What’s old is new again, as Donald Trump, now 78, is President-Elect, again. With this result, what does this mean for the U.S. space program and its partners like Canada?
Trumps big win
In a divisive campaign which the polls said was neck-and-neck, the results when they came had much less drama than in 2020. Trump started with an early lead and never relinquished it. At the time of publication, Trump had a 4.5% lead in the popular vote, and was up almost by 5 million votes and had 295 electoral college votes to Kamala Harris’ 226. Trump needed 270 to win out of total 538 electoral votes available. Seventeen are still up for grabs in Arizona (11) and Nevada (6), both of which have Trump in the lead. It was early in the morning, 5:34 a.m. ET, when AP called the election for Trump. Fox News was the earliest to call the election at 1:46 a.m. ET.
There was more good news for Trump as the Senate flipped, and is now in the hands of the Republicans. And the news might even get better as control of the House is still to be decided, but the Republicans had already flipped three seats and could keep control. With the White House, Senate, House and a pro-conservative Supreme Court, possibly all in control by the Republicans, it appears Trump will have unprecedented power. And he’ll use it to remake government and America.
NASA going forward
As with every Presidential election, change is coming to NASA. This time around though, there could be more changes than usual.
Will NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stay or go? Well, the choice is not up to him. As an appointee of President Biden, it is expected that he resign to allow the President-Elect to nominate his choice. Nelson is also 82, and so he might not have stayed even if Vice President Harris had won.
Changes are already happening at NASA headquarters. Last week Alexander MacDonald, a dual-citizen (U.S. & Canadian), and chief economist, and someone familiar to the Canadian space community, is retiring according to NASA. Also leaving is Mike Kincaid, associate administrator, Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM).
Yesterday, in an opinion published in SpaceNews, David Steitz who served as NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Technology, Policy and Strategy and as the agency’s Deputy Chief Technologist, and spent more than 30 years with the agency before retiring in 2022, said NASA needs to restore its original mission.
He wants the old guard out and a change in direction, a direction that is “agile, cost-effective, and innovation-driven,” with more partnerships and reliance on the commercial space sector.
Now for a bit of speculation on my part. Another change that may come is an end to NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), though not until Artemis 3 has flown. This program could be difficult to cut as its a jobs program that employs many people across the country with some members of the Senate and House fighting Trump to keep it going. The reality though, is with SpaceX’s Starship making good progress now and with Blue Origin’s New Glenn getting closer to reality, there will soon be no need for the massively expensive SLS.
As for the Lunar Gateway, it’s too soon to say if any changes will be coming. As an international effort and key asset for future human exploration of the moon, and with other nations like Canada offsetting some of the costs with their contributions, it seems unlikely the Trump administration would make any significant changes to this program. With Trump though, you just never know.
Musk, the wild card, and Mars
In July, Elon Musk became an ardent supporter of Trump and sunk a reported $132 million into his campaign and to support other Grand Old Party (GOP) candidates. He travelled around the country and stumped for Trump and used his social media platform X to amplify Trump messaging.
Why do this? Well, the relationship seemed to start well when Trump first took the White House in 2016, but eventually they had a falling out. But the relationship changed again this year, and it could be argued that it was a strategic decision by Musk.
Does Musk have political ambitions? In a way, yes, but as someone born outside the U.S he can’t become President, and doesn’t seem interested in office himself. What he can do, and is doing, is position himself so that he can influence the President to benefit his companies.
It’s important to understand what motivates Musk. He’s been very clear that humanity must be become a multi-planet species and that he wants to start with Mars. SpaceX was created for that purpose. I visited the original SpaceX headquarters where Musk gave me and another colleague a personal tour. I twice sat down with him in the early years of SpaceX for a meal and talked about the companies progress, but more specially about Mars. This is a man that is very smart and driven. The goal is clear.
So, back to Trump. It was clear after President Biden took himself out of running for another term and after Harris began to make waves, including raising a ton of money right out the gate, that Harris had a chance to beat Trump. Coincidentally this is when Musk endorsed Trump and became active with his support.
And it’s been clear for some time that the Democrats under outgoing President Biden have not been enamored with Musk or some of his companies. As a recently as last week Biden called out Musk for supposedly working illegally in the U.S.
Yesterday The Atlantic published a piece titled “MAGA Goes to Mars.” It discusses one of the reasons why Musk supports Trump. Mars, of course. “This fall, he (Musk) declared that Kamala Harris would doom humankind to an earthbound existence, whereas Donald Trump would fulfill SpaceX’s founding dream of putting people on Mars. Trump seems equally enthusiastic about Musk’s space plans. “Elon, get those rocket ships going, because we want to reach Mars before the end of my term,” he said on the campaign trail.
Musk spent election night at Mar-a-Lago with Trump and his VIP guests. In his remarks to supporters early Wednesday morning, Trump praised Musk saying, “We have a new star, a star is born. Elon, he is an amazing guy.” Trump has also state he’s going to offer a position in government, an efficiency czar, in which he will help “ensure our government works more efficiently and uses America’s taxpayer dollars effectively,” according to Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign senior adviser.
Musk for his part, said on Tuesday, he plans to keep his Super Political Action Committee, America PAC, going, to support those who support his goals.
And that primary goal is humans to Mars.