The future of space exploration didn’t seem to be a topic of discussion in the 2016 election. However, as we look to Elon Musk to develop the technology to offer a way to escape earth for the next four years, the Trump administration has come up with a plan.
Robert Smith Walker, a former republican congressman from Pennsylvania, was tasked with drawing up the blueprints for what president elect Donald Trump’s space program would look like. At a meeting of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) on Oct. 26, Walker unveiled this policy for the first time.
It includes nine key points and begins with a commitment to global space leadership. Walker plans to reinstate the National Space Council and put none other than the vice president elect Mike Pence in charge. Another important point includes shifting budgets from researching Earth Science and Green energy to deep space exploration.
Walker insisted that putting humans back onto the surface of the moon was important in the future of space exploration. However, he gave no indication of how a Trump administration would create the extra funds to implement any part of this plan. In fact, he found it unlikely that NASA would receive funding at all.
“We are not likely to get huge new numbers for the space program in the future, even if we get the budget settled,” Walker said in the COMSTAC discussion.
Thus, a plan that may seem promising to people who watched the space industry crumble during the great recession seems now to be nothing more than just an empty campaign promise.
Information for this article was taken from SpaceNews.Org