotwell in particular. But hey it was one more failure from destroying the company. I will give you Bezos but then Americans mostly ridicule him, but we may see in a few weeks just how his efforts are doing, presently he has done nothing more than Richard Branson mind.
But either way the next most high status guy in the US rocket business after Musk is or likely will be Peter Beck of RocketLab who of. course is another foreigner and we won’t go into the guy who created the Saturn 5.
As for who has this ‘little insignificant’ Country produced of comparable significance well what about the guys who created Arm the Worlds premier Silicon chip designer or the guys who created Deep Mind perhaps the first major and certainly one of the most pre-eminent artificial intelligence businesses around. Certainly as or more British than Musk or Beck are Americans. Difference is they weren’t self publicists, snake oil salesmen or present hype as fact for the fanboys to gain the finance.
The interesting thing will be how Trump and Musk get on longer term. Trump needed him to get elected but now he will see him more as a potential competitor for the fanboys and girls, so he had better deliver on his promises or he will become merely a scapegoat for Trumps hurt ego to deal with.
Yes.
To be honest if I had £1000 to invest and I had the choice between Boeing or a company run by Mr Musk it would not really be a choice. A lot of people dislike Musk for all sorts of reasons but if you criticise him for an absence of ambition, energy or ability then you’re either a fool or being obviously disingenuous.
With his successes at Tesla, Space X, recapturing Twitter from the numpties and backing a Trump presidency means that like it or not we’re all going to be living in a future crafted by this man. I’d sit back and enjoy the ride. It certainly makes life a bit more interesting.
A pretty good summary if you ask me!
Some of that is true there is much to admire but some sadly is buying the Musk hype. He has admirable vision and risks a lot to succeed but his companies have predominantly US taxpayers money to thank for that success after initial succeed through money gained by being sacked from PayPal (which he did not create as many people think), which is why he has gone into politics (despite supporting Democrats the past three elections). Tesla would go broke without Govt handouts after all he tried to sell it to Apple in 2019 to bring in much needed funds for SpaceX which almost totally relies on the Govt to succeed, certainly unless or until Starlink starts making profits. Remember Starship can’t even go beyond LEO without refuelling something that Vulcan and SLS already can, so Starship has lots to prove to rebalance that limitation. Its potential is wonderful but so far hasn’t actually achieved anything, but it’s now too big quite literally to fail.
Tesla of course wasn’t his baby, he invested in it, took it over and ejected its original creators, because this man wants all credit for himself. Until recently Shotwell in Space X was kept decidedly silent with him as the sole mouthpiece as if he actually was a Space Scientist. Meanwhile his influencers will tell you Optimus will take over the World, it won’t. So far again it’s been shown doing showtime tricks mostly done via remote human control. Nothing wrong with that if you own up to it without it being forced out of you. It will have a future but the guy behind Engineered Arts who is behind Ameca (often presented as the Worlds most advanced intelligent Robot oh yeah and British) said at the most recent Musk Tesla event how surprised he was after all the hype how basic the activators were in Optimus, very limiting for full movement and ‘Off the shelf’ he described them. So yes Optimus will be important but only as one of many robots and let’s be honest Chinese or other Asian originated robots will dominate market share outside of the US.
Twitter is there for him to use as the ultimate self serving influencer tool, to get his way through the power of the fanboy under the veneer of promoting free speech. After all this is a man who uses this ‘free speech’ that is really aimed at providing it for the rich and powerful, to call a good and successful man that happened to humiliate Musk a paeodophile while promoting a guy who many accuse of being one (and thankfully had to withdraw) for Trump’s cabinet. His support for free speech is again the words of a snake oil salesman. One must also remember an ex employee of Tesla who used the power of free speech to tell about working practices within that company had his life made hell by the Company and eventually led to him being confronted by armed police while sitting on a bench when ‘someone’ from Tesla rang the police to claim an armed man was a supposed threat to them. A moments error in that case would have led to him being shot dead of course, yeah so much for freedom of speech for the little people, it’s in reality like the Court system purely theoretical The Twitter buy has otherwise been a near disaster financially for him but giving him his due, he does love risk and I only wish more people this side of the pond were willing to take risks and be supported in that regard by the City. But as a man he is despicable and his aims purely self serving and egotistic, ultimate success could go various ways.
