Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Space Policy Edition: After the Midterms—Looking Ahead with Marcia Smith

Episode Date: November 16, 2018

The counting continues as we publish this month’s special episode, with a handful of seats in the US Senate and House still up for grabs.  But with the Democratic takeover of the House assured, and several longtime space advocates turned out, change is certainly coming.  Dealing with the nation’s huge deficit also threatens NASA’s budget.  Planetary Society Chief Advocate Casey Dreier welcomes back space policy expert Marcia Smith for an insider’s look at the aftermath and what may be ahead. More resources to explore this month’s topics are at http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2018/space-policy-edition-31.htmlLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everyone, it's Casey here. I just want to address something right out at the start of the show. Jason Callahan, the Space Policy Advisor for the Planetary Society, has moved on to greener pastures and you will no longer, unfortunately, be hearing him on the Space Policy Edition. same without him. But the show will go on. We will be featuring incredible guests going forward. We'll be really delving into space policy issues. And maybe Jason will come back as a special guest sometime in the future. Because the show's theme was written by Jason and performed by him, it's so closely tied to him that I want to let this go and retire it almost like a basketball jersey when someone important leaves the team. So here we are one more time with Jason's theme to the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio. Indeed, we welcome you to the November, the somewhat belated November edition of the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio. And I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Planetary Radio, joined by Casey Dreyer. Casey, thank you for that nice tribute to our former colleague, Jason, right up front there. I'm going to miss him very much.

Yeah, so it won't be the same without him, but we look forward to lots more interesting show. There's been a lot of changes at the Planetary Society. So we should also say that my role here has changed too. I'm now the chief advocate of the Planetary Society, a very exciting new development for me, in addition to being the senior space policy advisor to the organization as well. So I'm going to be focusing a lot more on doing shows like this, communicating with our members, doing a lot more analysis and new content going on planetary.org and other places online. And we also have a brand new director of DC operations, or I should say, chief of DC operations, Brendan Curry, who joins us from the Space Foundation. So a lot of really exciting developments here at the Planetary Society to really begin moving forward and

building our advocacy and policy efforts. So lots of exciting things to come. I suspect that you will be doing much more public-facing rabble-rousing than you were able to do. You didn't even have time in the past. Exactly. I'm looking forward to all of the trouble I can cause now, now that I have much more time to focus on the things that I really love the most, which is honestly doing the show, communicating and engaging with our members and really getting out there and advocating for the thing that I love so deeply, which is space exploration and space science. Right from the first day you arrived at the Planetary Society, Casey, it was obvious that you had that passion and still have it. I'm also

very impressed with the new guy, Brendan, and I hope that we'll hear him on the show at some point. Yeah, absolutely. He's been through it all for 20 years on the Hill. So he's bringing a lot of experience to bear at the Planetary Society. And I like to think that sometime Jason Callahan might just return, as you said, as one of our special guests. guess. Okay. I do want to say, if you are enjoying this program and if you are enjoying what Casey and all of his colleagues, past and present and future, are able to accomplish, we'll make our usual pitch to become a member of the Planetary Society. It's so simple, planetary.org slash membership. We need you now more than ever. You're going to be hearing this wonderful conversation that Casey is going to have with his guest, and it will indicate that there is a lot of stuff up in the air. And that means that the role of the Planetary Society, at least in my opinion, has never

been more important there within the Beltway in Washington, D.C. As new faces come in and frankly need to learn about the importance of space science, planetary exploration, and more. Casey? Oh, man, I couldn't have said it better myself. That's great. As you point out, we have, as we record this, 33 confirmed new members of the House of Representatives coming in the Democratic side, probably going to grow over the next few days as counting finishes in California. A lot of new people to talk about space exploration, space science, and we're losing some very strong supporters of both of those topics. So we have our work cut out for us going forward. Planetary.org slash membership. Take a look today. You'll see all kinds of great levels

with varying levels, increasing levels of rewards back to you. But of course, the greatest reward, in my humble opinion, is the support you provide for everything we do with the society, not just advocacy and public policy or space policy, but light sail and planetary radio for that matter. Casey, another way that people can get involved, something that you've got coming up in March. Come to D.C. with me and Brendan Curry, our chief of D.C. operations, and come and join 100 other Planetary Society members. Get out to meet these new members of Congress. Talk about your passion for space exploration. It is not just my opinion. They have done studies on this.

my opinion. They have done studies on this. That face-to-face interaction with a member of Congress in their office is one of the most impactful things that you can do as a space advocate. We're organizing our congressional fly-ins. It's going to be March 3rd and 4th. Go to planetary.org slash space advocate. There's a link to register right there. We have discounted rates through December. You want to sign up early, but you can sign up after that and join us there as well. So please consider joining us in DC and talk about space to this brand new Congress that'll be convening in January. And something that I've said before, because I've been in this position, you go in kind of intimidated, but it really is such fun. It is so exciting to be right there in the literal seat of power on the Hill, unless you include the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and be well received by staff members and sometimes by the Congress people themselves, many of whom are very excited about the message that you and Casey and Brendan and others will be providing.

