Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Space Policy Edition: Why lunar exploration must be of enduring national interest

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Scott Pace, the prior executive secretary of the National Space Council, discusses why Artemis is of strategic value to U.S. national interests — and why the Moon is unique as a destination to drive global space exploration. Casey also discusses the latest congressional budgets news and what it means for NASA’s Mars Sample Return program. Note: the Space Policy Edition will go on hiatus for two months and return in November 2023. Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/lunar-exploration-enduring-national-interestSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to this month's Space Policy Edition. I am Casey Dreyer, the Chief of Space Policy here at the Planetary Society. We have a great guest coming up this month. We have Dr. Scott Pace, who is the Executive Secretary of the National Space Council under the Trump administration and the current Director

of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, a very, very deep thinker on space policy and influential member in the recent history of particularly NASA's focus on the moon. And he's here to really talk to us about that, Artemis and the development of that, how it's really aligned with his original visions and arguments for the national interest perspective of why the moon is the place to go for human spaceflight rather than places like Mars.

He'll be up here in just a few minutes, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, I have two topics I want to talk about before we get to Dr. Pace. The first is, of course, NASA's budget, one of my perennial and annual interests as we go through this normal cycle here in the United States, and of course, something very near and dear to my heart, which is membership to the Planetary Society. Let me start with the second one first. If you're listening to this, you probably already know about the Planetary Society.

If you're a member, I just want to say first, thank you and to just forgive the next 30 seconds, but thank you for supporting us. If you're not a member, please consider joining us. Starts at four bucks a month. It's very affordable. please consider joining us starts at four bucks a month it's very affordable and what it allows us to do is to continue to be that independent voice for space science and for space exploration with the public with members of congress with the media basically this is a rare institution that we have here that we can be this independent representation for you, for those of us who love

exploration, for those of us who love space science and the search for life. And of course, little things like defending the Earth from killer asteroids and planetary defense. So planetary.org slash join is the place to go. Again, starts at four bucks a month. If you want to upgrade your membership or commit at a higher level, we have options for you too. But at the end of the day, and I can say this now as a member myself and a staff member now there for almost 11 years, is that we truly depend on individuals like you to support us. We don't take government money and we don't have major contributions of corporations. We are primarily funded by individuals. So please consider joining the Planetary Society and hope to see you as part of a fellow member someday on our online member community.

And of course, at really exciting member events like the Day of Action, where you get to meet members of Congress and other members of the society in Washington, D.C. Coming up this year, September 17th and 18th in Washington, D.C. That's at planetary.org slash day of action. Okay, let's talk about the budget. So we have action now by the time I'm recording this from both the Senate and the House in terms of NASA's budget for fiscal year 2024. Now the overall, I'd say the news is not great, but frankly, better than we anticipated a few months ago, and maybe even the last episode ago that you heard me and Jack talking about this. The request from the Biden administration was for $27.2 billion for NASA. Neither the House

nor the Senate provided that. The House gave NASA exactly what it got last year. And as a top line, that's 25.3 and change. The Senate gave a little less, about 300 million less, about 25 billion exactly. Now, you add inflation into this and you're looking at a significant buying power loss for NASA of about 7 to 10 percent. And exact numbers kind of vary. And we'll see that in a few years. So that already just adds extraordinary stress onto NASA's budget.

But within this flat budget, by not giving these increases at the top line, it actually creates a lot of challenges to various programs within NASA because these cuts are not basically applied equally. We have now seen, I think, the successful stress test, again, of the Artemis program, where of all the programs within NASA, Artemis was given an increase by both the House and the Senate. The House gave the full request from the president for an increase to Artemis, a couple hundred million dollars versus 2023. And the Senate gave something very close to within 200 million of that. And what we're seeing here is a pretty extraordinary level of commitment to this return to the moon for major programs,

of course, like the SLS and Orion systems, which get, again, exactly their requested amount by both House and Senate. But also, I think more importantly, increases continuing to Gateway, human landing system, all the kind of related issues and programs to get humans to return to the moon, this Artemis campaign development, now getting roughly $3-ish billion annually. That's a big improvement from the previous year. And again, both House and Senate provide that increase. To pay for that, there are cuts to other aspects of NASA programs. So you've increased Artemis within this flat budget cap. That means that other programs have to go down.

We've seen minor decreases in low Earth orbit and space operations, space technology. But the biggest chunk comes out of NASA science. but the biggest chunk comes out of NASA science. Both the Senate and House versions of NASA's bill cut about half a billion dollars relative to 2023 to the science program. At the time that I'm recording this, and I'll make a note about this later, that at the time I'm recording this in mid-July, we have not seen the House's numbers of exactly where these cuts come from in science. But we have seen the Senate's numbers. And the Senate, as you may have already heard, very much goes after Mars sample return, the big chunky mission that NASA's planetary program is attempting to do to return these samples being collected by the Perseverance

rover right now and bring them back to Earth. This program is undergoing some trouble. It's being subject to an unprecedented second independent review situation right now. And there was a leaked cost estimate showing the cost of the program upwards of $8 to $9 billion from an original estimate of $5.3 billion. That's a pretty large increase. Again, early estimates, nothing committed officially. But after what we went through with the James Webb Space Telescope and the budget troubles there, the Senate in particular used this opportunity where planetary science actually has always been a weaker level of support

than in the House, to basically threaten cancellation to this program. In the Senate's budget, they proposed cutting half a billion dollars to Mars sample return. And with this basically declaration to NASA, you shall keep this mission to the original 5.3 billion estimate or else consider yourself canceled, in so many words. If that happens, the remaining bits and pieces of Mars sample return funding get carved up and provided

primarily to Artemis. It doesn't even go to other science missions. And at the end of the day, this would be a huge obvious detriment to the decadal survey process, which recommended Mars sample return as the most important mission this decade. Obviously to the Mars community, to those poor little samples that Perseverance has collected that are sitting literally on the surface of Mars right now waiting for a ride home, and throws off the culmination of 30 years of progressive exploration by robotic Mars missions, starting in the 1990s, being refashioned with follow the water in the early 2000s, going through with Curiosity in the 2010s, and now culminating with the sample return campaign begun by Perseverance on the surface of Mars now.

