NASA Administrator – USA Gov Policy

On Monday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine commented on NASA’s 2020 budget:

“President Trump’s fiscal year 2020 NASA budget is one of the strongest on record for our storied agency. At $21 billion, this budget represents a nearly 6 percent increase over last year’s request and comes at a time of constrained resources across the federal government. It also is a huge vote of confidence for all of the agency’s hard work and dedication.

“We will go to the Moon in the next decade with innovative, new technologies and systems to explore more locations across the lunar surface than ever before. This time, when we go to the Moon, we will stay. We will use what we learn as we move forward to the Moon to take the next giant leap – sending astronauts to Mars.

“This budget will build on our successes in low-Earth orbit to create a sustainable exploration campaign that combines NASA’s expertise with that of our commercial and international partners’. We will continue ushering in a new era of human spaceflight as we launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil for the first time since 2011. The Space Launch System, Orion spacecraft, and Gateway will continue to be our backbone for deep space exploration.

“Beginning with a series of small commercial delivery missions to the Moon as early as this year, we will use new landers, robots and eventually humans by 2028 to conduct science across the entire lunar surface.

“With this budget, NASA’s critical work studying our home planet and the Sun will benefit humankind for generations. We will reveal the unknown with missions to Jupiter’s moon Europa and the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. We will continue planning and developing the first round-trip mission to the Red Planet with Mars Sample Return.

“This budget also continues support for transformative aeronautics technology research. We will make air travel safer, greener and more efficient, and continue pioneering the next generation of supersonic flight.

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“As we approach the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 this July, we are moving forward to the Moon and on to Mars, and we want the world to come with us.

“NASA is everywhere, and we are impacting people’s lives across the globe. As we celebrate the past, let’s inspire our friends and family for the future that we are building.”

For many Americans, the most interesting part of Bridenstine’s comments concerned NASA’s plans to place humans on Mars.

According to the space agency, “Space Policy Directive-1 provides the direction for NASA to organize more effectively government, commercial and international efforts to develop a permanent presence off Earth that generates new markets and opportunities, both scientific and economic. We are going quickly and sustainably with a reusable architecture. We are going with commercial and international partners to explore faster and explore more together. We will bring new knowledge and opportunities. We will use the resources of the Moon to enable farther exploration. We will prove out the technologies that will take us to Mars and beyond. NASA is building a spacecraft to take astronauts to deep space that will usher in a new era of space exploration.”

The spacecraft NASA will used is known as Orion.It is built to take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before. Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. Orion will launch on NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System

“NASA will launch Orion on the agency’s powerful rocket, the Space Launch System, from a modernized spaceport at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On the first integrated mission, known as Exploration Mission-1, an uncrewed Orion will venture thousands of miles beyond the Moon over the course of about three weeks.”

Orion will be launched using the new Space Launch System (SLS), described as one that will be “the most powerful rocket ever built. When completed, SLS will enable astronauts to begin their journey to explore destinations far into the solar system.

“NASA’s Space Launch System is an advanced launch vehicle that provides the foundation for human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit. With its unprecedented power and capabilities, SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts and large cargo to the Moon on a single mission. Offering more payload mass, volume capability and energy to speed missions through space than any current launch vehicle, SLS is designed to be flexible and evolvable and will open new possibilities for payloads, including robotic scientific missions to places like the Moon, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter.”

Illustration: NASA

Quick Analysis

China’s Tech Targets

Chinese technology is changing and its leadership is using it, along with espionage, to challenge the West in a number of critical areas. The United States is only one of its targets. Previously, Beijing’s spies primarily sought Western technologies as a way to skip generations of develop cost and time to modernize its economy. Today, its acquisition of advanced technologies, and now also its indigenous development, makes the communist giant a threat to freedom-loving people everywhere. This week Nan Mulchandani, the CIA’s chief technology officer, said Director William Burns is preparing for an “infinite race” with Beijing for artificial intelligence and advanced technologies. He argues the US must pivot toward providing American spies with the latest transformative technologies to outcompete China. Mulchandani says this means updating everything the agency does “from operations to the analytic function, support functions and other piece there.” America, he suggests, needs to alter its thinking toward viewing this not as a race with a finite end point, but as an ongoing competition. Mr. Mulchandani predicted that the next area of competition would “be primarily a software war that is powered by something like AI” rather than hardware fueled by software. That competition, however, is not confined to simply acquiring critical technologies for use in the future. China is also challenging the US in space. China announced today it launched a groundbreaking mission to retrieve samples from the far side of the moon. The space capsule will arrive in four days and collect 4.4 pounds of moon rocks and regolith, or moon dirt. Beijing’s desire to one day become a space power and scientific force is for pragmatic purposes in 2024 a fait accompli. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, said during a NASA budget hearing this week, that “while the US remains the global leader in space exploration, we face increasing challenges internationally.” Referring to China’s space station, Lucas said: “We cannot allow China to become the front-runner in space exploration… There are too many consequences for our competitiveness, our national security, and our continued ability to explore space.” A new report released this week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says that the United States, to further its geopolitical interests and maintain a strong domestic economy, must approach every aspect of economic and trade policy through the lens of global technology competition. The Biden Administration’s approach, it says, discounts the landscape of competition between China and the US and may “jeopardize US advancements in emerging technologies… which could cede the advantage to China….” In particular, the report recommends that the US take action now because quantum and artificial intelligence (AI) need a federal policy to ensure the country can spur the entrepreneurship and R&D efforts foundational to the strength of the technology sector. As China’s Communist Party (CCP) becomes more hostile to the United States and other Western nations, its aggressive activities abroad expand and intensify. Chinese spy cases far outnumber those of Russia and every other nation. CSIS reports that since President Xi took over in 2012 there have been 224 incidents of spying. Estimates of the long -term economic, scientific, and national security cost to the US run into the billions and have “created immeasurable damage to national security with the theft of weapons technology, including nuclear weapons test data… China has added the theft of massive quantities of personal information, political coercion, and influence operations, to its espionage activities.” The CSIS reports says that 49% of incidents of spying in the US directly involved Chinese military or government employees, with private Chinese citizens accounted for 41%. In 29% of the espionage cases the person involved was attempting to acquire military technology, while in 54% of the incidents it was related to commercial technologies. Almost half of the cases involved cyber espionage, usually by state—affiliated actors. No matter where one turns today China is challenging the West, from the depths of our oceans to outer space. The United States cannot count on China to be a good global citizen and refrain from attempting to enforce its vision of world order with Beijing at the apex. The time is growing short for the West to take action. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.