Yep. And if you're worried about it, we do have a full day of training and practice and you're not going to go in there alone. You got, you got support. We're here for you. So I hope, I hope you come and join us. As Matt said, it's always a lot of fun. Everyone who's done it has really enjoyed the experience and it's something we're really putting more resources into making a better experience for our members this year.

Casey, we're going to stick right in the middle of things, that seat of power, as we go to the very reason why we delayed this month's show, because we wanted to get beyond the midterm election. For that, I think you've brought back for the very first time, one of our special guests is going to make a second appearance. Yep. Marsha Smith, one of the elder stateswomen of space policy or just person of space policy in Washington, D.C., in the field. She's the founder and editor of Space Policy Online. She is a very insightful, very experienced person on these issues, has great perspective. And we have her on the show this month to really delve into some of the implications and looking forward to what to watch with this new Congress that's going to be convening in January. All right, Casey, here is your conversation with Marsha Smith, which was recorded just minutes ago. Well, Marsha, thank you again for joining us in the Space Policy Edition. You are the first returning guest that we've had.

So welcome back. Well, thank you so much. I'm very honored to be your returning guest. We obviously had some big political changes here with the 2018 midterms kind of behind us. Obviously, we're still at the time that we're recording this counting some votes and some maybe very salient elections are still undecided, particularly in Florida. still undecided, particularly in Florida. But we know for sure that the Democrats have recaptured the House of Representatives after about eight years in the wilderness there. And they'll be coming in next January with a whole new slew of members of Congress and new control and initiatives and focuses than the Republicans have been running. And I want to talk a little bit today

about the implications or at least maybe things to watch for in terms of where particularly legislation and space and some of the key personalities that are going to be changing. You're quite experienced in not just in D.C., but in Congress at 31 years at the Congressional Research Service. What happens when a party retakes control of the House of Representatives? What are some of the big picture implications and changes just from that? Well, of course, all of the committee chairpersons and subcommittee chairpersons will change. So the people who had been ranking members by and large will now become the chairs. There may be some musical chairs going on between them because people may want to be on different committees than what they've been on in the past.

But you'll see the leadership changes not only of the House overall, but of all the committees and the subcommittees. So that will be true for the NASA committees as well. The Authorization Committee, which is House Science, Space and Technology, and then the Commerce Justice Science Appropriations Subcommittee. There'll be all new people coming in to lead those committees with their own priorities. Although space, by and large, is a bipartisan issue, there are some issues on which there have been some strong partisan differences, especially, say, in earth sciences. So I think that we will see different priorities coming into the new Congress in the House. And just to remind people, the chairperson of a committee, why is that an important role? Why is that something we're watching here?

Eddie Bernice Johnson, who is the top Democrat on the science committee right now and is likely to become the chair, has's not firm yet, but people are assuming she's going to be, she'll get to set those rules to determine how legislation is brought before the committee and other rules that affect the processes. So it's the process as well as the substance. And the minority party effectively has no control over the flow and ebb of the focus of these committees? That's right. That's what the minority party does. So the minority party and the majority party sometimes work together. Sometimes they're at odds with each other. Really depends on the topic and the politics involved. But it's the majority party, which in this case in the House will be the Democrats, that call the shots.

And then in the Senate, of course, they're still going to be in Republican hands. So Republicans will be calling the shots over there. With less change. Yeah. So what about staffing? Because there's also congressional committee staff who service the needs of the committee. What's the implications there now with the Democrats taking control? few more staff than the minority side. So there have been some longstanding Democratic staffers on the science committee who deal with space, but they may be able to add a couple more. And then the Republican staff ordinarily would have fewer people than it normally does. So I don't know how all the staff is going to shake out either any more than we do with the members. But you can probably anticipate that there'll be more Democratic staff and fewer Republican staff.

They'll probably get nicer offices now too, right? Oh, yes, there's that too. Okay, so we have a whole new slew of Democrats coming into leadership positions in the House of Representatives. And just real quickly, do they, for Eddie Bernice Johnson, for example, does she just get it if she wants it? Or how is the process? How do Democrats vie for chair peopleship of these committees? Well, their fellow Democrats have to agree that they're going to be the chairs of these various committees. And so there's an election process that takes place within the Democratic caucus, as well as within the Republican caucus, as to who's going to chair what committees. People