This would throw a huge wrench into the plans of our international partners here in the US, which would be the European Space Agency, which has committed upwards of a billion euros on a sample return orbiter, a major, major contribution for them. The Senate does not discuss the implications of leaving our

European partners in the lurch. And it doesn't also say what to do with the whole Mars program at this point. Those samples would remain there. So this is a bad situation to be in. And the ideal situation I think here is that the IRB, this independent review board, their report will come out around September. We will see, hopefully, a clearer path forward, and they will maybe identify cost savings and efficiencies. And at the end of the day, one of the problems is that it's not clear what the problem has been within this project to drive up costs so fast. And this is a dangerous position for the project to be in. good news again we don't know what the house language says at the time that i'm recording this historically the house has always been far more supportive of planetary science than the senate i hope that that continues and so

there's a good possibility i think that the house will support to some degree maybe not all of it but to some degree more sample return much better than than the Senate. And at the end of the day, the Senate and House versions of NASA's bill have to be reconciled. They have to be made the same. And that will be a test between are the supporters of Mars sample return, if there are to the extent that they exist, this is a hypothetical, now I'm gaming out. Are the supporters more motivated than those wishing to cancel the program? Historically, the supporters of programs tend to be so. Historically. Obviously, it doesn't guarantee anything, but they tend to have the motivation to save it. I think a lot, again, will depend on the results of this IRB and their report

and their recommendations, whether that makes everyone feel more confident. Clearly, Congress is okay with paying cost overruns. They've done it many times before. They've done it with James Webb. They obviously do it all the time with the SLS, with Orion, with a mobile launcher that they're building for the upgraded SLS. It's not necessarily, I think, the problem of cost growth. My interpretation is that it's the feeling of chaos around the mission design, that it's changing so fast, the costs are growing so fast that Congress senses, or at least the

Senate may sense, that NASA does not actually have a handle on this project. And no one wants to throw money into a chaos situation. It'd be one thing if there was a clear plan. And I think that's what the IRB is going to give us. I think. I have not seen the report at the time of recording this. So that's my hope. Maybe we'll put it as that.

The Planetary Society, of course, supports Mars sample return as we support the scientific community. Their decadal survey process that they went through was very clear about the priority of Mars sample return. It was listed as the top priority for this coming decade. And they called it a fundamental strategic importance to NASA and to the U.S. planetary program. And that's pretty strong language. And so this is something that I really want to see succeed,

just personally and professionally, of course. And I think that can succeed if it's approached correctly. And maybe the best case scenario here is that the Senate helps motivate people within the project to be able to seek out and actually implement cost-saving efficiencies, to apply new management techniques, and to really whip everyone back into shape here. What we saw with the James Webb Space Telescope when it survived its near cancellation in 2011, it actually ended up being stronger on the other side for it. And there's a good chance Mars sample return, if it survives this crisis,

could come out stronger on the other side. So we will see. I will say check planetary.org for updates on what the House has come in with. That will be coming out. There's a lot, for those of you following, a lot of politics happening in the U.S. Congress right now with a divided Congress between a House underneath the Republican Party,

controlled by the Republican Party, Senate controlled by the Democratic Party. Not the easiest time in Congress to pass legislation. There's a good chance that no budget agreement will be reached between the House and Senate, and NASA and many other federal agencies will be subject to what's called a continuing resolution next year. That's basically where Congress throws up its hands, says we can't agree, and we'll just extend last year's funding out into next year. If that happens, and it's happened before, it happened in 2012, if that happens again, all those agencies will get their 23 funding amount, which for NASA will be about $25.3 billion, minus 1%.

And that was supposed to be the stick, in a sense. That was built in in the Fiscal Responsibility Act that was passed earlier this year, the debt limit deal here in the U.S. That was supposed to be the stick to prevent this from happening, to motivate, because this also applies to defense. It applied to every single agency. It would let no one grow. So that may not be enough of a stick to make this happen,

but in Mars Sample Returns' limited perspective, a continuing resolution may actually be the best case scenario for the project. Under a CR, a government case scenario for the project. Under a CR, a government agency cannot cancel a project. It will continue at the level it's funded through in 2023, which in MSR's case would be about $822 million, a good healthy amount. And in that case, NASA has some internal discretion

about how to move money around. And theoretically, they could even, depending on their own internal priority for it, could throw a little more money to the project in 2024 if they're in a CR. A lot of ifs here, right? So the big takeaway, though, is that Mars sample return is in trouble. Of all things you want to have, you just do not want the Senate yelling at you like they had in this recent budget. You can read more about my analysis on planetary.org. I look for the article section. I have it written up there.

And it's also something that will be evolving and probably won't even finalize until later in the year. And again, this is a great opportunity for those of you who are able and interested to come with us to Washington, D.C. in September. It will be a very good time to talk to members of Congress about NASA's budget. September 17th and 18th are Day of Action. That's planetary.org slash dayofaction. You can register as late as first week of September for that. Let's talk with Dr. Pace. As I said, Dr. Pace was the executive secretary of the National Space Council. He was a deputy assistant to the president. He's the director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

Very well known, very influential, very highly published and cited author and scholar on space policy and international affairs. We are here to talk about a different domain of space, the moon, and Artemis's continuing development and how that has so far aligned with or maybe even deviated from his original arguments for the national security interests of pursuing big projects in space like this, and the motivations and outcomes of such commitments. So here is my interview with Dr. Scott Pace. Dr. Pace, thanks for joining me today on the Space Policy Edition. Good to see you, Casey.

Yes, in person. Glad to be here. Yes, in person. This is new. Yes, it's my pleasure to be here at George Washington University at the Elliott School. Last time we talked was about three years ago, and you had just released a paper from the White House at the time where you were working on the new era for deep space exploration and development. We talked a lot about national interest and pursuing shared values in space.

And it's been a few years, and now we've really advanced in Artemis. We've advanced in both the signatories and the Artemis Accords. Obviously, Artemis I has happened, and this big coalition has been returning to the moon. And I wanted to revisit this idea of using the moon, or leveraging it essentially, to help drive a broad global space policy, at least in terms of U.S. national interests, an issue you had talked about over a decade ago. And so just to start with, what do you believe at this point in 2023 that NASA via Artemis has provided to the U.S. in terms of its national interests that was lacking prior to having the moon as the central

focus of human spaceflight exploration? I think the central change from, say, prior efforts for returning to the moon and going on to Mars, say, the Space Exploration Initiative or the Vision for Space Exploration. What's new in Space Policy Directive 1, which then led to the Artemis program, is the inclusion of commercial and international partnerships. So going back to the moon and on to Mars, while space people, I think, focus on that as a technical challenge, as an inspirational challenge, they often fail to ask what national purpose is being served. And so we know Kennedy made the decision to go to the moon, not because he was a space enthusiast, but because he had a political problem he needed to solve. And the moon was a solution to that. And I think that the

community for many years struggled with what question for which the answer is human space flight, and particularly moon and Mars. And I think what's happened and is different today, and I think SPD-1 reflected that reality, is that the world today is a much more globalized one, a much more democratized one in terms of space. We have companies doing amazing things in space. We have countries, in some cases, taking advantage of commercial actions, other cases developing their own, that are doing amazing things in space. So it's a very different geopolitical environment that we're in. For space exploration and development to be sustainable, I've often argued that it needs to be aligned with enduring national interests. We can talk

about what those interests are. But the first step is to recognize what environment are you in? And I think prior efforts did not really take into account how different the global environment is today versus, say, what it was a few decades ago or certainly at the beginning of the space age. I think NASA has made progress in incorporating commercial and international partners. I think there's more to do. The architecture definition document, which has been talked about, NASA has certainly made progress in being articulate about what things they need to focus on and why and what goals are being achieved. There's some more traceability in that architecture, but I don't think it's really complete yet. I think work still remains

