The News
Among the industries set to gain most from the reelection of Donald Trump as US president, commercial space may be on the cusp of a new era of innovation.
In his first term, Trump made “pretty dramatic” space policy moves: He created the US Armed Forces’ Space Force; he reestablished Space Command to take charge of military operations in space; and he helped kickstart NASA’s program to return humans to the Moon.
His second term could go further: One of Trump’s biggest donors and supporters this cycle has been Elon Musk — his rocket company SpaceX already has multibillion-dollar contracts with NASA and other federal agencies, and could feasibly win far more over the next four years.
And, if Trump’s pledge to let Musk cut costs out of the government comes to pass, Musk could erode some of the regulatory procedures that he argues are holding up SpaceX’s development of a rocket to take humans and cargo to Mars.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, one of SpaceX’s top rivals for NASA contracts, could also stand to gain. Company executives reportedly met with Trump just before Bezos’ paper The Washington Post canceled a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris. After Trump won, Bezos congratulated the Republican on his victory, while the head of Blue Origin hailed his reelection as “exciting times for space exploration.”
SIGNALS
Trump second term could bring space back into focus
During his first term, Trump was remarkably enthusiastic about space exploration, and even tried to pressure NASA into attempting to launch a crewed mission to Mars before the end of his presidency. Since President Joe Biden took office, however, space exploration has been largely put on the back burner, Space News noted, with the Artemis Moon program behind schedule and several key science missions at risk of losing funding. Now Trump is back, his administration could “push America toward a new era of space travel,” The Atlantic wrote, and once again, Mars is in his sights: While on the campaign trail, he suggested that, if elected, a crewed mission to the Red Planet would launch before the end of 2028 — something Musk has long wanted to accomplish.
Musk will likely be the primary beneficiary of Trump’s space policy
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has a lot to gain from Trump’s space ambitions, Bloomberg wrote, most notably if the incoming president were to relax the Federal Aviation Administration’s regulation over the company’s rocket launches. Musk has said that his dream of colonizing Mars would only be possible under Trump, NBC News reported, and while the implications of Musk’s relationship with Trump for NASA and other government space programs is unclear, “Mars is now part of the discussion in a way it wasn’t just a few months ago,” The Washington Post wrote, adding that “Any NASA strategic pivot that speeds up efforts to send humans to Mars could potentially funnel more contracts to SpaceX.”
Bezos eyes Washington as Blue Origin ambitions grow
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has steadily become more intertwined with Washington over the years, The Washington Post noted, as both Amazon’s cloud computing service and his rocket company Blue Origin count federal agencies among their top customers. Blue Origin, which has said about half of its $10 billion in sales orders are government contracts, reportedly spent $2 billion in government lobbying this year alone. Unlike Musk, Bezos’ company has a more readily accessible space target in mind: “The next president could face momentous decisions about whether the US government will prioritize travel to the moon, where Bezos’ company is especially focused, or to Mars, a longtime preoccupation of Musk’s,” The Post wrote.