can vie for the chairmanships. It's an election like any other election. So some seats are uncontested and others are contested. I have not heard of anyone else raising their hand and saying they want to chair the science committee. And Johnson has made clear that she does want to chair the committee. So I think that she's got a pretty good chance at it. What about on appropriations? That's a little different, right? Because when you serve on appropriations, you generally don't serve on as many other committees. People on appropriations only serve on appropriations. And of course, the current chair is a Republican and he also lost his election. So on that one, Jose Serrano from New York is the top Democrat on the CJS subcommittee right now. He would probably be at the front of the line to chair that subcommittee if he wants it. of the line to chair that subcommittee if he wants it. Right now, they're focused on the full committee chair and Nita Lowey from New York, who is the current ranking member on House Appropriations, has made it clear that she wants the job and people are pretty much assuming that she'll have that job. You mentioned the chairman of the current House CJS Appropriations subcommittee

was not reelected. Maybe the biggest surprise for me that John Culberson, who I think was an eight-term member of Congress and had assumed the chairmanship, a very powerful position in the House of Representatives back in 2014, and obviously one of the strongest supporters of Europa, got washed out in this blue wave that came in. Was there any other surprises that you saw from election night for some of the elections that you were watching? Well, I actually didn't find Culberson's loss to be a surprise. They had been warning him since the beginning of the year that he needed to pay more attention to his reelection. Republicans were warning him of it because the demographics of his district had

changed so much. There was commentary in many of the political publications that I read, and you probably read as well, where the Republicans trying to light a fire under Culberson to get out there because they thought that he had become too complacent. So I really was not surprised that he lost. Yeah, and he lost by about five points. That was a significant division compared to past years. That's right. And in fact, it was interesting that his opponent brought up the fact that he was so interested in water on Europa, but he should have paid more attention to water there in Houston. And that's what she was going to focus on. Let's talk about this for a minute. Let's talk about Culberson's race, because I had thought for months that Culberson was the type of politician who in a wave election gets washed out. I always kind of felt that if this ultimately was a big wave election, which it turned out to be, politicians who were in districts that may have changed a little but hadn't faced a serious challenge in years. really being apparently caught by surprise, and they really didn't start maybe working hard enough

to be present in their district or spend enough money advertising or really just doing the basic kind of politicking necessary to get elected. They generally seem kind of caught unawares. With Culberson, from what you could see, was he aware of this or was he in denial or was he just confident in the fact that he had won so many times that he could pull it off again? Because in the last, I think, election in 2016, he'd fended off some very hard right primary challengers. Well, I actually can't speak for Mr. Culbertson. All I can say again is that there were Republicans who were being quoted, if not by name, at least, you know, on background in the press as long ago as January, warning Culbertson that he needed to

pay more attention to this. And it took him really until the summer, I think, before he seemed to very seriously focus on the race. And I think by then he must have lost enough ground that he didn't have time to build it back. What does that tell you about the fact that someone so known for supporting Europa, or space science, basically, was attacked for that. What does that say about future members of Congress who might consider supporting Europa missions or space science with a search for life? Are they taking a lesson from this? Well, all politics is local, as a famous politician once said. I believe it was Tip O'Neill. And so any member of Congress and any senator needs to focus their attention mostly on the

issues that pertain to their constituents. Planetary exploration is not all that important in Culbertson's district. And he has said that all along. And he was sort of proud of the fact, has been proud of the fact that he had an interest in an issue that was not driven purely by constituent interests, that this was a very personal passion of his. And he wanted to move the nation forward in trying to find if there is, in fact, life, microbial life under Europa's icy crust. But, you know, it has plagued other politicians, you know, throughout time that if they get focused on issues other than of direct constituent interests, that they do put their job at jeopardy. Do you think that is ultimately an anti-science attack

that happened to Culberson? Or do you think this is firmly grounded in just parochialism? I think it's just politics. You know, people look for weaknesses and they look for things where their opponent has not paid enough attention to the local issues and they take advantage of it. It's true for any political race, I think.

So do you see anyone else kind of stepping into Culberson's shoes, at least as a champion of planetary exploration? Well, there certainly are a number of members of Congress and those who represent JPL, for example, and I would say Goddard and APL, who are very favorable towards it. The big problem is not whether or not you're favorable towards planetary exploration or NASA or any of those issues. It's how they rank in your priorities. So are you more favorable towards that than other things? So NASA is in an appropriations bill that includes the Department of Commerce, which has a 2020 census to conduct.