to be done on how it serves broader non-NASA interests. How does this serve economic growth? How does this serve our diplomatic strategy? How does this serve and complement, say, our security strategies? I mean, Artemis is very much a non-military program, but it has security implications in a broader geopolitical sense. And that's where diplomacy and economic security and other issues come to fore. And I think there's still work to be done in understanding that not only within the United States and with NASA and the other agencies,

but also with our international partners. It's that kind of integration of national interests in a broader campaign of exploration development, which was the subject of the paper you mentioned at the beginning, a new era for space exploration and development. We are in a new era, and if it's going to be a sustainable era, I think it needs to pay attention to broader national interest than just what the space community wants to do. Something that struck me while you were just saying that, how much of this is just a function of NASA, in a sense, making the case explicitly to other stakeholders versus actively or functionally

changing its approach? Because it almost sounds like they just need to explain more broadly what they're already doing, or that may be seen as the pathway forward. Partly, but I think it also goes the other way. I think there needs to be more engagement by other representative interests, either in the interagency or civil society or internationally, to explain to NASA what it is they want to get out of it. So it's not merely a matter of NASA having the answers and communicating it. It's a matter of NASA also sort of listening to other stakeholders that are outside, I think, of the traditional NASA structure. So, for example, when having international partners, yes, NASA properly

should think about what can they contribute and why and how does this fit with our needs. But you also have to look at what do those partners need and listen to them as to what their motivation is. Because if we're not aligned, or at least if we're not understanding what those international partners need, then those partners aren't going to get the sustainable support from their home governments to be continuing partners. So it can't just be a one-way sort of thing. One of the reasons that I was so very critical of the Obama administration's journey to Mars was not Mars per se. Mars is great. I think it's a goal. It's important to have that as a stretch goal. It's important to think about feed forward from the moon toward Mars. It broadens thinking. But the problem was it didn't, Mars, the Dreaming of Mars concept didn't really provide on-ramps for other countries. discussion about the NASA authorization bill and all kinds of difficulties with the administration's

attempt and success in ending the Constellation program, I had a head of a foreign space agency ask me if our government, the United States government, really supported international cooperation. Now, I was out of government at the time, but I'm thinking to myself, now what kind of question is that? And I said carefully, well, I believe they do. kind of question is that? And I said carefully, well, I believe they do. And the guy looks at me and very plainly says, well, we don't think so. We don't think you're sincere. And I go, really, why would you say that? And they said, well, because you picked a goal, Mars, that you know we can't do. I can't go to my finance ministry and ask for money to go to Mars with the Americans. So we think you really only want to go to Mars with, say, the Russians,

who are capable of this, and you're not really sincere about involving other countries, smaller countries like my own. And I said, well, okay, I can see why you would say that, and I can see that perspective. I said, I have something really bad to tell you. We didn't think about you at all. There is not an international geopolitical raison d'etre for the Journey to Mars decision. It was done for internal domestic policy reasons. Much in the same way, to be fair, that Richard Nixon made the decision for shuttle. There is a minor role that Kissinger

proposed for foreign astronauts flying on board, but it was done for internal domestic reasons. It wasn't done for larger geopolitical reasons. In contrast, going to the moon, Apollo was geopolitical. Apollo-Soyuz was political. Having a space station program was geopolitical. Having the Russians in the space station program to make it the international space station was geopolitical. Other efforts alluded to geopolitical realities, both the Space Exploration Initiative and the Vision for Space Exploration, but I don't think went sufficiently far enough and the environment wasn't mature enough for international and commercial partners, which it was by the time we got to SPD-1. So that's why I think Artemis has done better.

I think it's more sustainable and will survive longer. And also no small measure to the work that Jim Bridenstine did in making sure that it was bipartisan. I mean, we in the White House were definitely interested in being nonpartisan, bipartisan. We wanted to write policies that would be sustainable. But Jim did a lot of the heavy lifting in working with Congress to make sure that it was bipartisan and sustainable. And so the transition we went through from the Trump administration to the Biden administration, notable for many things, but notable for also what did not happen. Continuation of Artemis, continuation of the Space Force, continuation of the Artemis Accords and engagement. And in fact, broadening and deepening of political and international engagement. The State Department recently announced its framework for space diplomacy,

diplomacy for space, space for diplomacy, and so forth. On one hand, nothing really groundbreaking and new per se for, I think, space people, but a really major statement, I think, by the State Department, by the Secretary of State, that recognizes the integral role that space has in U.S. diplomacy, and that it's something that state needs to be fully present for. This is not something that just NASA and DOD are responsible for, but it's part of our diplomatic engagement with the world. So progress continues. Something that struck me in your description of the role of international geopolitical considerations, the major examples you give are very reactionary.

For both Apollo and Apollo-Soyuz and ISS, you're reacting to kind of these global events that are happening. And I mean, in 2010, we could argue it wasn't as much of a globally, there was still this idea of rebooting the relationship with Russia. Globally, it was a time of consolidation, it seemed like economically, was there even a reason given the past to expect there would be this integration of geopolitical role in the space program as opposed to a domestic one when there wasn't a global crisis to engage with. I don't know about reactionary. I mean, space engagement, space cooperation is always a lagging indicator. There was a tendency, I think sometimes of space enthusiasts, commonly among space enthusiasts, to think that space is so important and so wonderful that it can drive international relations. I recall, and this is showing my age, back in the 1980s when I was with the L5 Society and then the National Space Society, having arguments with your predecessors in the Planetary Society who were proposing going to Mars in a cooperative effort with the Soviet Union as a way of building peace. And this was also considered to be a counterpoint to some of the nuclear freeze movements,

nuclear winter and Mars. It was kind of wrapped up in that sort of that Cold War debate during the Reagan era. And I disagreed very strongly with the Planetary Society's positions on that because I think I made one of my first sort of value, or one of the first sort of, for me, value arguments. And I think the snarky phrase I used was, no gulags on Mars. And so that it's not merely our people and our technology that we send into space, but it's also our values. So recognizing that space is going to be a laggard to the rest of international relations, the Cold War environment, of course, led to the

