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Trump Space Policy Leaves Obama Space Policy Intact Except For Moon/Mars Pivot

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 12, 2017
https://media2.spaceref.com/news/2017/doc.compare.med.jpg

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Keith’s note: As former Obama OSTP official Phil Larson notes, the Space Policy Directive 1 issued on Monday only revises a very, very small portion of the existing space policy. Since this White House did not change anything else it is reasonable to assume that they agree with the Obama space policy, as written. Of course, these space policies are iterative and you can trace certain themes back through the Obama, Bush 2, Clinton, Bush 1, and Reagan Administrations – and even further.
To be blunt, Monday’s event at the White House was a hastily arranged photo op with some spoken words. The document that was signed also represents an indication that whatever space policy the National Space Council will eventually come up with will have its roots firmly planted in what has come before. However, Space Policy Directive 1 is also a course correction – a potentially significant one that pivots NASA from Mars (back) toward the Moon – something that is far more significant than the small number of words used to make the pivot.
Space policy is something that transcends Administrations and those who craft and refine it stand on the shoulders of those who came before. Sometimes a few well-placed words can have a disproportionately big impact. Sometimes.

National Space Policy of the United States of America, June 28, 2010
Presidential Memorandum on Reinvigorating America’s Human Space Exploration Program, December 11, 2017
“Presidential Policy Directive-4 of June 28, 2010 (National Space Policy), is amended as follows: The paragraph beginning “Set far-reaching exploration milestones” is deleted and replaced with the following: “Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities. Beginning with missions beyond low-Earth orbit, the United States will lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations;”.
Keith’s note: Oh yes, and these two guys said this:
Gingrich & Walker: Obama’s brave reboot for NASA, op ed, Washington Times (2010)
“With the new NASA budget, the leadership of the agency is attempting to refocus the manned space program along the lines that successive panels of experts have recommended. The space shuttle program, which was scheduled to end, largely for safety reasons, will be terminated as scheduled. The Constellation program also will be terminated, mostly because its ongoing costs cannot by absorbed within projected NASA budget limits. The International Space Station will have its life extended to at least 2020, thereby preserving a $100 billion laboratory asset that otherwise was due to be dumped in the Pacific Ocean by middecade. The budget also sets forth an aggressive program for having cargo and astronaut crews delivered to the space station by commercial providers.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

17 responses to “Trump Space Policy Leaves Obama Space Policy Intact Except For Moon/Mars Pivot”

  1. Zen Puck says:
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    I’m waiting till I see a ‘sand’ chart that shows unless NASA gets a plus up of `$3B per year, landing on the moon is decades away, and someone actually ups the budget , before I believe anything will be different in NASA’s future than what’s predictable..which is more of the same

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Don’t forget that current cost estimates are NASA cost estimates. They include things like landers and other gear that is completely obviated by a much simpler approach: take a rocket to the Moon and land it. Then, take off and take the rocket to earth.

      Sounds simple, right? It isn’t. A decade ago such a thing would have been laughable. We are so wed to multi-stage, splashed rockets. Times have changed.

      NASA’s gear is behind the times. So is their thinking, at least the public-facing part

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        Some in the Trump Resistance see that as bad.

        https://www.salon.com/2017/

        Trump’s sinister plan for NASA
        Mars and moon missions sound cool, but it’s part of the GOP’s larger plan to destroy the agency as we know it

        Keith A. Spencer
        12.12.2017•6:00 PM

        “Yet in the case of Trump and GOP space policy, it is not a stretch to say there is a conspiracy here, although we need not call Fox Mulder to be able to eke it out. In essence, the ostensible moon and Mars missions are going to make NASA into an agency that contracts private aerospace companies to build big rockets,
        while not actually doing much science (or rocket-building) themselves.”

        • Vladislaw says:
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          Ah .. Mr. Spencer.. cheaper commercial access to the lunar surface means MORE science not less…

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            So many people forget the other work of NASA— I’m thinking here of planetary science, which will be hugely enabled by the availability of bigger and cheaper rides.

        • Michael Halpern says:
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          Too convoluted for Trump, he has trouble (allegedly) reading anything longer than one page, how is he to mastermind anything, that said stupid is sometimes scarier than deliberate

  2. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Yes, it was the very critical two sentences that set the overall goals for NASA that he replaced. It deletes the ARM and Mars orbit, while focusing on the Moon for exploration and utilization then on to Mars and beyond. And it makes it clear that both international partners and commercial assets will be welcomed as part of a sustainable lunar return as I noted yesterday when I compared them in the thread below.

    Most of the full document deals with policy history (1.5 pages), general principles, military space, space commerce, debris, Earth Observation, comsats, etc. Only about a single page, eight paragraphs, is about NASA.

    I am sure the Space Council will get around to the rest of document. BTW here is a link to it. The portion that addresses NASA starts at the bottom of page 11.
    https://www.nasa.gov/sites/

  3. jski says:
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    “Except For Moon/Mars Pivot”
    Well Mrs. Lincoln, except for that, how’d you like the play?

  4. Fred says:
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    Well if you aren’t going to provide the funding then really what good is policy?

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Patient, it is a while before the new budget comes out. We will see then what the changes are. Hopefully we will also have a NASA Administrator by then as well.

      But it will be harder as Senator Elect Doug Jones appears to be as much a promoter of Huntsville as Senator Shelby is.

      http://www.al.com/news/hunt

      “Invoking a popular Republican talking point, Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones said a strong national defense is “incredibly important” and pointed to the valuable role Alabama plays in that industry.”

      Although that statement was in regards to the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal, the odds are he will be as much a promoter of Marshall SFC as Senator Shelby is. And he owes Senator Shelby for promoting the write-in among Republicans that got him elected.

      • Vladislaw says:
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        I wonder if that is why Shelby came out against Moore… did those two have a talk and he didn’t want to support Marshall? So Shelby went to Jones?

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          Who knows, but the write-ins were critical as this story notes.

          http://www.al.com/news/mobi

          It also has this statement which has implications for NASA’s future if accurate.

          “Jonathan Gray, a Republican political strategist in coastal Alabama, said Shelby simply “spoke his mind.” Gray said he doesn’t believe the 83-year-old Shelby will be running for re-election in 2022.

          “He’s not running for re-election and he’s no longer a politician and he does not care what the Republican Party will think of him anymore,”
          said Gray.”

          If true I wonder what impact that will have on the vote for Rep. Bridentstine and SLS.

  5. ThomasLMatula says:
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    I assume so since their profits are also seen as part of the problem. From the article 🙂

    “Trump’s moon and Mars missions are going to be great for the aerospace industry’s ticker symbols, but not so good for science.”

  6. ThomasLMatula says:
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    If you plow through the small part on NASA you will only find two things different from the Bush Administration space policy. One was the replacement of the VSE with ARM and a orbit around Mars. The other was the need for an alternative way to reach ISS since the Shuttle was retiring and the Obama Administration had killed Ares I. The other paragraphs were basically a continuation of national space policy dating mostly to the 1960’s. I.e. a robotic presence in the Solar System, observing Earth, developing launch technology, supporting ISS, etc. The only exception was searching for NEO’s since that started under the Clinton Administration.

    But it is that first paragraph that really drives NASA.

  7. richard_schumacher says:
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    We choose to say these things, not because saying them is hard, but because it is easy. Bigly!

  8. Michael Spencer says:
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    Yep. I have the same card, and the same conclusion.

    But the Salon piece is instructional. It is anti-T simply because he is President. This is what we constantly accuse the other side of doing.