The Department of Justice, which has programs like community policing, which are very important, especially in urban districts like the one represented by Mr. Serrano. So it really boils down to priorities, not so much whether or not a member likes NASA or likes space science or earth science. Right, because at the allocation level that the committees get an allocation of overall kind of like a chunk of money they can spend over their jurisdiction, that's where it seems to really become zero sum. That's where the rubber meets the rock. That's where the decisions really start. Really. And that's always been the problem. It's true for all of the 12 subcommittees. They each get so much money, and their job is to divide it up amongst the agencies within their jurisdiction. That's how the appropriations process works. And there are many programs that individual members wish there was more money for, but somebody's got to make

the hard decisions as to how much taxpayer money there is to spend and how to spend it. And that's what appropriations committees do. Very tough job. Yeah. And that was always, I think, the unique aspect of Culberson, particularly, again, for planetary science, is that he prioritized it. He made it a priority. He always found hundreds of millions, like non-insignificant amounts of money, right? Hundreds of millions of dollars for Europa, for planetary, for NASA. And that'll be the really interesting question going forward. So he's still in office through the lame duck session here through the end of the year. And I just double checked before our interview and technically the calendar for the House of Representatives says that there are 12 legislative days left in the Congress. They can obviously extend that, but they're only

planning for 12. And on December 7th, they run out of funding for NASA and about a good other chunk of federal agencies that they haven't passed 2019 funding bills for. So how do the politics change now where the Congress reconvenes next year? A lot of them won't be coming back, but the Republicans are still in control for the last few weeks here. How does that drive politics for appropriations at this point, do you think? Well, it's really, really hard to know, because right now there are five bills that have cleared everything, and they're enacted into law, and it includes defense, which is an issue that so many members really care about. And then there are these other seven appropriations bills, four of which are in conference, and three of which, including CJS, have not even been to the floor of either the House or the Senate.

So whether they take those three and lump them together into what's called a minibus or combine them with the four that are in conference and take all seven bills together so they have more room to play back and forth as to where all the money is going to go is one of the big questions. Because one of those bills is the Homeland Security bill, which would have the money for President Trump's border wall. So a lot of what happens with appropriations, I think, is going to depend on what kind of agreement can be reached between the parties and between Congress and the White House on that border wall funding. And I think that that will determine whether they can get something done this year, or if they end up bumping the whole thing into next year.

When the Democrats have more leverage next year, but also is that really the first thing they want to deal with is funding the government? Beyond John Culberson, who lost his reelection bid, were there any other notable changes that happened from the midterm elections or maybe possibly about to happen? Well, in the House, of course, Dana Rohrabacher lost his seat in California. And although he has not really been in a position of power on space issues, he is very interested in space and member of the science

committee and often comes to hearings and asks very, let's call them provocative questions and always made the hearings very entertaining. So I think that some people will miss his voice, but he has been a very controversial member of Congress. So others may not miss him as much. He was also a very much skeptical of the SLS, which is very, I feel also quite rare in the, particularly in the House, but also just in Congress in general. It's rare for people to vocally express their skepticism for it. Of course, Mr. Rohrabacher was one of the strongest advocates for commercial space long before it was popular. He's been in Congress for 30 years, and I think he's been championing commercial space for all that time. So I think that he

saw SLS as a government program that didn't really need to exist because the commercial providers could do that job. His very strong advocacy for commercial space, I think, is something that the commercial space advocates may miss. Yeah, because I guess ultimately he wasn't all that effective with SLS. It is doing pretty well overall funding-wise. Well, of course, SLS is really a funding issue in the appropriations bills, and he's on an authorizing committee. So it really is an appropriations matter. And as long as Senator Shelby is in a powerful position on Senate appropriations, one can imagine that SLS will do okay. Yes. I'm not too worried about SLS going forward in the next Congress.

Beyond that, I think maybe the other notable one is the race that has not yet been called, but it's in a pretty, I'd say, dramatic counting slash recounting situation, and that's Bill Nelson in Florida. You know, maybe you can just give a quick reminder to our listeners why Bill Nelson, Florida Democratic Senator, is such a unique figure related to space policy in the Senate. Mr. Nelson was in the House before he was in the Senate. And while he was in the House, he arranged to get a chance to fly on the space shuttle. So he is an astronaut, not a NASA astronaut. Back in those days, they were called spaceflight participants.

He actually flew on the shuttle mission just before the Challenger disaster. So he got to be very knowledgeable about human spaceflight, friends with many of the astronauts, and he has been perhaps the strongest advocate for human spaceflight in the Senate in recent years. Others also have been very strong advocates, but he certainly stands out because he has these credentials for having flown in space himself. And so many senators rely on him. And he's learned over the years how to work pretty well across the aisle. There are some issues on which he disagreed. For example, Jim Bridenstine's nomination to be NASA administrator. He was not in favor of that and made no bones about that. But on a lot of the big issues, especially

things like the future of the International Space Station and human spaceflight in general, he is really one of the leaders in the Senate. So if he is not there in the 116th Congress, it's not quite clear who's going to pick up that baton. Certainly, if Rick Scott wins the Florida race, one would expect him to be favorable towards space programs because of Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. But again, it's a matter of whether or not that will be a priority for him the way it has been for Nelson. a matter of whether or not that will be a priority for him the way it has been for Nelson. Yeah, I've felt with Rick Scott and Nelson that Scott would treat space more as a parochial issue, where Nelson, it was a passion and a parochial issue. He had an extra commitment to it. Right. Can we just take a quick diversion for a second and just acknowledge the fact that NASA used to