Apollo program. The Nixon-Brezhnev summit meeting in 1972 is what led to Apollo-Soyuz. The Clinton administration's incorporation of Russia into the International Space Station was both a desire to symbolize a post-Soviet relationship with Russia, but also had strong non-proliferation concerns. We didn't want Russian rocket scientists going to other countries that were more problematic. And therefore, it was in our interest that the Russian space effort continue. The Russians were critical for maintaining the space station after the Columbia accident. So, you know, we owe them a debt of gratitude for that. However, Putin's decisions since that time have been more and more problematic, but more and more strained on the system. And so 2008 invasion of Georgia, 2014 invasion of Crimea, of course, now the Ukrainian invasion. All of this has served to decouple Russia and space efforts from the rest of the world. space efforts from the rest of the world. So space is always going to be in the service,

human spaceflight, I should say, is always going to be in the service of larger geopolitical interests. Commercial activity, not so much. Scientific activity can pursue independently. But human spaceflight, until such a time as there is a self-sustaining commercial human engagement in space, which I hope is coming but is not here yet, we're still going to be influenced by geopolitical realities. So what does the moon offer then that Mars can't? Is it purely just technology? Is it, I mean, because there's, in the journey to Mars, you theoretically at least had this asteroid stepping stone pathway. I can see your face. Conceptually, right, you could go to an asteroid more easier or with the asteroid redirect mission, you were going to the moon functionally anyway

and orbiting the moon. Was it purely technological or is there some symbolic aspect of, you know, the moon just feels more achievable to sell to like local political systems or other nations? So several different answers to that. One is the phrase I often use as the moon

has many different price points, much more so than Mars does. Meaning you can have a very high-end activity such as Japan building a pressurized rover for the surface, essentially a mobile base, which, you know, would be an amazing contribution and critical. We have the service module that the Europeans are providing for Orion that, again, we would not be doing this without that contribution. And other countries, however, smaller countries are looking at taking rides on CLPS, commercial lunar rovers, putting small payloads on the moon, putting payloads in orbit around the moon. So countries of many different levels of capability can find ways to meaningfully participate. There is international participation on, say, the Mars rovers and landers today.

Perseverance, curiosity, opportunity all have international participation in them. But it tends to be fairly specialized scientific participation. And not to diminish that at all, but it's not as politically visible as some other activities. So it's not just the psychology of the moon being closer. It's that technical reality has a programmatic reality, has an affordability level to it that allows for greater adjustments for people to match their national interests to what's available. It provides more on-ramps and ways for meaningful engagement. Yeah. I mean, I would add to that even frequency is an advantage that you can launch on a monthly basis versus a 26-month cadence. Absolutely, absolutely. And by having high frequency, you get, in a sense, you can build up

production lines. I mean, the space community, I think, in recent years has, and not recent years, say the last 20 years, has learned a couple of lessons which maybe business people knew for years but took a while to penetrate. One is, yes, frequency matters, like high-rate production really results in differences. I mean, people who did, again, showing my age, total quality management and statistical process control and things like that understand that if you do everything in a bespoke, handcrafted way, it's a different economy than if you're producing a production line. So moving to high-rate production, if possible, is the most recent big change. But the other relearned somewhat with the COVID experience is the importance of dissimilar redundancy. In the case of the

Columbia accident, we learned, yet again, the importance of dissimilar redundancy. And so when we went to having commercial cargo and then later commercial crew, many people saw the picking of at least two competitors as part of being, you know, well, commercial competition. Well, we're still in a monopoly, monopsony buyer kind of situation. So while it's, I think, easy for people to hear, oh, yes, picking more than one, that's good because then there'll be competition and prices will be moderated. Sort of. It does happen. SpaceX's entry, for example, I think has had a positive influence on lowering prices in general for the market. However, that's really too simple.

What's also really going on is NASA rightly shouldn't trust anyone. It should have multiple ways of doing something. Satellite communications people knew this all along. They would do strategic sourcing. Maybe it might have been the cheapest thing to fly on all Russian boosters back in the day, but they always would put some flights on an Ariane. Or they would even add maybe fly something on an Atlas or Delta, which was more expensive in comparison to, say, Ariane or the Russian offerings. But diversifying your supplier base and strategic sourcing was a thing. Well, same thing is true here in space. And I think the Columbia accident helped drill that in really deeply.

We want multiple ways to get to space. Well, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Right. Right. Which, you know, people were not sort of expecting, but world events happen. And so having another way of doing something is always going to be valuable over and above the potential price benefits that might be there. Bigger issues in terms of overall enterprise resiliency. You talk about this multiple price point entry for collaboration and going to the moon. Something else you would even

add to that would be something like the Artemis Accords, which is your free entry. It doesn't cost anything to sign on to the Artemis Accords financially. You can functionally raise your hand as a nation and just say, I share these values and start with there. Where does that role, where do you see the Artemis Accords playing into this broad goal of national interest and shared values? It seems to be a critical addition to it. Yes, it is. And in part because the Artemis Accords are helpful for starting the conversation about what our common values are going to be. Signing on the Artemis Accord doesn't mean you're in the Artemis program because that still takes decisions as to what you want to contribute.

And U.S.-based cooperation has always traditionally been a no-exchange-of-funds kind of basis. U.S.-based cooperation has always traditionally been a no-exchange-of-funds kind of basis. I was on a panel the other day with Charlie Bolden reiterating the principles of transparency, reciprocity, and mutual benefit. It doesn't mean contributions have to be equal, but there has to be some mutual benefit going on. And I think that countries will have many different complex ways to answer the question of what's in their sort of mutual benefit. But having the conversation about values, I think, is really important for the U.S. because, pardon me wearing a bit of an academic hat here, there is what's known in the business as a security dilemma. Now, a security dilemma commonly is one where, say, we feel insecure and we build weapons, and our adversaries see that,

and they feel insecure, and they build weapons. The next thing you know, you have an arms race. And so how do we secure our interests without triggering a situation that makes us maybe worse off than we were to begin with? And that's a classic security dilemma. Space has that, but it also has a different kind of security dilemma in that we have this incredible dependency on space, economically, militarily, diplomatically even, if you will. And so it's a very, very important domain to us, like the air and sea and land are in other domains. But I think like, say, Great Britain before us as a sea power, we're a space power, and we're really reliant on space. So here's this domain that we're critically reliant on. So how do we protect ourselves?

Wearing what the IR theorists, international relations theorists would call the realist lens. Traditionally, in other domains, you would put a fence around it. You would put a flag on it. You would have nearby allies. There's a number of traditional steps you could take. Well, space is borderless. You don't have that option of putting a fence on it or a flag on it or anything like that, simply from practical as well as legal reasons. So how do we protect our interests in an environment? I would argue that one of the best ways to do that is to convince other sovereign states

that their interests lie in aligning with us, sharing our values, forming a common community, and that in doing so that they will protect their interests and we will protect ours by this sort of voluntary adherence. So when we talk about norms of behavior in space, responsible norms, people are often skeptical and say, well, you know, our adversaries, say China or Russia, are not going to pay attention to those sorts of things. And they're largely right. Probably not. We hope they will, but probably not.

