Fro many of us there’s been little to get excited about Donald Trump’s remarkable ascent to the President of the USA. However despite all the negatives perhaps there’s something good that he might instigate, the rumours are that Trump want’s to send the US to the moon again.
Apparently under consideration is a rapid and affordable return to the moon scheduled by 2020. A report has been leaked based on the internal White House documents by the site Politico which also contains details of creating a US presence on the moon supported by privately operated space stations. There’s an interesting news documentary about the US and it’s space programme which you should be able to pick up from the BBC iPlayer using a VPN – http://bbciplayerabroad.co.uk/
There is some logic to the suggestions which seems to focus on creating a commercial, economic development of space and the lunar landscape. After all it has become evident over the last decade or so that the real drive and innovation in the space sector is now coming from the commercial sector rather than organisations like NASA. Elon Musk’s Space X are developing a real advantage in the space race and Trump has already met with Musk and Jezz Bezos from Blue Origin.
The Space policy drafted in Trump’s campaign was drafted by Robert Walker of Pennsylvania who is still involved in current deliberations. It seems highly likely though that some sort of collaboration between the private sector and the state will be announced at some point. There is no doubt that the current administration is keen to investigate all commercial opportunities and job creation potential in it’s space policies.
It’s perhaps the one area that might significantly benefit from the Trump administrations style that is the competitive, aggressive, risk taking strategies that could be argued got him into power in the first place. Space exploration is not for the feint hearted, and perhaps an entrepreneurial approach to space might bring real results. Traditional methods of partnering with large powerful commercial organisations like Boeing have cost a lot of money without producing much in the way of results.