be okay with sending members of Congress into space on the space shuttle. And do you know or can you shed any background as to when that started to happen and why, though I can probably guess as to why? Well, Senator Jake Garn was the first member, and he was the chair of the Appropriations Committee that funded NASA at the time. And he was a former fighter pilot, I think. And so he got to fly, and he was a former fighter pilot, I think. And so he got to fly and he was a Republican. And so Bill Nelson was in the house and was a Democrat and sort of a quid pro quo. If you're going to fly a Republican Senator, then you should fly a Democratic Congressman. So that's how those flights worked out. But this was in the early days of the shuttle program when NASA was talking about how safe it was and anybody could fly.

And so they were flying, for example, teachers in space. That's how Krista McAuliffe ended up on Challenger. The shuttle program at that time was considered to be very safe, safe enough for average people to fly on, not just members of Congress, but school teachers. And of course, that changed right after Challenger. And they sort of came back to it because John Glenn, who was once upon a time a NASA astronaut, but left the astronaut corps and went into the Senate. He then flew a second time when he was in the Senate. So maybe we'll get back there with Blue Origin and their suborbital flights hosting members of Congress going forward. I just always find that's kind of an amazing little pocket of history that sitting members of Congress fly in the shuttle. It's kind of a smart move. Legislation moving through the House or has moved through the House for the next NASA authorization bill, the Senate has yet to introduce theirs. And Bill Nelson had been working with Ted Cruz on a Senate version of this. So how would a potential Nelson loss going forward impact this legislation going

forward? Or what would you be looking for? Well, it's not impossible that they're going to reach some sort of agreement before the year is out. There are some people in this whole mix and the stakeholder mix, both on the Hill and off the Hill, who are anxious to see something get passed that addresses at least some of these issues, like commercial remote sensing reform. So even if there can't be agreement on the whole potpourri of issues that are still in play, maybe they can reach agreement on certain things. So some of the elements of the NASA authorization bill in the House and some of their commercial space bills, and maybe some things from the Senate Space Frontier Act, you know, it's conceivable that while Nelson is still there, and of course he may return in the 116th Congress,

but whether or not that happens, it is conceivable that they will pick those issues on which there's some sort of consensus and go ahead and pass a bill by the end of the year. It's amazing what Congress does at the very end of a Congress, because legislation that has not passed dies. So there's a lot of motivation to get things through. And at the very last minute, they can be passing these bills in the Senate by unanimous consent. In the House, they can put them on the suspension calendar, and they can really move things along if the stakeholders want it to move. So I would not rule out getting something done this year. Yeah. And particularly if this is their last time in Congress, like a

Culberson or potentially a Nielsen, that there may be a strong impetus to do what they can while they're still here, I would imagine. Exactly. So there is a disagreement between the Republicans in the House and the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate about some of the commercial space regulation issues. And in fact, the Senate Space Frontier Act is more aligned with what Congresswoman Johnson wanted than what Chairman Smith of the House Science Committee wanted with regard to which agency is going to have responsibility for regulating these new non-traditional space activities. So in that particular case, it might be better if that issue gets pushed off until next Congress, when Johnson presumably will be chairing the science committee. But there are other issues, as I said, like commercial remote sensing reform, regulatory reform, where everyone seems to agree that something needs to be done.

And they might be able to move forward with that more expeditiously. So when they come back from their Thanksgiving break, it sounds like they'll have their work cut out for them in the next final weeks of this Congress to move what they can move through. They surely do. But, you know, it's going to be a very highly political time. But, you know, it's going to be a very highly political time. And I think that the border wall funding issue is going to be a challenge for the appropriators to get through. And I think we're just going to have to see how willing the parties are to work together to accomplish something in these waning days of the 115th Congress. Particularly for NASA issues, as much as people say they love NASA, it's not going to be driving the politics compared to things like the really potent stuff like the border wall, right? Like the border wall, right.

Yeah, so there could feasibly be a shutdown or partial shutdown of the government, including NASA. And even though that has significant disruption to NASA projects, that won't be enough to persuade people to say vote for a border wall or not. Correct. And I think, you know, next year's appropriations, the fiscal 20 appropriations, we're right back into this Budget Control Act situation that was passed in 2011. What everybody I'm sure has heard about is sequestration, where there are budget caps set by law. And if you exceed the budget caps, then there are automatic across the board cuts. Congress has waived these caps two years at a time. So they waived them for fiscal 18 and 19 together, but they go back into effect for fiscal 20. One of the reasons that Congress has been able to be so generous to NASA these last several years is because those budget caps were waived. So there was more money to spend. So for fiscal 20,

