Photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
President Trump rescued NASA and our space program at a dark time. President Obama had cancelled our return to the Moon for without logical reasons.
There's three likely theories. Obama's expressed ideological opposition to anything that looked like 'American exceptionalism.' The possibility that China threatened to block rare earth exports if we dared return to the Moon. Too much of a 'Bush program.' Evidence points to perhaps all three.
Had Obama supported the minor increase in NASA's budget that the Augustine Commission identified would be necessary for the return to the Moon, Congress would have passed it. That was a time of unlimited deficit spending and earmarks.
But that was not the purpose of the Commission. In Washington, if you want to do something or do not want to do something, but create a 'commission' designed to give you the answer you wanted. The Commission was designed to conclude that returning to the Moon was essentially impossible, not report the actions and budget necessary to return to the Moon..
We literally could have a base on the Moon today, and children today could point to 'the light on the Moon' that showed humanity had forever escaped decades of Earth-orbit-bound research and into a bright future of unlimited space exploration.
Today, as a result of Obama's actions, China is racing to beat us to the Moon--and they intend to rule space as they advance towards a world ruled by China and their Communist system. They have an unlimited budget and no political opposition. The stakes are that high; China seeks dominance of space as demonstrated on Earth.
Ye Peijian, the head of China’s military-led Lunar
Exploration Program declared China's intentions in 2017:
“The universe is like the ocean: the moon is like the Diaoyu
Islands and Mars is like Huangyan Island.”
Those are China’s names for the islands
in the East and South China Seas that China seized and militarized in violation
of the 400 years of freedom of the seas and the Law of the Sea Treaty; an ominous
warning of their goal to similarly dominate outer space.
Kamala Harris's known record of leadership on space is almost non-existent after four years as the Chair of the National Space Council. Aside from embarrassingly-incomprehensible remarks about space and a few prepared speeches, there's little reason to believe she has more interest in space than she did as Border Czar to secure the border.
The Biden-Harris White House has thrown roadblocks in the way of developing SpaceX's Starship. We cannot expect that would improve under an even more radical Harris-Walz administration--and could result in actively preventing the development of the Starship that NASA has contracted to land astronauts on the Moon as part of Artemis III.
Harris and Walz never congratulated SpaceX for the recent capture of their Starship booster--something that was science fiction until this month. That sends a chilling message.
As a Vice President who would chair the Council (unless it is abolished), Gov. Tim Walz's public statements regarding space have only been to attack Elon Musk for what can only be described as childish and partisan reasons.
Due to the ideological battle against free speech on the internet, Harris and Walz may carry out threats made by many Democratic Party leaders to actively punish or bankrupt Elon Musk for running X.com. As an example, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich called for arresting Elon Musk and cancelling all government contracts with SpaceX--which would ground our space program, doom the International Space Station, and end the Artemis program to return to the Moon. An administration more focused on 'getting Elon' than advancing space exploration could subject him to multiple investigations and legal charges.
The Coalition to Save Manned Space Exploration judges Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as not just incapable of advancing our space program, but because both are on the hard-left-wing of the Democratic Party, they may repeat Obama's dismemberment of the return to the Moon--which gave China a 20-year head start to claim the Moon.
President Trump has a proven track record for rebuilding our space program and returning us to the pathways to the Moon and Mars. He will cease the Biden-Harris war on Elon Musk and we'll get to the Moon and Mars far sooner than NASA's current plans and delays would indicate.
As president, Trump will advance America to a bold future of exploration and commerce in space, and advance the day when children will marvel at the 'light on the Moon.'