The Trump Administration will inherit NASA at a crossroads: while the U.S. space agency continues to lead the world in ambition and capability, its continued preeminence is not guaranteed. Although programmatic corrections are necessary, we believe the fundamental strategy for exploration is sound, providing NASA with a strong foundation for the years ahead.
NASA’s Artemis program is the nation’s most serious lunar exploration effort since Apollo. And even though technical challenges remain, the United States’ commitment to a sustained lunar presence has already yielded a global coalition of scientific, commercial, and national actors committing tens of billions of dollars toward supportive lunar exploration and development. Meanwhile, the Artemis Accords have been signed by more than 50 nations united by a vision of peaceful lunar exploration.
NASA’s five scientific divisions have clear program priorities outlined by their respective decadal survey reports, prepared every ten years by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Taken as a whole, these recommend a historic investment in ambitious, boundary-pushing scientific investigation.
Furthermore, the United States’ vibrant commercial space sector is the envy of the world. Thanks to decades of investment by NASA, a new generation of private and commercial companies is creating a new space economy, the limits of which are still being tested.
And despite the partisanship dividing the nation, NASA still enjoys broad congressional support and is among the most popular agencies in government, second only to the postal service. The public continues to support U.S. leadership in space and is particularly excited about scientific exploration and planetary defense — two areas of unique capability within NASA. The space program thus presents a real opportunity to unite the nation behind shared goals for peaceful exploration.
However, NASA is clearly struggling to deliver on its current commitments. All major components of Artemis have either increased in cost, been delayed, or both; NASA’s science directorate is struggling under budgets and growing costs that have already delayed most of its next-generation science and exploration projects. Furthermore, the agency’s workforce, management, and infrastructure suffer from various interconnected challenges due to underinvestment and lack of focus, which will require strong leadership and vision to address.
Given these challenges and opportunities, The Planetary Society offers the following recommendations to the incoming Trump Administration:
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Implement a vision and timeline for exploration and scientific discovery.
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Embrace NASA’s unique abilities in science and human spaceflight.
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Get NASA back on track to making revolutionary discoveries in the space sciences.
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Demand the best performance from NASA’s civil service, contractors, and commercial partners.