But they're not really just for them. They're for our allies. They're a way of expressing what we, collective we, think of as responsible behavior. And when we see someone else violating that, we're able to say, hey, we all agree that's a violation. Now, what are we going to do about that? So for example, in another domain, when you have a, say a Chinese fighter aircraft conducting an unsafe approach to a US aircraft operating in international airspace, everyone agrees, yes, that was an unsafe approach. Yes, that was in international airspace. It doesn't mean that the Chinese fighter

jet will stop doing that, but it does mean that we have a basis, a political basis, as well as a potential military basis for responding. So it's important to have conversations about, well, what values do we share? And again, in the case of China, they have a right to be in space, but I don't want them to be in space without me and my friends. And I want the values that we represent, the values essentially of the enlightenment, rule of law, democracy, human rights, to be fully represented in whatever human future might occur in space. This is not to deny it to others, but it's to say, this is who we are. And the Artemis Accords, I think, are a very important foundational step

to having that dialogue about what are the values we share together. And in doing so, we're protecting our own national interests. Does this be characterized as liberalism in terms of international relations, small-L liberalism? Small-L liberalism in terms of international relations, small l liberalism? Small l liberalism, right. We look at the realist problem of power and competition among states, but liberal internationalism, which is not something I'm, say, associated with often, but in academia, we have lots of cases of liberal internationalism that works between states. It occurs in cases where military force is off the table. We have lots of

issues to discuss, say, with Canada and Europe and Mexico and so forth, but use of military force is not one of the options on the table. So we're going to have complex agendas. We're going to have complex debates. We're going to have competition. We're going to have cooperation and so forth, but we're all part of a liberal international rules-based order. We would like there to be more of that. But we also recognize there are cases where that does not occur. And, in fact, where military force, economic force are absolutely essential. So you try to expand the range of areas that are covered by a rules-based international order while still at the time being prepared

to operate in environments where that is broken down or is not the case. So would you say that the Artemis Accords is a lagging or leading aspect of this type of global order? Is it a function of its existence or does it drive further adherence to it? That's a great question. That really is a good question because my normal reaction would be to say it's a lagging indicator

because Space Cooperation General lags behind other dialogues. But I think the case of Artemis, if you put it to me that way, is one which is leading the conversation a little bit. Now, on the other hand, the Artemis Accords are fairly conservative. They represent only existing international law. They don't the conversation a little bit. Now, on the other hand, the Articles of Courts are fairly conservative. They represent only existing international law.

They don't really represent a large breakthrough. That's why countries find it fairly easy to sign up for, because it represents where they are now. But I think in the course of engagement in and on and around the moon, and as we develop experiences with each other, that there'll be further elaborations of these norms of behavior. There'll be further creation of mechanisms for coordination with each other, not just among Artemis Accord countries, but I would hope all countries for coordination amongst each other that will lead to new understanding about what safe and

responsible space operations are. So I don't think that they're a leading indicator now, but they're the opening to that conversation. Yeah, I mean, they seem almost generative. The fact that it's just, as you said, reframing international law, but it still gives some nations an action to take, to just symbol, and again, that role of the kind of hazy area of symbolic activity

that's hard to quantify, but still there's something to it, beyond it. And, I mean, well, why haven't we had this, what novel thing had to occur, or what had to occur to enable something like the Artemis Accords to happen? Can they ever be separated from Artemis itself? Can you have Artemis Accords without Artemis? I think you can. I think what is different is the opportunity for countries to meaningfully engage in some way. Kind of a favorite example that I use sometimes in diplomacy is U.S.-Mexican relations, difficult and complex over the years. Walter McDougall's books, Heavens and the Earth, about John Glenn flight. And it was coming up over the Pacific, coming toward the U.S., and there was a gap in communication coverage. And one of the easiest, quickest ways maybe to fix that gap would be to put a small station, ground station, in

Mexico to see it as it's coming up over the horizon. So NASA went ahead and did an MOU with Mexico. And to do this and the Mexican government agreed. This was the first diplomatic agreement with Mexico since the revolution. Things had been a bit tough. And so the opening, okay, was this. Fast forward to more recently today. The Mexican Space Agency has bought satellites and has flown aboard shuttle and has had mexican astronauts and so forth but the mexican space agency in recent years uh bought a small payload package on an

astrobotic lander and uh so there's going to be a tiny rover and they've got like hundreds of students working on it and and uh so it's a major project but this means mexico is going to be the first latin american country to land on the moon. And they're doing so in a commercial partnership with the U.S. So it's both symbolic and it's substantive. It's a way for Mexico to meaningfully participate. And I think it's these opportunities for meaningful participation, which, by the way, I felt were lagging and not present in the Journey to Mars idea, which was still very much a government-driven sort of thing,

that makes really the difference in why the Artemis Accords are present today. And I think they would have a hard time existing without these opportunities for these multiple on-ramps. Right, to actually then do something. To then actually then doing something and develop their own capacity. I think that the Artemis Accords discussions and that vision of meaningful participation is also in the background with commercial astronauts. So the recent Axiom mission coming back. I thought it was terrific that we had these two Saudi astronauts. Of course, UAE is also a little bit of competition there, has sort of already flown.

But the symbolism of a Saudi female scientist in weightlessness as a way that they will be present as well on the future, I think in some ways you could look at that and say, okay, isn't that great? And that sort of universal aspirations. But also in those cultures, this is also an anti-jihadist message. There is this hopeful future post-hydrocarbon that has a more egalitarian society or more full participation society. And so there's multiple levels of symbolism there, not just for the space community, but also in the Middle East.

So these are some of the positive kind of things that can happen for this meaningful participation. I have an urgent message for all American Planetary Radio listeners. Space science needs your help. Congress has proposed the first cut to NASA's budget in a decade, and missions like Dragonfly, Veritas, and Mars Sample Return are facing shrinking budgets, delays, and even cancellation. Our elected leaders in Washington need to hear from you, reverse course, and fund NASA's innovative science programs. On September 17th and 18th, join the Planetary Society in Washington, D.C. for the annual Day of Action. This is our return to in-person, and the timing couldn't be better. While partisan politics today

sows division, space is something that can truly unite us all. As a part of the Day of Action, you will receive an all-inclusive advocacy training, briefings from experts, a minimum of three scheduled meetings with your lawmakers, and the from experts, a minimum of three scheduled meetings with your lawmakers, and the opportunity to shape the future of space exploration. Go to planetary.org slash day of action to learn more and sign up. With your voice, you can speak up for space science. With your passion, you can inspire others to take action. Join us. your passion, you can inspire others to take action. Join us. All of this makes me wonder how deterministic policy is to basically, I would say geography or just I'm struck by, you know,

the old JFK speech of why go to the moon, you know, why climb the highest mountain and functionally because it's there. But this almost reframes the emphasis to say say we go to the moon because it is there and there's nothing else that close it gives some kind of organizing destination because of its accessibility and who was it who said if if god wanted man to be a spacefaring species he would have given us a moon right exactly and it just strikes me how much are we then trapped in a sense by policy determinism is that a troubling idea or is it just maybe a pragmat are we then trapped in a sense by policy determinism? Is that a troubling idea or is it just maybe a pragmatist kind of just it's there, so let's use it versus we can't dream beyond that and we can't organize ourselves beyond it because we need to have these pragmatic quick feedback mechanisms and feedback loops and access in these on-ramps that, you know, generate these abilities to have this type of buy-in at a political level? You know, when astronauts fly into space, whether they're commercial or government, they do not create everything around them.

