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White House Sets New Space Strategy

The Trump Administration has provided more details of its plan to restore NASA to its original priorities. Mr. Obama had mandated NASA’s attention be redirected to efforts intended to assist a climate change agenda. President Trump has reset the space agency, emphasizing manned exploration beyond Earth orbit.  The President even included a reference to space travel in his inaugural address.

Obama prematurely ended the Space Shuttle program, and effectively cancelled the next-wave human piloted spacecraft, the Constellation project.

One mission apparently advocated by the Trump Administration is a relatively quick return to the Moon. According to the Wall Street Journal the Trump White House will seek to expand public-private partnerships for NASA, including, according to White House documents, “a rapid and affordable” return to the lunar surface.

President Trump’s signing of the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017, the first comprehensive NASA authorization passed by Congress in more than six years, indicated again the White House emphasis on manned space flight, including a return to the moon and human exploration of Mars by 2033, and deep space exploration by robotics as well.

NASA/private sector partnerships should move quickly ahead. The space agency reports that “NASA and industry partners, Boeing and SpaceX, are targeting the return of human spaceflight from Florida’s Space Coast in 2018. Both companies are scheduled to begin flight tests to prove the space systems meet NASA’s requirements for certification in the coming year. Since NASA awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX, the companies have matured space system designs and now have substantial spacecraft and launch vehicle hardware in development and testing in preparation for the test flights. The goal of the Commercial Crew Program is safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station from the United States through a public-private approach. NASA, Boeing and SpaceX have significant testing underway, which will ultimately lead to test missions when the systems are ready and meet safety requirements.”

A White House release outlines its new “National Space Strategy:”

AMERICA FIRST AMONG THE STARS: President Trump’s National Space Strategy works within his broader national security policy by putting America’s interests first.

  • The Trump administration’s National Space Strategy prioritizes American interests first and foremost, ensuring a strategy that will make America strong, competitive, and great.
  • The new strategy emphasizes dynamic and cooperative interplay between the national security, commercial, and civil space sectors.
    • The United States will partner with the commercial sector to ensure that American companies remain world leaders in space technology.

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  • The new strategy ensures that international agreements put the interests of American people, workers, and businesses first.
  • The National Space Strategy prioritizes regulatory reforms that will unshackle American industry and ensure we remain the leading global provider of space services and technology.

SPACE PREEMINENCE THROUGH THE AMERICAN SPIRIT: President Trump’s National Space Strategy harnesses the American spirit and continues the American tradition of pioneering and exploration.

  • The President’s National Space Strategy builds on America’s pioneering, spacefaring tradition, laying the groundwork for the next generation of American exploration in space.
  • The National Space Strategy establishes forthrightly that securing the scientific, commercial, and national security benefits of space is a top priority for this Administration.
    • The United States will continue to lead in the creation and maintenance of the crucial space systems that are essential to our prosperity, security, and way of life.
  • The Strategy puts forward a reinvigorated approach to ensuring U.S. leadership and success in space.

PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH: President Trump’s space strategy builds on the National Security Strategy emphasizing peace through strength in the space domain.

  • The National Space Strategy protects our vital interest in space – to ensure unfettered access to, and freedom to operate in space, in order to advance America’s security, economic prosperity, and scientific knowledge.
    • Accordingly, the Administration’s new strategy calls for strengthening the safety, stability, and sustainability of our space activities.
  • The strategy affirms that any harmful interference with or attack upon critical components of our space architecture that directly affects this vital interest will be met with a deliberate response at a time, place, manner, and domain of our choosing.
  • President Trump’s National Space Strategy recognizes that our competitors and adversaries have turned space into a warfighting domain.
    • While the United States would prefer that the space domain remain free of conflict, we will prepare to meet and overcome any challenges that arise.
  • Under the President’s new strategy, the United States will seek to deter, counter, and defeat threats in the space domain that are hostile to the national interests of the United States and our allies.

FOUR PILLARS FOR A UNIFIED APPROACH: President Donald J. Trump’s new National Space Strategy drives a whole-of-government approach to United States leadership in space, in close partnership with the private sector and our allies, and is based on four essential pillars:

  • Transform to more resilient space architectures:  We will accelerate the transformation of our space architecture to enhance resiliency, defenses, and our ability to reconstitute impaired capabilities.
  • Strengthen deterrence and warfighting options:  We will strengthen U.S. and allied options to deter potential adversaries from extending conflict into space and, if deterrence fails, to counter threats used by adversaries for hostile purposes.
  • Improve foundational capabilities, structures, and processes:  We will ensure effective space operations through improved situational awareness, intelligence, and acquisition processes.
  • Foster conducive domestic and international environments:  We will streamline regulatory frameworks, policies, and processes to better leverage and support U.S. commercial industry, and we will pursue bilateral and multilateral engagements to enable human exploration, promote burden sharing and marshal cooperative threat responses.

A NEW DIRECTION FOR U.S. SPACE: President Trump has already taken significant steps to reorient American space policy and set it on the right path for the future.

  • On June 30, 2017, the President revived the National Space Council for the first time in 24 years.
  • On December 11, 2017, President Trump once again set America’s sights toward the stars by signing Space Policy Directive – 1, which instructed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to return American astronauts to the moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.
    • In signing the directive, the President ordered action to work with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system.

ORION spacecraft (NASA illustration)