when the Democrats are in control of the House and the Republicans are still controlling the Senate, it's going to be back to, can you make a budget deal in order to have enough money available to do these things, including comparatively generously funding NASA. And for the science programs at NASA, NASA's got to come up with $490 million in fiscal 20 and 21 to pay for the overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope. The NASA folks at the Science Mission Directorate talk about that in terms of the impact on science programs, not just on astrophysics programs. It's going to affect the whole Science Mission Directorate. So if you don't have culprits

in there to fight for Europa, if you end up in a budget squeeze because they can't reach a deal on the budget caps, and you have the Science Mission Directorate having to pay for these overruns on James Webb, it could be a pretty uncomfortable year. Yeah, because I'd say March 2020 is going to still be at high spending, but in phase D, and not really a cancelable mission at that point either in Europa's only in beginning development or coming out of formulation going into implementation this next year. That's a delicate spot to be in. And that reminded me, I mean, it feels like there's going to be a bigger issue with spending when you have a divided government. I feel like

it's more likely that foundational ideological differences between the two parties will be accentuated when there's divided government, where you've seen a surprising lack of discussion of, I'd say, debt and deficit over the last two years during Republican control. Now, with the Democrats in the House, it almost allows the Republican ideology of limited spending and cutting the deficit to reemerge as an issue because they have a foil for a party that generally likes to spend more on domestic issues than not. So I imagine that will retreat back to these camps of divided, significant political division over spending. I agree with you. During the Obama administration,

when there was a Democrat in the White House, if not in control of the House and Senate, deficit reduction was the issue. And you had these government shutdowns and all of these arguments by Republicans blaming the Democrats for taxing and spending and all of that, and they wanted to cut the deficit. And then in these past two years, when the Republicans have controlled all three levers of power, suddenly the deficit issue went away. But as you just said, you go back to divided government, the Democrats again become the foil for the Republicans to talk about deficit reduction. The deficit is sky high now. So I don't know how that issue is going to play in the 2020 elections. But the one thing we can be sure of is that everyone is focused on the 2020 presidential election now.

What issues Congress chooses to focus on or to ignore will, I think, all be pretty well focused on how they want their parties to be positioned for the presidential election. Let's touch on one more major issue, and that's Space Force. Let's touch on one more major issue, and that's Space Force. The idea of Space Force has already been quite, I'd say, polarized compared to a lot of other, well, space issues in general. President Trump has directed the Pentagon to submit a budget request in 2020 to stand up a new branch of the Armed Services, Space Force. You have a number of supporters in the House. But notably, as we've already discussed, the House is flipping to the Democratic control. And the person who politician who seems to be in line to take over national security issues is Adam Smith, who has expressed quite a bit of resistance or hesitation about Space Force.

So do you feel a Space Force is going to be effectively dead going forward in the next two years, or at least in the next Congress? I think the Space Force had an uphill battle in Congress overall. I haven't really seen it so much as a partisan issue as a congressional versus a White House issue, because this obviously is something that's being driven by President Trump. And he didn't even have the Pentagon on his side when all this began. He directed the Pentagon to embrace this. And so they have done that because that's their job. But I think that in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats have a lot of questions about the cost of this and whether you really need to go as far as to set up a new military department.

Because the congressional proposal from the House was not a new military department. It was to set up a space corps within the Air Force. So I think those questions on Capitol Hill are still being thrown around and discussed. So I'm not sure that a space force would have gotten through even if Republicans had retained control of the House. It reminds me a lot of there's a book called Beyond Ideology, which argues from a political science standpoint that when a president enters the fray or when a president makes a big statement about their desires or opinions or their policy goals, that has the effect of basically inducing polarization because the president is the head of the political party that they represent. By doing so, by entering themselves into that discussion, they actually sometimes make it harder for consensus to be achieved. And I feel like with Space Force,

the president has come so strongly attached to it or has embraced it so strongly that any sort of Space Force legislation going forward could be seen by a democratic house as an opportunity to undermine a presidential idea or goal to their benefit. And so I almost wonder if regardless of the efficacy or the debate, because of this desire for foils and partisanship just between the House and Senate, that pretty much anything that Trump is going to want is going to be effectively dead and arrival, at least in the House, beyond the most basic functions of government. That's quite possible. I don't disagree with you on that. I'm just saying that until now,