They are the products of large institutions. And in military terms, those institutions have to be organized, trained, and equipped to be able to fly into space, whether it be government or private. to be organized, trained, and equipped to be able to fly into space, whether it be government or private. And I think that becoming a, doing space exploration and development and utilization requires a training program. And this is the training. Now, how far we go and what we can do is not determined, you know, at all. I think you're familiar with my, and apologies to listeners if they've heard this too many times, the sort of the quadrant model of the future of human space. Okay. So the question is, is there a human future in space? The answer is yes or no. Either is profound. It depends on

two sub-questions. Is it possible to live off the land or do you always have to be supplied from earth? Is it possible to do something that pays your way, or are you always dependent upon taxpayers on Earth? If you can live off the land and generate, pay your own way, then you get space settlements. You get kind of that human expansion, future science fiction vision. If the answer to both questions is no, then space is some form of Mount Everest that you visit, place of high adventure, symbolism, but nobody really lives there. If you can live off the land, use local resources, but you're always still dependent upon the taxpayer, then space is some version of Antarctica. McMurdo Station is the image. If you can do something out there that pays for you, but you always have to come back to Earth

for whatever reason, biophysical reasons, physiological, psychological, whatever reasons, you always have to come home, then space is something like a North Sea oil platform. Those are four very, very radically different kinds of visions. And we actually don't know. Some people think they know, but I would argue that's mostly a faith-based assumption. So exploring out there in order to do so in a way that's sustainable, yes, it would be possible to imagine, say, going directly to Mars. In fact, actually, I testified about an opportunity like that. There is a Mars lineup of planetary systems where one could do an Apollo 8-like mission out to Mars and back. And I was intrigued by that, one, because it would certainly be an engineering feat, but two, it would help bring Mars closer. It would make it seem less far away if you could just do, even as a one-off, pardon me, stunt, would still be an image of going, you know, this is possible.

This is not over the horizon. You know, we lost that opportunity. We didn't move fast enough. So the planets moved on. But I think the way to have a sustainable space program not only is to align it with enduring national interest, but make sure it's sustainable by those interests. So being able to do things in a one-off, wartime level of effort

worked for a particular situation in the case of Apollo, but it was somewhat of a bubble at a particular time and place. And so I'm much more interested in what's sustainable and exploring as to what's possible. So the reason for going to the moon is not only it's practical, but it's also a way of organized training and equipping ourselves to create a more capable space-faring civilization that then becomes more capable of going to Mars, but in a way that would be more sustainable. And I don't think we know what that answer is. We're still exploring. That's what exploration is about, is which of these human futures is possible. So it's incredibly important to have international and commercial partners

because we cannot answer the question of a human future without kind of all of human society in it, not just, hey, look, I've got a couple of guys on the Martian surface. Well, I mean, there's a fundamental technological limitation to this too that we're functionally dancing around here, which is that those futures that you talk about are functions of technology and you know we've been unable to demonstrate one way or the other it hasn't really been easy to get through i mean and that's another form of determinism too that we just have to we're limited by the fundamental hostility of the space

environment and and the question that's unknown is how much of these limitations are physics and how much of them are engineering? Yeah, right, exactly. And one of the ones, and this goes down to maybe a different rabbit hole, but one of the ones that I would be probably more concerned about, I think as an ex-physics major,

I think I can see a lot of physics answers to almost anything, but I think issues of human biology and physiology is not clear to me at all. And psychology, I would add. Yeah, psychology. It's not clear to me at all that sustainable human communities beyond the earth are going to be possible biologically. I'm not saying they can't. I'm just saying that's an unknown. And so I can think of lots of ways to solve communication problems, propulsion problems, engineering problems. I can even make speculations about different economic sort of solutions.

But human biology is a thing. And I think that should be an integral part of our exploration activities. And again, in determining whether there's a human future in space. And that's, I think, one of the risk factors is we may find that we are not able to separate completely from the Earth for indefinite periods of time. This is a subject I've actually been really fascinated about recently, which is, you put it nicely, the difference between physics and engineering. Also an ex-physics major. There are fundamental realities, and we even touched on this earlier, fundamental realities of being in space. Like that impact, what types of policies you can have you said you can have you can't claim space

but you can you own the things in it you can't defend your borders in space because orbits don't let you do that that's a fundamental requirement of orbit you have to fly over other countries functionally and how do you see i feel like there are pitfalls in terms of so much of what policy development and even law are functions of historical analogy and historical examples or even present examples that assume things that you just cannot take for granted in space. You know, again, that you're not constantly in motion, that you have ready access to air whenever you want it, that gravity holds you in one place. How do you approach the use of these type of analogies, and how do you avoid the pitfalls that may be lurking in them before we even try them? In a sense, how do we avoid setting policies that are fundamentally impossible to achieve based on the fact that people who set them may not have a rigorous background

in physics. Sure. So there's a standing joke that you want to have a science advisor in the room with senior political leaders, not because senior political leaders need science advice, but you want the advisor to flag situations where they do need advice and knowing when to ask those questions. I can think of two answers to that. One is, again, this is what exploration is about. When the first EVAs were done, other than just trying to do real work as opposed to just getting out of the capsule and getting back in, those were harrowing experiences because people didn't really understand in their bones things like you need foot restraints,

you need hand restraints, you need tools that didn't torque. It was really hard to learn all those lessons that we now take for granted with, you know, seven, eight-hour EVAs, that hard-won knowledge that people, in retrospect, go, well, I should have thought of that, but of course they didn't until they're actually there. A more abstract argument, and again, pardon for the strange analogy, A more abstract argument, and again, pardon for the strange analogy, this is why I think common law does better than civil law in dealing with technical innovation. Again, to oversimplify, civil law, which many of our European counterparts adhere to, is a very top-down structured kind of thing. Common law, particularly English common law, is more of a bottom-up structure.

You create precedent, you set precedent, and you evolve with precedent. As you reach the limit, so to speak, they kind of converge into the same place. And I don't think civil and common law come out to horribly different results in the end. But the common law process and use of precedent and bottom-up approach, I think, is much more flexible. It deals with innovation better. It deals with innovation better. It deals with uncertainty better. And so I think there's an argument if we want to have an innovative space frontier and we want to have more commercial and private partnerships

that I'm hoping the U.S. retains and preserves the lead with other common law countries because I think we'll be able to adapt to these sort of governance and policy issues more effectively and rapidly with time. Abstract in approach rather than, you know, this common logic of being applied through pragmatism on earth.

