Republicans Win it All

The Republican Party swept the 2016 national elections, winning the White House and retaining control of the House and Senate.

Donald Trump will become the next President of the United States on January 20, 2017, with Mike Pence as his Vice President.  The House and Senate will remain in Republican hands, though leadership elections will determine who is Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader.   House Speaker Paul Ryan, for example, has not been an enthusiastic supporter of Trump and very conservative Republicans had earlier indicated they might mount a challenge to his speakership when the 115th Congress convenes because of policy differences.

From the perspective of the space program, the Trump campaign’s few remarks suggest little change in civil space except in the area of earth science.  Trump is a climate change skeptic, as are key members of Congress who oversee NASA and NOAA’s budgets.  Otherwise, he and his representatives have expressed support for U.S. leadership in space with a bold exploration program that includes international and commercial partners.  Two space advisers, Bob Walker and Peter Navarro, wrote in a Space News op-ed that Trump would restore a National Space Council in the White House to ensure “proper coordination” among the various space sectors.

As for national security space, in a separate op-ed, Walker and Navarro asserted that Trump’s priorities would be to reduce vulnerabilities, assure commands have the tools they need, reduce the cost of space access, and create new generations of satellites to deal with emerging threats.

Trump’s own statements and the op-eds provide only the broadest strokes of what his presidency might do with the space program.  Budgets are always key, so further clues will have to wait until he submits his first budget to Congress next year.

In Congress, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) won the Senate seat being vacated by Barbara Mikuilski (D-MD).  He is expected to follow in her footsteps as a strong supporter of NOAA and NASA (especially earth science and astrophysics programs at Goddard Space Flight Center), though as a freshman Democrat, he will lack her powerful position on the appropriations committee.   

Two other Senators with key roles in the space program won reelection — John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Richard Shelby (R-AL), chair of the Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee, which funds NASA and NOAA.