Trump’s new executive order on space has the right stuff
The new Executive Order on “ensuring space superiority” issued by President Trump is a milestone. For the first time, we now have a presidential document that recognizes the civilizational importance of space. It is a strong and welcome statement on national space policy that for the first time clearly enunciates America’s economic interests in space, and the role of the Department of War in protect them. For the first time, a single national security document puts all instruments of national spacepower – NASA, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of War – on the same map and same timeline.
Timed to coincide with the swearing in of the new NASA administrator, the order focuses on a number of policy issues where clarity was sorely needed. It makes it clear that the United States will return to the Moon, and that its purpose there will be to lay the foundations for long-term Lunar economic development. It also establishes clear deadlines: a return to the Lunar surface by 2028, and the establishment of permanent presence by 2030. And it correctly puts power first, committing to a commercial space nuclear power plant on the Lunar surface by 2030. (This is undoubtedly the correct priority, because power is fundamental to enabling innovations of civilizational significance.)
The new Executive Order also makes it clear that the U.S. will not cede dominance of low-Earth orbit (LEO), restating a national strategy to transition to commercial space stations by 2030. That, in turn, requires the White House, NASA and the Department of Commerce to collaborate in building a strong space industrial base and growing a vibrant commercial space economy – an effort that will seek to acquire $50 billion in new investment in domestic space markets by the end of the Administration.
But the biggest changes encapsulated in the new Presidential Order relate to the U.S. Space Force and Department of War. For the past six years, there has been heated debate about whether the Space Force was meant to “look out or to look down” – that is, whether it was merely a joint force enabler or was expected to protect U.S. economic interests in space.
The new White House document is exceptionally clear in this regard, stating the policy objective of: “Securing and defending American vital national and economic security interests in, from, and to space by… ensuring the ability to detect, characterize, and counter threats to United States space interests from very low-Earth orbit and through cislunar space” and the responsibility to “implement a space security strategy that accounts for United States interests in, from, and to space; addresses current and projected threats to United States space interests from very low-Earth orbit through cislunar space.”
The document also for the first time recognizes the significant policy concern of another nation placing nuclear weapons in space, requiring the forthcoming strategy to include “a technology plan for detecting, characterizing, and countering potential adversary placement of nuclear weapons in space.” It further reinforces the Administration’s commitment to the Gold Dome space-based missile defense, and to a responsive and adaptive national security space architecture.
All this makes the Trump administration’s new Executive Order a truly meaningful step forward. But success will depend on implementation. As we saw with Trump 1.0, bureaucracies are slippery things that seek to prevent meaningful changes to the status quo. If the White House wants to ensure that its new Order has the civilizational significance it intends, it will need to maintain strong oversight over its new marching order, so as to ensure that the bureaucratic response is a bang and not a whimper.
Col. Peter Garretson is Senior Fellow in Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC, and co-director of the Council’s Space Policy Initiative.