That's kind of the point. Doesn't necessarily apply. I mean, because I mean, I was also thinking about, I mean, long ago when people were talking about the high ground of the moon and there's still, I feel like some talk about that today in national security. And that's just an intuitive idea that's been applied completely incorrectly because of that misunderstanding or disregard of just the physics of orbits and getting to and from the moon. And that's where I see these pitfalls of application. And do you see that still kind of, the fact that those still exist?

Yeah, understanding what it means to say that space is a warfighting domain. You know, there's a lot of layers to that, and it doesn't look at all like, say, a science fiction movie. I think I maybe have a near-term simpler answer to that. The really near-term issues that I think military space has to pay attention to are all on Earth. They're all either in the Western Pacific and they're in Europe. I have an academic friend and colleague, Bleden Bowen, at the University of Leicester, and he wrote a book called War in Space. He's actually a more recent book, which is a little bit more of a wider general audience, called Original Sin. We have debates about theology.

But one of the key observations I think that Bledin makes is that all of our vital national interests are all on the Earth. They're not in space. We don't have Martian colonies to defend. We don't have lunar mining operations to defend. Those things might occur, but they're not here now. Everything we really have is here on Earth. And the primary duty of the Space Force and Space Command is to make sure that dial tone that we expect when we pick up the phone from space is always there. It's utterly crucial to Hindopaycom, UCOM, all the other combatant commands

that that dial tone be there. And that's pretty much geo and inward. It's not geo and outward. pretty much geo and inward. It's not geo and outward. So that may change over time if U.S. interests change. But right now, our interests are here on Earth. And so Bleddon, in his academic writings, doesn't go the Blue Water Navy, you know, Mahan theories. He's more a French naval theorist, which is more of a continental school, where Earth is a hostile coastline, and you're trying to get in and out of it or influence events on the coast so it's more of a maybe a napoleonic you know sort of

history but i think it rightly centers the earth as you know what we're concerned about and not other places other places are supporting elements or not central vital elements themselves so if you read space force doctrine as it is now, it actually has a lot more to do in common, I think, with sort of Bowen's thoughts and the French continental theorist's thoughts about use of naval power. There may come a time when there is vital national interest, you know, elsewhere in the solar system where a sort of Mahanian or British naval, as sort of Mahanian or British naval, Corbett, maybe theorists, make more sense.

Or you're going between strategic places. But right now, the strategic place is the Earth. Do you think the framing and, in a sense, the implications of just the term space force works against it in this situation in a broad audience, even, I'd say, with some elected officials and others who are in the role of policymaking but haven't done, in a sense, the clear research on the theory. I guess I was thinking about recently this issue with, you know, we have Space Force now. In a sense, we have a

named hard power activity in the space domain beyond NASA as our soft power activity. And I'm wondering if the rise of the hard power activity is undermining the soft power. We're seeing this through the debt limit deal that where what was preserved in spending increases was defense, because it has that literal application of power, I guess the realist attitude. And non-defense discretionary, including NASA, was functionally cut or held still, which makes it a lot harder to achieve some of these soft power goals. And I was wondering if some of the thinking between those is like, oh, well, what do we need to do Artemis for, for soft power? If we're really ramping up Space Force instead, we have that commitment to it. I think General Mattis was one time testifying in support of increasing the State

Department's budget, because he said, if you don't increase their budget, you're going to have to buy more bullets for me. But does, I mean, they say that, but it never actually seems to translate politically. Well, they don't necessarily transition. But I think both are necessary. I think space more clearly brings into account both hard and soft power together. I am obviously incredibly grateful for the creation of the support for Space Force because I think, you know, it had been coming for 30 years, and I think it was long overdue. If the threat environment hadn't changed as it did in the 2000s, you could maybe argue we would have sort of stumbled along without dealing with it. But

I was involved in too many efforts at integrating air and space to think that that was really ever going to really work. So I think having a separate domain and having a separate service was critically necessary. And the timing was driven, I think, largely by the way the threat environment had changed. I think that when you look, though, at Artemis as a non-military activity, which it is, it is not, however, how should we say, a non-security activity. The diplomatic aspect of it, the rulemaking aspect of it, the engagement, the things feed on each other. So just as commercial space is foundational for anything we do in space, such as whether it's defense or civil activities, our diplomatic relations shaped by both our civil and space activities are part of that. Now, we can have a discussion about who does what. I want the Space Force, and particularly Space Command, focused on GEO

and NWORD and making sure they're supporting combatant commanders. I don't really have a high immediate need for them out at the moon. And I think Secretary Kendall and General Saltzman kind of agree with that. There's a priority setting that goes on here. And in fact, I would argue to the extent that more military activity for its own sake was involved in the moon is actually not that helpful. I think that the lunar operations in Artemis need to be commercial, civil, international. The capabilities that would be demonstrated and developed out there, propulsion, navigation, communication abilities, refueling, depots, all of those things have dual use applications. Okay. Everybody's, I think, sort of understands that. But you, again, want to be clear, where are your interests?

The larger vital interests, I say not maybe larger, I would say maybe your near-term vital interests are all here on the planet. Your larger interests of shaping the international environment and the international community to do peaceful space exploration is out there at the moon. And I'd surprise some people. I think that there are opportunities for cooperation with China, not in human space exploration, which I believe is a bridge too far in terms of political support,

but there are tons of practical things we were able to do with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But there are tons of practical things we were able to do with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. So things like exchange of biomedical data, things like exchanging lunar samples, more transparency on their scientific databases, which is not what we would like it to be. We share SSA data for operators in and around Mars at present. We don't really have an agreement like that for in and around the moon. Probably should. So there are other areas on Earth where it seems to be pretty much a zero-sum game.

The level of areas of tension with China are pretty well known. You know, Taiwan, South China Sea, Tibet, Uyghurs, cybersecurity, you know, list goes on. Tibet, Uyghurs, cybersecurity, you know, list goes on. Space is, well, the threat environment from China has increased. Space per se and operations in and around Mars and the moon are not necessarily in the same category as those other problems. So I think there's a window there for pragmatic cooperation. I think, you know, we in China have views that often actually are fairly pragmatically aligned in terms of things like using of space resources. So in contrast to the rest of the relationship, this may be an area while still differing profoundly, we could imagine pragmatic cooperation on the terms, as Charlie Bolden said, transparent, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial.

on the terms, as Charlie Bolden said, transparent, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial. So I have some mild hope there. But I also believe our military forces need to be really focused on our combatant commanders here on the ground. I think that's true, and I don't have an objection at all to the Space Force. I think it was actually quite important for all the reasons you just outlined. But I'm just worried, again, that a simplistic political viewpoint may just be that we have our space covered. We can divest in the civil space program. It's not as big of a deal anymore.

And I feel like... I haven't run... Maybe you've run into that. But I guess you yourself... I haven't run into that. Yeah, but I mean, budget is policy at the end of the day, right? And Space Force has already eclipsed NASA and the money's being preserved for,

there's a clear bipartisan consensus on spending for defense where there is a phenomenon discretionary and it never, is it a function of NASA selling itself for that role more effectively? But it just seems like it's being undervalued. That probably is independent of whether Space Force exists, but it seems like it could, when press someone could say, oh, we got that covered.