Think of me and other critiques as a fool or disingenuous if you wish, I certainly have through observation gone from fan to far more judgemental but we aim to be objective but when he has so mesmerised his followers to a cultish degree it’s important to push back against it however I am impressed technologically by giant rockets taking off and doing tricks. How practical it all ends up yes I agree let’s from a distance enjoy the ride whatever its ultimate conclusion.
Hopefully Musk will pull the plug on the Artemis/SLS hardware. It’s a technological dead end that only exists to subsidise Boeing. It will never reach the moon. It’s the epitome of DEIsign.
SLS is a big waste of money, up to $4 billion per launch. If the US still wants to go to the moon then there are far cheaper options than SLS. Artemis is man rated for Lunar orbit, no other US spacecraft currently is. Just modifybtge planbto take SLS out of the loop.
Ok let’s get real here. SLS was a disastrous project, though Trump has a lot to answer for there of. Ourse, but if the US wants to get to the moon before the Chinese it is almost a certainty that SLS ironically presently the only proven and mature part of Artemis, were cancelled then that won’t happen. Starship despite the hype has not proven it is capable of doing any part of it so far. It’s fundamentally a Mars ship very unsuitable to Moon projects ironically it needs more refuelling for a Moon mission than Mars. 2025 will show if the numerous refuellings it needs will be feasible. As a lander it’s actually a very poor design as its height makes it complex and potentially dangerous without a pre existing landing pad. Can it be done? Again so far unproven and in reality it would be far better to be a later moon lander after such infrastructure could be created when it will come into its own. Alpaca would have been far better as a first lander being far more practical, flexible, safer and able to be launched by Vulcan or Falcon Heavy into high Earth orbit in a fashion similar to Saturn 5 and without refuelling as part of the greater Artemis programme. But Musk and Bezos and their power and threat of delay through the Courts and costs NASA couldn’t afford sabotaged that and common sense. So we have a dogs dinner of a project. If Isaacman cancels SLS it would put Artemis very much in question but he is a safe pair of hands I agree with Julian and while friends with Musk is his own man so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. You can bet any decisions that let China get the Moon first will inflame Trump and will have repercussions for Isaacman and Musk so I would be surprised if SLS, as I say so far the only proven (if ridiculously costly) element was cancelled immediately. After all it would put in danger the jobs and facility that built Saturn 5 and those jobs are predominantly in Republican areas with Republicans Senators who won’t support it. I suspect despite delays the next Artemis mission will take place but the delay does give Space X a chance to prove its refuelling process, the ability to prove practicality of Starship multiple launches ( they will be needed) and some further evidence perhaps that Starship is a practical moon lander all of which will have to be proven without any further Musk time extension to make a landing before the Chinese possible. So we will see. They may be able to get around making Starship human launchable a serious barrier presently by using Falcon and Dragon perhaps with a transfer in orbit. Exciting times I’m sure, a rollercoaster. very likely. Isaacman has big choices to make so I hope indeed he is his own man.
Breaking news today (4th Dec). Trump has just nominated Jared Isaacman as the next administrator of NASA. I think it’s a fantastic choice – relatively young, a successful businessman (a billionaire), a pilot and been to space (self-funded) twice. I’m pretty sure this nomination will get approved, it’s not nearly as controversial as some of Trump’s other picks. Assuming I’m right NASA, including Artemis, is about to get a big shake up and from what I’ve read about Isaacman I trust him to make some good calls.
Anti Trump and anti Musk waffle.
“If the council becomes purely industry driven and shaped by personal rule,…”
It might get something done? That is if they could find the time off from loading Dems onto cattle cars, right? Since you salted the article with anti-Trump rhetoric, pardon me if I don’t take it too seriously.
Americans are parasites that need to be wiped out of existence at this point.