What Will NASA Look Like Under a Second Trump Administration?

Donald Trump’s second term could bring some massive change to our government. Beyond the “revenge tour” that many people are expecting from the new Trump administration, Team Trump has promised to reform and revamp many federal agencies and bureaucracies.

NASA is one of those agencies that’s ripe for change. Far from the “go fever” and commitment to innovation that characterized the American space program in the heyday of the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo era, NASA has succumbed to pork-barrel politics, glacial bureaucracy, and a beholdenness to the left-wing causes of the day.

Could that change under the incoming Trump administration? The president-elect has already nominated entrepreneur Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator, and we already know the extent to which Elon Musk has the administration’s ear.

So what does all this mean for NASA? We don’t know for sure yet, but we do know that the Trump camp has a space transition team working on it. Ars Technica’s Eric Berger reports on the objectives that the team is already considering:

The transition team has been discussing possible elements of an executive order or other policy directives. They include:

• Establishing the goal of sending humans to the Moon and Mars, by 2028
• Canceling the costly Space Launch System rocket and possibly the Orion spacecraft
• Consolidating Goddard Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama
• Retaining a small administration presence in Washington, DC, but otherwise moving headquarters to a field center
• Rapidly redesigning the Artemis lunar program to make it more efficient

"Is any of this written in stone? No," a source told Ars.

Private space exploration is likely to move even more to the forefront in a second Trump administration’s space priorities. The growth of SpaceX and other companies has provided NASA with reliable partners that aren’t as beholden to bureaucracy.

“The push toward more privatization of spaceflight is likely because the commercial space industry is more established now than it was eight years ago, at the outset of Trump's first term,” Berger writes. “Additionally, in recognition of the increased importance of commercial space, state governments with NASA centers are also investing more money to attract space companies.”

Related: NASA Sets Artemis Moon Mission Timelines

Of course, one of the biggest obstacles that the incoming administration faces in reforming NASA is one of the federal government’s biggest issues: largesse. The attitude of “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours” that pervades D.C. has invaded NASA going back to its beginnings.

Mark R. Whittington writes in an op-ed at The Hill that “the reason NASA has several centers spread out across the country is that it increases congressional support for its programs. If a House member or senator is not moved by a love of science or beating the Chinese back to the moon, he or she might be motivated by the jobs and contracts created by a NASA center in their district or state. They will fight tooth and nail against closing such a source of votes.”

Whittington suggests that removing some redundances could make NASA leaner and meaner — including the controversial idea of closing Ames Research Center and Goddard Space Flight Center and merging both with Marshall Space Flight Center — but there are other things Trump-era NASA could do to improve operations. The biggest thing Isaacman could do is keep NASA’s eyes on the prize of space exploration.

Remember when Barack Obama told then-NASA administrator Charles Bolden to make Muslims “feel good”? That was sideways energy that NASA didn’t need to engage in. Isaacman should also drop NASA’s DEI initiatives and obsession with climate change.

Whittington also notes that NASA could benefit from clarifying just what the Artemis program is trying to accomplish:

We are going back to the moon and on to Mars to advance the frontiers of science, create technology that will be useful in space and on Earth, access natural resources, create new industries, and enhance the political soft power and security of the United States and its allies.

Everything we do must flow from that mission statement.

To put the matter more succinctly, we are returning to the moon, then going to Mars and beyond to make a future that is better than the past, for the benefit of all humankind.

There’s a lot that the Trump administration could do to make NASA better. A relentless commitment to innovation and efficiency and a narrowly focused mission is a good start. Maybe then NASA and its private-sector partners can make space exploration something that captures everyone’s imagination again.