You have a very fair point, okay, in terms of budget as policy. Okay, that's really a truism. The problem is that a misnomer, a misimpression that many people have is they think federal budget money is fungible. You know, oh, if only we didn't spend it for this bad thing, we could spend it for this good thing. Translated as, I don't like that, I do like this. That's just not the way it works. Everything pretty much rides on its own bottom in terms of what's working. Obviously, there's overall constraints and things that people have to sort of work with.

But this is where I go back to the issue of sustainability. You have to show that you're aligned with larger term national interests. And if you're not really supporting that, if you're seen as maybe a discretionary artisanal product that's nice to have, it's like doing art, then you're not going to do as well. So again, while I don't want to overstress it because I don't think it should be, this is why State Department recognizing the role of diplomacy, not only across traditional space offices and arms control verification and, of course, nonproliferation people and its role in the World Radio Communications Conference, emerging technologies, regional desks. The space stuff touches an amazing array of U.S.

sort of interests. I think that to the extent we want to make sure we don't lose sight of these soft power aspects of space, I would say more generally, sitting here in International Affairs School, we don't want to lose sight of the diplomatic role that we actually would want state to play. You can't do without DOD, but you really can't do without state department diplomatic either. And in doing diplomacy, diplomacy is in service or should be in service of these larger U.S. interests, not only our economic and security interests, but also promoting our values. And I think Artemis Accords are part of that. I think these other diplomatic engagements are part of that. And we have democratic debates about which to fund. That doesn't give us the option of saying, I'm going to take money away from some military capability and give it to a worthy diplomatic post. So I think that the task

for NASA is to be able to argue how it does contribute to a larger national interest. And to the extent that things like architecture definition documents focus primarily on internal NASA needs as opposed to larger national needs, then there's a missed opportunity. You mentioned, again, bad analogy time, but you mentioned earlier about the Asteroid Redirect Mission. So I knew the people working on that and perfectly wonderful people. And the Asteroid Redirect Mission had a lot of things, some positive aspects to it in terms of technical development and in terms of tying together the science and human sides of NASA. It was a very common approach that both the science part of NASA and the human part of NASA could see themselves in. And so as a bureaucratic mechanism for coordination and team building, if you will, had some positive things with it. It just didn't fit into any larger plan. There wasn't a larger scope as to how did this advance overall U.S. security, economic, or diplomatic interests.

And therefore, it became something that was important maybe to NASA, but it wasn't really important to anybody else. And it died very quickly after the administration left. I want to just close this out by asking kind of where you see things going now. Do you believe in terms of, in the broad kind of philosophical outlines we've talked about for how you approach this and NASA's values?

And also, I guess I'll say, we'll find out in the next few months about how Artemis does in terms of the actual appropriations process in a more restrained environment if it will rise to the top and be protected given the values it serves. But are we on the right direction,

do you believe, in terms of our lunar program and for what it's attempting to do? And, you know, kind of where do you see that going in the next decade or so? You know, on that, I am optimistic because I do lectures every year and I try to lead, you know, the students through the history and up to the present day and so forth.

One of the sets of charts I have is describing the situation as it looked in 2016. And it's a really depressing chart. I was there. You were there. Not the happiest of times, yeah. Okay. But it was not merely human spaceflight. We had a number of fights over GPS spectrum. We had fights over whether satellite systems weren't coming online. We had countries that really had drifted away from us, not only on human spaceflight and Journey to Mars stuff, but the Europeans had come to us wanting partnership on a Mars sample return, which was their highest priority item, and ExoMars,

and we had to tell them, go talk to the Russians because we couldn't come up. So the geopolitical harm that was caused by our, I think, somewhat inward-gazing nature was not only affecting human spaceflight, it affected science and it affected economy. It was going into security issues. We couldn't talk about space as a warfighting domain despite what was happening. So it's a long litany of, boy, things are bad. Fast forward to where we are today. We have a space force, we have Artemis, we still have lots of management and programmatic problems. But I think in terms of a sort of a

conceptual breakthrough that people have made, they've seen this larger, and the growth of commercial industry has helped tremendously because it's made real stuff that we saw emerging, but it's like undeniable now. The international engagement, which we saw as potential, is now kind of undeniable. So I think we got the basic foundations right, and there's not really a lot of policy to debate. There's lots of management implementation issues to debate. We can talk about where's the SSA contracts in the Commerce Department, and I can wonder where the procurement office is and other things that my friend,

Rich DiBello, is struggling with, okay? But that's not a matter of what's the concept. It's, hey, we need to execute and implement. I think the National Space Transportation Policy, last updated in 2013 and reflected in the 2020 policy, could use an updating simply to reflect the reality of more and more commercial vehicles flying out of government ranges. Really, the rate of launch activities is very different. We need to deal with new activities like in-space

propulsion and space tugs and such that we didn't really, I think, deal with clearly in 2013. So there are some updates to policy that I think need. But in terms of like a big conceptual reordering, I think there's really a new and pretty solid consensus. And so the focus is on how much are we going to spend it on and how effectively are we going to spend it on? I don't know if he would agree with this, but I would argue we may have reached the point that Mike Griffin tried to get to, where Mike would say things like, we have debates about the Navy. We have debates about what the Navy should do and where it should go and how much it should cost and how many ships we should build. But we don't debate should we have a Navy.

I think we're at the point where we have a space program and we can debate about how much it costs and what the balance is and how many ships are there and what the cost to overrun was. But I think we're past the point, I hope, of debating whether or not we need a space program. I agree with that. That's a good point to end it on, Dr. Scott Pace. Thanks for joining us this month. Thank you. That was Dr. Scott Pace. Yeah, of course, you can find all of his writings on various scholarly journals and search for him at GWU. He has a lot of linked articles there. I hope you found that as interesting as I did. I could have talked to him for hours. One last thing before we end the show this week.

I just wanted to let you know this will be the last episode of the Space Policy Edition until November. I will be taking a few months off for paternity leave, which I'm pretty excited to share and to do. At the time I'm recording this, we're just days away from the main event. And by the time you listen to this, I will have a new daughter and future space advocate here in the world with me. And those of you who've done this before know something about how strange and wonderful this experience is. And it's something that clearly hard to verbalize, but something I can't shake the thought of is the end of Cosmos, where Carl Sagan talks about this grand story we're all in, of humanity in effect being star stuff contemplating

the stars well i will be spending the next few months away from the planetary society functionally as star stuff contemplating star stuff where my daughter will be the collection of 10 billion billion billion atoms and i'll be contemplating the evolution of matter, tracing its long path by which it arrived, not just at consciousness, but at her consciousness. Quite the trip. So until November, I bid you all ad astra. Thank you.