Newly elected US President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who is close to him, could dramatically change the direction of the US space program. In particular, the biggest changes may affect the Artemis lunar program. It is also quite possible that NASA’s ground infrastructure will be reduced.
Trump and space
The election of Donald Trump as president has shaken up many different areas of public life. Everyone expects a dramatic change, some with hope, some with dread. The space sphere is no exception, where priorities may suddenly change. In particular, the primary target of future manned missions may be Mars rather than the Moon.
Regarding Trump’s space plans, only one thing can be said: this topic is important to him. There’s a reason he created the Space Force in his last presidency and established the National Space Council under the Vice President.
True, he closed an entire bunch of space programs related to climate change research in doing so, because he has consistently found the problem to be exaggerated. Then some of these projects were reinstated by Joe Biden. So space exploration became hostage to environmentalism and politics.
Elon Musk
As for Trump’s second term, Elon Musk is already expected to play a major role. The entrepreneur is not only the head of SpaceX, but has invested tens of millions of dollars in the Republican candidate’s campaign and has personally endorsed him on multiple occasions.
It is expected that Musk may be the one to head a new government body, a commission that is supposed to determine the main directions for the development of the national space program. It would seem, who better than the most prominent entrepreneur in the field to determine where it should go. However, that is where the problem arises.
If the plans come to life, Musk will have something called a “conflict of interest.” Simply put, the person who will determine what public money should be spent on is the owner of the firm to which that money may fall as a result.
Moon or Mars
Musk’s main victim in the future may be the Artemis program, or at least the SLS lunar rocket itself. The businessman has long criticized it for not being reusable and therefore more expensive than his Starship. And this system does have its problems.
The criticism is quite justified. But everyone still hopes that this rocket will take four astronauts around the Moon as early as 2025. Next should come mission time with a landing. Nobody knows what will happen if Musk tells Trump that instead of SLS, we should bet on Starship, which has never flown beyond Earth orbit.
After all, China is also developing its lunar program and plans to land astronauts at the South Pole of our moon before the United States does. And that’s certainly not what Trump wants.
On the other hand, possibly Musk will decide that we don’t need the Moon at all and say that it’s better to go to Mars. At least, Trump himself has promised the realization of this mission even before the end of his presidential term.
Achieving this goal means a bigger benefit than the moon, but how to realize all of this is not yet known even by Musk himself, although he has been promoting the idea for years. However, its realization, especially in such a short period of time, looks extremely doubtful.
Layoffs at NASA
Another thing Musk and Trump can do is cut the number of NASA research centers. Talk about this has also been going on for a long time, and the question of the effectiveness of these institutions is indeed pertinent. However, there are also quite a few arguments against this action.
So far, NASA’s science centers are holding out thanks to Senators. They are elected from states, and they don’t want their constituents to lose jobs at all. But a lot will depend on the NASA director that Trump appoints.
In addition, it is quite expected that all of Earth’s environmental monitoring programs will also go under the knife. On the other hand, the problems in the U.S. space industry are really enough and there is hope that all these radical changes will benefit it. It won’t get any worse.
Provided by phys.org
