Space policy could become partisan in the 2024 election

One of the bright spots in American politics has been that space policy has avoided becoming a partisan political issue. The Biden administration has adopted wholesale from the preceding Trump administration both the Space Force and the Artemis mission to return to the moon. The continuity of space policy between the two very different presidencies has been both surprising and gratifying.

However, the nonpartisan nature of space policy may be about to change.

A sticking point seems to be developing not so much around what space policy should be, but about how it is being executed. Eric Trump, a son and surrogate for former President Trump, launched a salvo on the Jesse Watters Fox News show on the last night of the Democratic National Convention. 

“Kamala Harris chairs the National Space Commission and Boeing can’t get one of the rockets — it’s docked at the [International Space Station] with astronauts stuck up there and you will have to have Elon Musk go rescue them.”

Eric Trump misspoke. Harris is the chair of the National Space Council. The National Space Commission does not exist. The National Commission on Space was convened in the wake of the Challenger disaster to chart the future course of the American space program.

Harris is not directly responsible for the Starliner debacle that has stranded two American astronauts on the International Space Station for far longer than originally planned. The direct responsibility resides with Boeing and its quality control problems surrounding the Starliner, and with NASA for not exercising sufficient oversight. 

Nevertheless, Harris is the point person for Biden’s space policy and must therefore answer for its failures during the Biden administration.

NASA has decided to bring the astronauts home in February on a Crew Dragon, and to bring back the Starliner separately and unmanned. Boeing has vowed to fix the problems with Starliner and provide NASA with the redundancy for sending astronauts to and from the ISS that it requires,

Still, the problems with the Starliner and possible delays facing the Artemis program — it may slip as much as two years partly because of problems with the Orion spacecraft’s heatshield — could provide a tempting target for the Trump campaign.

The Harris campaign has not been shy about touting her position as chair of the National Space Council. She mentioned space as a priority in her nomination acceptance speech. Space merited a short mention in the Democratic Party platform in a paragraph covering manufacturing.

The most bizarre space-related event of the Harris campaign was a livestream fundraiser by a group calling itself Space Cadets for Harris. The eclectic group consisted of former astronauts, scientists, engineers, Star Trek actors, two former NASA administrators and Bill Nye “the Science Guy.” Some of the participants compared Harris to characters from Star Trek, such as Captain Kathryn Janeway and Lt. Nyota Uhura. Harris will apparently usher in the future of Star Trek if she is elected.

If Team Trump desires to make space an issue in the campaign, it should do so with care. Space has been nonpartisan thanks in large part to the efforts of Trump’s NASA Administrator, Jim Bridenstine. If he hits Harris too hard on her handling of the issue, Democrats may be reluctant to support his space policy if he is reelected.

Instead, Trump should accentuate the positive. He should mention that he started the Artemis program and the Space Force. Forbes called his naming of Bridenstine as NASA chief one of the best decisions he ever made.

Indeed, the once and possibly future president should thank Biden and Harris for adopting his space policy as their own. It would show uncharacteristic magnanimity and would stick in the craw of the Democrats.

Trump should promise that he will straighten out the commercial space mess caused by the Starliner fiasco and that two commercial spacecraft will take Americans to and from Earth orbit by the end of his term. He should also promise that American moon boots will be on the lunar surface by the end of his presidency, ahead of the Chinese.

Trump should promise to end the Biden-Harris mandated DEI policies at NASA that make funding to science, technology, engineering, math and medicine research grants conditional on diversity statements and equity requirements that have little to do with the projects’ merits. Whistleblowers in academia claim that such requirements threaten America’s competitive edge and its national security.

If space must be a political issue, let it be a positive one, promising a better future.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.