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After 2 Years Of Fumbling – A New National Space Council Users Advisory Group (UAG)

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
NASAWatch
December 16, 2022
After 2 Years Of Fumbling – A New National Space Council Users Advisory Group (UAG)
The UAG
NASAWatch

Keith’s note: Hooray – we have a new National Space Council Users Advisory group. You have to wonder why it took so long for the National Space Council, Vice President’s Office, and NASA to come up with a simple panel of space people whose job is mostly to sit on telecons and read a few white papers. We’re already halfway though the first term of the Biden-Harris Administration. These committees move slower than a snail’s pace, become totally bogged down in white papers and endless consent cycles, and in the end they always defer to rubber stamping whatever talking points the White House staff wishes to have endorsed. We still have no idea when the UAG will meet. And when it does get started you can rest assured that it will take the rest of this Administration’s term to produce a report with actions items or something. Four years to make a difference with another UAG – wasted (again). Oh and the picture of the UAG posted online at NASA? (see above) Its the Trump UAG membership on a web page that is more than 2 years old. Here is the official release and list of names – followed by more commentary:

Vice President Harris Announces Selections to the National Space Council’s Users Advisory Group

As Chair of the National Space Council, Vice President Kamala Harris today announced the individuals selected to serve on the National Space Council’s Users Advisory Group (UAG). Pending official appointment by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the selected members of the UAG will serve to enable the Biden-Harris Administration’s effort to maintain a robust and responsible U.S. space enterprise and preserve space for current and future generations.

The candidates represent a cross-section of companies and organizations that support the United States’ large and highly skilled space workforce; users of space services, including climate scientists and agriculture providers; individuals focused on developing the next generation of space professionals; and leading experts in space.

The UAG will provide the National Space Council advice and recommendations on matters related to space policy and strategy, including but not limited to, government policies, laws, regulations, treaties, international instruments, programs, and practices across the civil, commercial, international, and national security space sectors.

The Vice President announced the UAG Chair, General (USAF Ret) Lester Lyles, during the second space council meeting in September. Below is the full selection to the National Space Council’s UAG:

General (USAF, Ret) Lester Lyles, UAG Chair
Mr. Rajeev Badyal, VP of Technology, Amazon Project Kuiper
Mr. Charles Bolden, Former NASA Administrator and Former Astronaut
Mr. Salvatore T. Bruno, CEO, United Launch Alliance
Dr. Lance Bush, President & CEO, Challenger Center
Ms. Bridget Chatman, Chairwoman, Women in Aerospace
Mr. Theodore “Ted” Colbert, CEO, Boeing Defense, Space & Security
Ms. Nancy Colleton, President, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies
Ms. Karina Drees, President, Commercial Spaceflight Federation
Mr. Eric Fanning, President and CEO, Aerospace Industries Association
Dr. Daniel Hastings, Head, Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ms. Dawne Hickton, Subject Matter Expert
Mr. Daniel Jablonsky, President & CEO, Maxar Technologies
Dr. Dave Kaufman, President, Ball Aerospace
Mr. Patrick Lin, Director of the Ethics & Emerging Sciences Program, California Polytechnic State University
Mr. Ron Lopez, President & Managing Director, Astroscale US
Dr. Harold Lee Martin, Chancellor of North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University
Dr. Kate Marvel, Climate Scientist at Project Drawdown
Maj Gen (Ret) Roosevelt “Ted” Mercer, CEO & Director, Virginia Space
Dr. Marla Perez-Davis, Former Director, NASA Glenn Research Center
Dr. Sian Proctor, Geoscience Professor, South Mountain Community College
Ms. Gwynne Shotwell, President & COO, SpaceX
Dr. Robert Smith, CEO, Blue Origin
Mr. James Taiclet, President & CEO, Lockheed Martin
Dr. Mandy Vaughn, Subject Matter Expert
Ms. Kathy Warden, Chairwoman & CEO, Northrop Grumman Corp
Mr. Robbie Schingler, Jr., Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Planet Labs
Ms. Melanie Stricklan, Co-Founder & CEO, Slingshot Aerospace
Dr. Jeremy Williams, Head, Climate Corporation & Digital Farming, Bayer Crop Science
Ms. Katrina Harden Williams, Middle School Teacher, Ames Middle School, Iowa

Keith’s note (continued): On 11 August 2022 NASA put out an apology memo to the old (Trump) UAG membership that said “All, apologies for the radio silence for so long. Just as all of you appointed members, we civil servants are also subject to the evolving plans and schedule of our Principals at the White House, and until now we did not have information that we were authorized to disseminate as transition activities were underway. That said, our new Administration has spent substantive time & energy to formulate their plans and priorities for space sector activities in the coming years, including the Space Council and it’s associated UAG. I will disseminate more details as soon as we are approved to do so.”

Why the apology? You see, a year earlier, there was a UAG recruitement notice published in the Federal Register on 14 September 2021. It was quickly obvious that the response was not good enough, so they extended the due date to 29 October 2021. Now, more than a year after nominations were due in – and 2 1/2 years after the last UAG meeting on 30 July 2020 – on a Friday afternoon a week before Christmas when everyone I s starting to burn unused annual leave – and the Biden Administration finally gets around to announcing new UAG.

If you go to the UAG membership roster page at the time this news was released, it still lists the same Trump UAG membership last updated on 8 June 2020 – with a picture of the Trump UAG panel. And of course if you go to the NASA Office of International and Interagency Relations (OIIR) who oversees all of those advisory committee things at NASA they make no mention of the National Space Council or the UAG – at all. Nor will they. They are asleep. Here are some previous updates on the whole UAG saga.

As for the actual panel – there are lots of big aerospace “customers” for NASA (as opposed to being “users”), a number of professional space advisory committee members (its an occupation here in Washington), political plants, and some interesting new faces. Its the new faces that are the only actual value this UAG has – especially if they get frustrated with the go-along-to-get-along chair practice in an echo chamber that these efforts inevitably steer toward – and speak some truth to power.

We’ll hear about a meeting date in a month or three and the event will be scripted with action items for another meeting in a month or tow. They will go have scripted field hearings at pretty locations. And then some Powerpoint slides will be delivered a year from now that maybe the Transition Team will read. Or not.

This is how we explore space in the 21st century.

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

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