The Trump administration has talked a big game about ushering in a “new space age” as China threatens to beat us back to the moon and national security risks grow in space.
To achieve these goals, the White House said it would “unleash” the innovation and know-how of the commercial space industry.
It is a good bipartisan idea — one that took off in earnest under President Barack Obama — to enlist commercial players to modernize our space program. But execution is the hard part. And unfortunately, it’s clear that the administration has already shot itself in the foot by allowing the Department of Government and Efficiency to eliminate one obscure but important team.
That would be NASA’s Office of the Chief Economist, which the agency relied on for an independent understanding of the commercial space market.
If NASA wanted to land cargo on the moon, for instance, its economists were the ones who would figure out whether it made sense to lean on the commercial space sector, which would require a market for those services beyond the government, or if it would be prudent to rely on a traditional contractor. This was critical to NASA’s ability to work together intelligently with industry.