I think that the Trump administration had not won over many of the Republican members either. So this may be an issue on which it does become much more polarized once the Democrats are in control of the House and Adam Smith is running Hask. But I think it was an uphill battle anyway. Looking ahead, beyond, I'd say we've identified Europa, we've kind of talked about the budgetary pressures, particularly in context with the growth of the James Webb Space Telescope and Space Force. Was there any other potential things you're going to be really looking for in the next Congress that previously weren't really an issue or something new can happen that couldn't have happened before? Well, I think the other really outstanding issue has to do with which government agency is going to regulate these non-traditional space

activities and have the so-called mission authorization assignment. The Trump administration wants it to be the Department of Commerce, and they want the Department of Commerce to be in charge of civil space situational awareness and space traffic management. Under the Obama administration, that was probably going to go to the Federal Aviation Administration. And Eddie Bernice Johnson had made it clear that, you know, that was really where she was thinking these belonged. So if they don't find a way to resolve that before the end of the year, I think that that is going to continue to be a sticking point next year. And I do think that some of these companies that are interested in doing these kinds of activities just really want an answer. They want to know whose door to go knocking on

in order to get the regulatory approvals that they need. So I do see that as an issue that could change with democratic control of the house. I really don't know how that's going to turn out. And maybe we'll be working with China in the future on space issues. is going to turn out. And maybe we'll be working with China in the future on space issues. Well, China, of course, there are people beyond John Culbertson who are unhappy with China in terms of its human rights stance. So I don't know, even with Mr. Culbertson leaving, that there will not be other members of Congress, perhaps even on both sides of the aisle, that want to limit space cooperation with China because of some of the actions it's engaged in. So you've been watching Congress for a long time now, and you've seen this switch happen multiple times. Is this generally well handled? Do you think NASA is overall going to be in pretty

decent shape given overall bipartisan support for it? Or do you think something is unique or different about this time going forward? I don't really see anything unique about this time going forward. NASA's future is always budget-based, and how well it does depends on how much money there is to spend. So we're right back into the same issue of the budget deficit and how important people are going to see that as being in the 2020 elections. And so, you know, if Republicans want to go back to their stance that they're going to have the government shut down if funding bills have too much money in them, which is what they were trying to do during the Obama administration, then I think that, you know, it's going to be very challenging for NASA. If, on the other hand, they find some way to reach agreement the way they did with Republicans in

control of House, Senate, and the White House, which they did earlier this year, and they bust through the caps and there's plenty of money for everybody, then I think NASA will define. It's really a money issue more than anything. That's a great note to end it on. Marsha Smith, thank you again for joining us. Marsha is the editor and founder of Space Policy Online, a website that I recommend you read every day for some of the most insightful analysis of space policy issues out there. Marcia, thank you. Thank you very much. My colleague, Casey Dreyer at the Planetary Society, our chief advocate with Marcia Smith,

and terrific information-packed conversation, Casey, even though she made the point several times that she doesn't want to be in the business of prediction. There's a lot up in the air, isn't there? Oh, man. Yeah, we should be careful that exactly the P word we should be careful to use because a lot of factors are going into this. A lot's going to depend on really just unknowable stuff. But the point is, I think, fundamentally coming out of this is that we have an opportunity

to introduce space science and exploration to a lot of new people coming into Congress. We have an opportunity to continue to build on some of the bipartisan nature and areas that NASA is pursuing. And really the work that's going to be cut out for us is in the sense of maintaining NASA's budget so it can pursue some of these exciting missions of exploration and discovery. And it really, as Marcia said, it's all about the budget. And without that, NASA can't do much of anything. So we will have a lot to watch going forward. Speaking of missions of discovery, John Coberson, who you spent quite a bit of time talking with Marcia about, he, of course,

was this tremendous advocate for exploring ocean worlds, the Europa Clipper, which is definitely moving ahead. But where does this leave the Europa Lander mission, which Culberson was also a major advocate for? The Europa Lander mission is in a tough position. It does not have the official embrace of the planetary science community through the decadal survey process, even though it has been mentioned in the past decadal surveys. The current one that we're in does not talk about a lander, whereas the Europa Clipper is basically tied for the most important mission in terms of flagship missions in the current decadal survey. the current decadal survey. So absent this broad consensus, absent the support, and also kind of notable calling out that we should not pursue this mission priority by the National Academies and the Midterm Decadal Review and other official publications, pretty much the only source of

funding for this mission had been Culberson writing it into the appropriations language. Without him there, I do not see anyone in Congress or about to enter Congress who's going to be willing to stand up in the same way that Culberson was. That's very tough for the mission team. And it's tough for advocates of Europa like us to try to balance that out because Culberson was great. He never took money away from other NASA science projects to fund Europa. He always found new money. And that was, again, one of the incredible assets that he brought to this role as chairman of the committee. He never cannibalized other parts of NASA. It was a very, very smart move. Europa lander, again, tough to see how it goes forward. You see in the NASA budget for 2019, the president's request that said, we do not want a lander, we're a pretty morose bunch at the moment because they

really felt they were making tremendous progress on what is admittedly maybe the greatest lander challenge of all time. I think that's probably a fair statement to make. I just wonder now, if this is defunded, when are we going to see a lander at Europa? Well, anything can change in politics, right? However, I would say the biggest chance would be going through the next decadal survey process, which will be kicking up starting maybe late next year, going into 2020, where the scientific community will get together and hash out what they think the most important questions are, what the most important missions in planetary science are that NASA should pursue. Of course, that won't wrap up until 2021. You know, it won't

