How NASA Might Change Under Donald Trump

Although the details remain in flux, the transition team reviewing NASA and its activities has begun to draft potential executive orders for changes to space policy under the Trump Administration.

Sources familiar with the five people on the team, who have spent the last six weeks assessing the space agency and its exploration plans, were 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 an incoming presidential administration will move toward.

Nevertheless, in trying to set clear goals for NASA and civil space policy, the ideas under consideration reflect the Trump administration’s desire for “big changes” at NASA, both in terms of increasing the effectiveness and velocity of its programs.

Not Business as Usual

The transition team has been grappling with an agency that has a superfluity of field centers—ten spread across the United States, as well as a formal headquarters in Washington, DC—and large, slow-moving programs that cost a lot of money and have been slow to deliver results.

“This will not be business as usual,” one person familiar with this group’s meetings said. The mindset driving 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 issues that he campaigned on. This could include space policy, but more likely that will wait until later in his presidency.

One 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 referenced SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who played a significant role during the campaign both in terms of time and money, and his desire to settle Mars.

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

Ideas Under Consideration

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

• Establishing the goal of sending humans to the Moon and Mars, by 2028
• Canceling the costly Space Launch System rocket and possibly the Orion spacecraft
• Consolidating Goddard Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama
• Retaining a small administration presence in Washington, DC, but otherwise moving headquarters to a field center
• Rapidly redesigning the Artemis lunar program to make it more efficient