No space for new space at Trump’s space council rollout
Event was highly anticipated, as it signaled the deeper involvement of Mike Pence.
Earlier Friday, Ars exclusively reported on the imminent announcement of a reinstated National Space Council by President Donald Trump. And indeed, the executive order signing ceremony took place on Friday afternoon at the White House before the president departed to New Jersey for the holiday weekend.
This event was highly anticipated because it signaled the deeper involvement of Vice President Mike Pence in the setting of national space policy. The new council's tasks include the coordination of military, civil, and commercial space activities and the establishment of broader goals for the United States in space.
The formation of the space council should also provide some clarity on the extent to which the Trump administration, which sees one of its mandates as making the US government function more like a business, applies that methodology to the US civil space program.
In recent years, new space companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin have begun pushing the boundaries of low-cost, reusable rockets. A recent Air University study encouraged the military to aggressively pursue partnerships with these new space companies to "create a virtuous cycle of launch cost reductions of between 3 and 10 times lower than today’s costs." But NASA has so far largely resisted reusable rocketry.
To privatize or not?
Neither Pence nor Trump directly addressed this issue in their remarks, which were largely platitudes about making America great again in space. "We're a nation of pioneers, and the next great American frontier is space," Trump said, according to a pool report. "Today we are taking a crucial step to secure America's future in space."
However, the composition of the crowd was illustrative, as it seemed to favor NASA's traditional contractors, who are building the expendable Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. After the event, the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, an industry group, released a statement noting that many of its members were invited:
Quote:
The Boeing Company represented by CEO Dennis Muilenburg; Lockheed Martin Corporation represented by CEO Marillyn A. Hewson; Orbital ATK represented by John Steinmeyer, director of business development, Launch Vehicle Division; United Launch Alliance represented by CEO Salvatore T. Bruno; AMRO Fabricating Corporation represented by CEO Mike Riley and President John Hammond; Futuramic Tool & Engineering Company represented by Vice President John Couch; and Cain Tubular Products represented by Owner Mike Cain.
Most of these companies are prime- or subcontractors on the SLS rocket and Orion. The coalition's president, Mary Lynne Dittmar, noted how NASA's deep space program supports a wide industrial base across the country, saying, "These programs are critical to our 50-state supplier network, our national industrial base innovation and manufacturing job creation in so many communities across the country."
The primary advocate for new space companies, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, was not invited to the event on Friday. SpaceX's Elon Musk and Blue Origin's Jeff Bezos were asked to attend, but neither could make the event on short notice. One official involved in the new space community told Ars, "If you were not with Alabama or SLS, you weren't getting into the event today. They didn't want any commercial space there." Alabama is the home state of the Marshall Space Flight Center, which manages development of the SLS rocket.
The executive order was drafted primarily by Peter J. White, who left the staff of Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks to join the White House after President Trump was elected. White is managing space policy for the president's Domestic Policy Council, and he managed the invite list for Friday's event.
Final decision to come
For this reason, Friday's attendees may represent a bias of the policy council staff rather than that of Pence or the yet-to-be constituted space council. The key data point to watch will be the membership of a new "User's advisory group" that will be created to advise the new council. According to the executive order, the advisory group's purpose will be to "ensure that the interests of industries and other non-federal entities involved in space activities, including in particular commercial entities, are adequately represented in the council."
Will this be composed primarily of traditional space companies, new space companies, or a mix of both? For now, we'll just have to wait to see.
