NASA Administrator – USA Gov Policy

On Monday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine commented on NASA’s 2020 budget:

“President Trump’s fiscal year 2020 NASA budget is one of the strongest on record for our storied agency. At $21 billion, this budget represents a nearly 6 percent increase over last year’s request and comes at a time of constrained resources across the federal government. It also is a huge vote of confidence for all of the agency’s hard work and dedication.

“We will go to the Moon in the next decade with innovative, new technologies and systems to explore more locations across the lunar surface than ever before. This time, when we go to the Moon, we will stay. We will use what we learn as we move forward to the Moon to take the next giant leap – sending astronauts to Mars.

“This budget will build on our successes in low-Earth orbit to create a sustainable exploration campaign that combines NASA’s expertise with that of our commercial and international partners’. We will continue ushering in a new era of human spaceflight as we launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil for the first time since 2011. The Space Launch System, Orion spacecraft, and Gateway will continue to be our backbone for deep space exploration.

“Beginning with a series of small commercial delivery missions to the Moon as early as this year, we will use new landers, robots and eventually humans by 2028 to conduct science across the entire lunar surface.

“With this budget, NASA’s critical work studying our home planet and the Sun will benefit humankind for generations. We will reveal the unknown with missions to Jupiter’s moon Europa and the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. We will continue planning and developing the first round-trip mission to the Red Planet with Mars Sample Return.

“This budget also continues support for transformative aeronautics technology research. We will make air travel safer, greener and more efficient, and continue pioneering the next generation of supersonic flight.

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“As we approach the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 this July, we are moving forward to the Moon and on to Mars, and we want the world to come with us.

“NASA is everywhere, and we are impacting people’s lives across the globe. As we celebrate the past, let’s inspire our friends and family for the future that we are building.”

For many Americans, the most interesting part of Bridenstine’s comments concerned NASA’s plans to place humans on Mars.

According to the space agency, “Space Policy Directive-1 provides the direction for NASA to organize more effectively government, commercial and international efforts to develop a permanent presence off Earth that generates new markets and opportunities, both scientific and economic. We are going quickly and sustainably with a reusable architecture. We are going with commercial and international partners to explore faster and explore more together. We will bring new knowledge and opportunities. We will use the resources of the Moon to enable farther exploration. We will prove out the technologies that will take us to Mars and beyond. NASA is building a spacecraft to take astronauts to deep space that will usher in a new era of space exploration.”

The spacecraft NASA will used is known as Orion.It is built to take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before. Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. Orion will launch on NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System

“NASA will launch Orion on the agency’s powerful rocket, the Space Launch System, from a modernized spaceport at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On the first integrated mission, known as Exploration Mission-1, an uncrewed Orion will venture thousands of miles beyond the Moon over the course of about three weeks.”

Orion will be launched using the new Space Launch System (SLS), described as one that will be “the most powerful rocket ever built. When completed, SLS will enable astronauts to begin their journey to explore destinations far into the solar system.

“NASA’s Space Launch System is an advanced launch vehicle that provides the foundation for human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit. With its unprecedented power and capabilities, SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts and large cargo to the Moon on a single mission. Offering more payload mass, volume capability and energy to speed missions through space than any current launch vehicle, SLS is designed to be flexible and evolvable and will open new possibilities for payloads, including robotic scientific missions to places like the Moon, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter.”

Illustration: NASA

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.