A Second Trump National Space Council Would Be Busy

The Trump Administration reportedly plans to keep the National Space Council as the White House mechanism for coordinating U.S. space policy.  Created by Congress in 1989, some presidents have used a Space Council and others have not, but President Trump did in his first term and apparently will again. By law, the Space Council is chaired by the Vice President, so it will be JD Vance in charge this time with a full plate of civil, commercial, and national security space issues to coordinate across multiple government agencies.

The first hint that Trump might be considering retaining the Space Council came in his glowing tribute to the Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, its 35th anniversary.

He noted that in his first term he “proudly reestablished the National Space Council — relaunching space policy as a top national priority.”

Indeed, the Space Council had been dormant since the presidency of George H.W. Bush. The Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama Administrations chose to use the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Security Council (NSC) to coordinate space policy instead.

The 1958 NASA Act that assigned military space to DOD and created NASA for civil space established a White House National Aeronautics and Space Council to coordinate between them. President Nixon abolished it in 1973. Fourteen years later, dissatisfied with a lack of transparency and how long it took the Reagan White House to develop a policy response to the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy through the NSC, Congress directed the White House to establish a National Space Council in the 1987 NASA Authorization Act. Reagan vetoed the bill, however, because the language was very prescriptive, encroaching on his prerogatives on how to organize the White House. Two years later Congress tried again leaving details, like membership, up to the President.

One requirement Congress insisted on was that it be chaired by the Vice President.  Reagan signed that bill, the 1989 NASA Authorization Act (P.L. 100-685), into law at the end of his administration. His successor, George H.W. Bush, issued an Executive Order shortly after taking office formally establishing the Space Council’s membership and duties. It functioned throughout his presidency under the leadership of Vice President Dan Quayle.

Fast forward to 2017 when Trump issued an Executive Order on June 30 reestablishing the Space Council with Vice President Mike Pence as chairman. President Biden kept the Space Council with Vice President Kamala Harris as chair, and expanded its membership and authority.

The question has been whether Trump sees a need for a Space Council in his second term.  Advocates of a Space Council point out it is the one place in the White House that is totally focused on space issues and can be especially useful in educating other parts of the White House, like the Office of Management and Budget, about why space activities are a critical part of the nation’s future.  Through the Space Council’s Users’ Advisory Group, established in the 1991 NASA Authorization Act (P.L. 101-611), industry and other non-government stakeholders also get a seat at the table.

Politico first reported on Friday that the Trump Administration will retain the Space Council. SpacePolicyOnline.com could not independently verify that a final decision has been made as opposed to discussions being underway, but it does seem to be trending in that direction.

In an interview today, Diane Howard, who was Director for Commercial Space Policy in the Biden-Harris Space Council, told SpacePolicyOnline.com that settling the question of mission authorization should be a top priority.

They could be the administration that actually solves the problem. They’d go down in history as heroes forever. — Diane Howard

Article VI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty makes governments responsible for authorizing and continually supervising the activities of non-government entities, such as companies. The FAA, FCC, and Department of Commerce regulate legacy space activities like launch, radio frequency assignments, and remote sensing satellites, but the United States has not assigned regulatory responsibility for the ever-growing number of “novel” space activities like satellite servicing, commercial space stations, or mining lunar resources. The 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act directed the White House to do that, but the Obama, Trump and Biden Administrations could never come up with a plan that could win congressional approval. The Biden-Harris Space Council’s proposal was sent to Congress on November 15, 2023 less than an hour before the House Science, Space, and Technology  Committee was about to mark up a Republican version. The markup was postponed for two weeks and in the end the Republican version was approved on a party-line vote. No further action took place so the issue remains unresolved.

Commercial space is just one topic that will confront a new Space Council. Bhavya Lal, NASA’s first Associate Administrator for Technology, Policy and Strategy who left the agency in 2023, told SpacePolicyOnline.com that NASA could benefit if the Space Council is retained.

“If the Council can make a cogent case to OMB for increasing NASA’s funding or making better use of existing resources, it can help protect or advance critical programs.  A good example is space nuclear power and propulsion — a complex, multi-agency effort that will need substantial funding and clear strategic direction.” — Bhavya Lal

OMB’s budget proposal for NASA would slash the agency’s total budget by 24 percent. Funding for human spaceflight would grow, with cuts everywhere else. A lot of attention is focused on the science budget that would be cut almost 50 percent, but space technology — where space nuclear power and propulsion reside — also would be cut in half. The OMB chart specifically criticizes “failing space propulsion projects.”

National security could well dominate Trump’s second term space agenda with the focus on building the Golden Dome missile defense system including space-based interceptors. Some of those debates may stay between DOD and the National Security Council, but interagency coordination will be important on topics like space debris, spectrum sharing, space launch infrastructure, dual-use technologies and much more.

Victoria Samson, Chief Director for Space Security and Stability at the Secure World Foundation (SWF), told SpacePolicyOnline.com that getting more countries to adopt the U.S.-led moratorium on destructive direct-ascent antisatellite (ASAT) tests needs attention.

Something that I think would be needed to be taken care of at the NSpC [National Space Council] level is whether the United States is going to continue to get more countries to make the commitment not to conduct destructive direct-ascent ASAT missile tests. — Victoria Samson

SWF maintains a spreadsheet identifying the 38 countries that have signed so far. The most recent, Peru, was a year ago in May 2024.

Like the previous Vice Presidents who chaired the Space Council, Vance does not seem to have spent a lot of time on space issues, but he has some familiarity with them.  During his two years in the Senate, he served on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and its Space and Science Subcommittee. During a December 13, 2023 hearing on the Biden Administration’s mission authorization proposal, his questions focused on whether the Biden plan was overly complicated.

Vance represented Ohio, home to NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and its Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky. The President of the Cleveland City Council is one of several Ohio politicians who have written to Vance lobbying for NASA Headquarters to move to Ohio.

As for national security space, Ohio is also home to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton that includes the Air Force Research Lab and the U.S. Space Force’s National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC).  While a Senator, he joined others in the Ohio delegation in a February 2024 letter to Secretary of Defense Austin, NASA Administrator Nelson and Chief of Space Operations Gen. Saltzman arguing to have Space Force’s Space Training and Readiness (STAR) Command’s Space Delta 12 mission relocated to the Neil Armstrong Test Facility so it would be in the same region as NSIC. Delta 12 is currently in Colorado.

Earlier this year, Vance visited the U.S. Space Force’s Pituffik Space Base in Greenland amid controversy over Trump’s statements about the United States taking control of the Danish territory.

The timing of when Trump might reveal his plans is unknown. Publicly, the next step likely will be the announcement of an Executive Order. He had quite a ceremony when he signed the first one in 2017, though it wasn’t made public until after the fact.

 

This article has been updated.