Opinion: Under Vice President Harris, the National Space Council has faltered in its mission, while China pushes ahead with lunar exploration. As the U.S. focuses on diversity initiatives in space, is it losing sight of the competition that could shape the future of humanity’s presence beyond Earth?
By Dr. Ajay Kothari
“Just one more thing,” as Columbo would say, on his way almost out of the door and returning to confront a possible perpetrator. With the elections just a few days away, it may be a good time to consider this thesis also.
Another task given to Vice President Kamala Harris was to chair the National Space Council (NSpC) that she failed to do well. Unfortunately, this will hurt us as a country, and it could be considerably scarier under Walz, with his reluctance to brand China as an adversary and intense competitor, and his partiality towards China, with over 30 visits—close to a record.
Why should this not be brought out too?
The National Space Council within the Executive Office of the President is charged with providing objective advice to the President on the formulation and implementation of space policy and strategy.
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The NSpC has met only three times during the tenure of VP Harris. Twice times the focus was not on how we as a country can stay ahead, especially vis-à-vis our newest rival China, but it was on how DEI should be a strong part of the Space Race, and the last time it was to introduce Artemis astronauts, a photo-op, that she left after just ten minutes.
The Space Race of today has devolved into DEI Space, with excessive emphasis on DEI. No—not here too, where talent and merit are the only major ingredients that should matter! Or we, as a country, will proceed to perish in the space arena with a DEI-satisfaction smile on our face, happily instigated and watched by China and our space rivals.
Fortunately, NASA under Administrator Nelson’s leadership has continued to sail reasonably well – sans the directions from the White House under its Chair VP Harris. But shouldn’t there have been such directions coming from the top — from the White House?
As with other shortcomings mentioned above, this too has been something that will hurt the country in both short and long runs. It is a disappointment, another task she was unqualified for and mismanaged. It is a sincere hope that the next Administration would take this on with more enthusiasm. If it is Vance who will preside over the NSpC, would there be a much better chance that it will? Certainly compared to if Tim Walz as a VP was to take its reigns and with his past pronouncements of opposition to considering China as an adversary, it could be devastating to us. The Space community and the supporters of Space exploration….take notice.
Disbanded by President Clinton in 1993, NSpC was perceptively rejuvenated by President Trump in 2017 after a long hiatus of more than two decades, under the leadership of then VP Pence, with Dr. Pace as the executive Secretary, who took considerable interest for four years. Starting from October 5, 2017 to December 9, 2020, NSpC met eight times, and every time to discuss the primary direction of Space endeavors here — some important considerations.
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This included the announcement of having “American boots on ground on Moon” by March 2024 as announced in their fifth meeting, under the auspices of then President Trump. Now under VP Harris’ leadership, that has slipped to 2026 and likely later.
China’s Chang’e 4 landed on the Farside of the Moon in January 2019. Chang’e 5 did so in December 2020 and returned samples from Moon surface. Now, Chang’e 6 recently returned the samples from near the Farside near the South pole, a very attractive site for any future habitation and in situ resource utilization, with possible indication of copious amounts of water-ice, a crucial element for any Lunar program. China will establish a permanent presence on Moon through the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) shown above by 2030, with Taikonauts on Moon likely sooner than that.
Could China stake a claim to the entire South Pole, as some have suggested? No, but they can and will likely do so for the most promising regions.
Those at the table write the rules. We need to be there as soon as possible. Perhaps many NSpC members had these thoughts in their collective minds rather than focusing on DEI, but they received no reinforcement from the top.
I still remember—although details are somewhat cloudy now, the gist of it is still clear as bell —the night when my teen and toddler brother and sisters, my father, some workers on the farm, and I sat around a fire, on a somewhat cold night, in the middle of a jungle, and with an occasional indication of a leopard passing through the farm, listening to an old decrepit Phillips radio, battery operated as there was no electricity either. Television was still too far away. It was the late 1960s in Western India, on my father’s farm, and we were all very excited.
We were trying very hard to listen, amid heavy static, to the live broadcast of a NASA capsule splash-landing in the ocean, after a journey around the Moon. We were amazed and awestruck that NASA and the United States could send a craft hundreds of thousands of miles and still have it come back and land in a pre-designated, three-mile-radius area—and do that safely.
Our respect for what the US could do, which was already fairly high, increased immensely. NASA was amazing, and it symbolized the United States for many around the world.
What happened to that excitement, that spark, for humanity’s expansion into space? It went away for decades, returned during Trump’s presidency, and disappeared again during Biden/Harris’ time.
We badly need to have it come back again. Or we will lose to China in Space, the third dimension of human evolution. Unfortunately for us, VP Harris did not notice this as her lack of competent direction as its Chair proves.
This time, we need to go there to stay and work. It is not a repetition of what we’ve already done. Been there? Yes. Done that? No! It is a long-term effort to stay near the top – not one off. We need to start as soon as possible – not a few years from now.
The immediacy of importance of powerful competition with China can come only from the top. That has been lacking for last 3.5 years and will likely be much worse under Harris/Walz.
People can argue that China is or is not an enemy but it surely is an adversarial competitor. A strong one. We at least need to compete and give it our all. It sure is a Space Race. Let’s not devolve it into DEI Space as well.
(Dr. Ajay Kothari is President and Founder of Astrox Corporation, an Aerospace R&D company located in suburban Washington, DC. His PhD and MS in Aerospace Engineering are from the University of Maryland and BSc in Physics from Bombay University. He is Associate Fellow of AIAA and member of AIAA Aerospace Power Technical Committee. He has over 40 professional publications and has been PI on more than 35 NASA and DOD contracts.)