NASA faces disruptive presidential transition

WASHINGTON — The upcoming presidential transition will be unlike any other in recent history at NASA, thanks in large part to the potentially disruptive influence of Elon Musk, warned veterans of past transitions.

During a panel at the Beyond Earth Symposium here Nov. 12, representatives of past transitions by both parties said that the incoming Trump administration could scrutinize key aspects of NASA, including its approach to human spaceflight, to accelerate progress or reduce costs.

A key factor will be the influence of Musk, who endorsed Donald Trump during the campaign and has reportedly been advising Trump in the days since the Nov. 5 election. “I do think that the change that he is going to bring to this administration will be like nothing that we have seen before,” said Lori Garver, who served as deputy administrator of NASA during part of the Obama administration. “For those of you who like what has been happening, it’s probably going to change.”

Garver led the Obama transition team for NASA after the 2008 election which famously sparred with NASA leadership, including then-administrator Mike Griffin. “I’m still known as the person who was the most disruptive transition team ever” at NASA, she recalled. “I’m not going to hold that record any more.”

The incoming Trump administration has not made any announcements yet about its plans for NASA, including the composition of its agency review team. Garver noted that, in contrast, the Obama campaign had put together its NASA transition team in the summer of 2008, which was formally announced the day after the election.

Late Nov. 12, Trump announced that Musk will co-chair a “Department of Government Efficiency” with Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential candidate. Despite the name, it will not be a Cabinet-level agency but instead a commission that will “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government” to “drive large scale structural reform” of the federal government, according to a statement from Trump.

“Elon’s interest in small government exceeds Elon’s interest in space architecture,” said Greg Autry, who served on the first Trump administration’s NASA transition team and is now associate provost for space commercialization and strategy at the University of Central Florida. “The challenges, I think, NASA faces are much more organizational and cultural than they are technical.”

Panelists, though, expect Musk to play a role, directly or otherwise, in reshaping NASA in the next administration. “We’ll have a discussion with Elon. He’s earned a seat at the table,” said Scott Pace, director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute who served on the NASA transition for the incoming George W. Bush administration.

That could prompt a reconsideration of both approaches like international cooperation as well as specific programs, like the lunar Gateway. “I think international engagement is going to be an important part of the Trump administration because it’s part of larger national interests,” Pace predicted. “There can be different styles to it, different emphases on it, but it’s absolutely going to be central.”

Garver was skeptical. “It is by its nature slow,” she said of international cooperation, “which is the opposite of what these folks have in mind.”

She added that she expected NASA would not be exempt from potential budget cuts, which could lead to a reconsideration of some existing programs of record. “It’s going to be less — and maybe this is wishful thinking on my part — contracts to members of Congress for jobs in their districts,” she said. “I think those guardrails are broken. We do not have these massive senators who have so much power because they’re chairing committees with large contracts in their districts.”

At one point in the discussion, she asked the panel if they thought the Space Launch System and Orion programs would continue in the next administration. None of the panelists raised their hands. “Not as they are,” Pace said.

Also uncertain is who will lead NASA in the next administration. “I think the area where he is going to have probably the biggest impact in the near term is personnel. People are policy,” Pace said of Musk.

He suggested that the agency would be best served by an administrator who focuses on program management over policy. “It’s really somebody in program and project management, system engineering and integration: very dull-sounding kinds of things but really, really crucial,” he said.

Policy, he argued, was in a “good position” based on the work during the first Trump administration on issues that was retained by the Biden administration. “Execution is going to need to be the theme of both government and industry in the coming administration.”