really be into the next decadal period until 2023, 2024. That's just when things begin to get going, right? That's when you have the official support of the community. And so it could be a very long time. Could be looking at 20, 30 years here. If you take into account launch time, building it, travel time out to Jupiter, data coming back. It's, it's, we need patience, I guess, on this one. It's not a good situation. You know, already a lander is pushing a career-length commitment from individual scientists. And so if you're a young scientist now, perhaps, again, things could change. The Europa Clipper maybe could discover something very important. Though at this rate, with Culberson gone now, the Europa Clipper very likely won't launch until mid-2020s. That had been the White House request for that timeline. And it very likely will launch on a commercial rocket, probably the Delta IV Heavy, meaning that it won't arrive at Europa until 2030 or so, 2031.

And that's just when we start getting data back. So already we're seeing a delay in Europa Clipper and very likely a multi-decadal delay in a lander. Wow. It's amazing how much one person can impact the future of space exploration. We've seen this in the past. The Senate Majority Leader back in 1981 helped save the planetary program and the Galileo mission because they happen to know someone on the Caltech Board of Directors who obviously runs JPL. Sometimes it's who you know. And if that person has the right combination of commitment, priority, experience, and also ability to influence things, that can be a really impactful person.

But when that person exits the stage, they have an equally powerful impact by the lack of their presence. And I think that's what's going to happen with Europa going forward, unless we convince people otherwise. And that's, again, probably why you should come to Congress with us next year and why you need to join as a member of the Planetary Society. I mean, I'm serious about this. This is why you have to build coalitions. So you don't have a single point of failure. And expanding the coalition of people who really believe in space science and really believe in the search for life, which is, you know, one of our core enterprises here at the Planetary Society. That is how we don't have to wait for decades, right? That's how you start to

push this forward. You never know when a person like Culberson will come back you never know who will step up you never know who will define themselves or find an interest or discover something soul-stirring by the idea of discovering life in our lifetimes and that's something that doesn't just happen that takes work and and this is why we're working to do this and that's why we're not going to just sit on our backsides and hope something fixes itself, right? This is why we need to get up and do stuff. So it's a step back. It's a setback for Europa right now. Thankfully, Europa Clipper has the endorsement of the White House and NASA, and it's pretty mature as it goes. It's going to enter.

The big test is when it enters into phase C implementation. That's when it becomes much harder, I would say, to cancel than where it is now, which is in formulation. I don't see any indication that it won't get to implementation. However, the lander is completely different. And then so as a bunch of other open questions, Mars sample return, we haven't begun pursuing yet. questions Mars sample return, we haven't begun pursuing yet. And again, as Marsha talked about, these budgetary pressures could be very, very difficult, particularly since we know that with President Trump and the White House now, their priorities are not space science. You know, they're not necessarily hostile to space science. They've done pretty well with the request for

planetary science, but their priorities are clearly sending humans to the moon, whether it's near or on the moon, doesn't really matter. And that's going to be what they try to protect if the budget goes down. And that's going to, you know, that kind of carves out pretty limited option space for what other parts of NASA have to endure budget cuts. And that's where we're going to find ourselves probably fighting over the next few years. Casey, sounds like you, me, probably fighting over the next few years. Casey, sounds like you, me, all of us have a lot of work to get done in the coming months. Once again, planetary.org slash membership if you want to be a part of all this. And what was that URL again for the March fly-in? Just go to planetary.org slash space advocate, and there's a link halfway down the page to sign up for that. All right,

Casey, I'm going to use my prerogative as the Planetary Radio host to thank John Culberson for his leadership in this area. As you know, he's a past guest on the weekly version of Planetary Radio. Unless you have more to add, we can close it there. I think we've really hit on the big points. And we will have a lot more to talk about in the next episode of Planetary Radio Space Policy Edition. Once we find out who actually will be chairing these committees, we'll have a clearer sense on where the budget is going. And we'll probably have a clearer sense about what some of the big issues are going to be in the next Congress. Not to mention if there's legislation moving for NASA authorization, it's going to be a busy six weeks for everybody here. And we will be make sure to let you know what happens. You can be the best informed space advocate you can be, by God.

Thank you, Casey. And be sure to watch for Casey's blog posts at planetary.org. And Casey, I suspect there will be reason to bring you back on the weekly show sometime before we come back. I think the first Friday in December is December 7, a date that will hopefully not live in infamy. And I look forward to talking to you then. As always, Matt, I'm here for you. Thank you. Casey Dreyer, the chief advocate for the Planetary Society. And I'm Matt Kaplan. I hope you will join us next week for the regular version of Planetary Radio that comes to you basically every Wednesday

morning. And as I said, we'll see you with another Space Policy Edition on December 7. Here, one last time, is that great SPE theme from Jason Callahan. Thanks, everyone.