Industry privately urges Biden team to retain National Space Council

With Bryan Bender

Quick Hits

— Industry leaders are prodding President-elect Joe Biden to keep the National Space Council as he charts his own space policy agenda.

— Incoming Commercial Spaceflight Federal President Karina Drees talks about her plans for the new role.

— Applications are due soon for the Zed Factor Fellowship, which seeks to increase diversity in the space workforce.

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Space Spotlight

BIDEN MULLS SPACE COUNCIL’S FUTURE: Members of Biden’s transition team held a series of meetings this week with commercial space leaders from across the industry to get their take on the National Space Council, an industry official told POLITICO. The panel, which President Donald Trump revived in 2017, has been behind the administration’s space policy directives on everything from human exploration to the U.S. Space Force and cutting burdensome regulations.

“The first question they asked was what did we think about the space council and do we think it’s effective,” said the industry official, who spoke on background to discuss the private meeting. “We all warmly endorsed it.” The transition team has also asked NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine about his views on how useful the panel is, the source said, adding that Bridenstine is also “a believer” in the committee’s value.

“It made space a national priority and elevated it within the West Wing,” the source said, describing what participants told the transition team. “We feel that the five space policy directives were very helpful and moved the ball forward.”

Biden has yet to say whether he will keep the panel, which is historically led by the vice president. But space officials have widely praised the council for both elevating the national conversation about space and enlisting new parts of government on space goals, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the secretaries of Commerce and Energy.

The National Space Council will meet on Wednesday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the eighth and possibly final time under Vice President Mike Pence.

Top Doc

‘AN ACHIEVABLE TIMELINE’: The nonprofit Secure World Foundationreleased a blueprint on Wednesday outlining the top space issues Biden will face.

The paper calls on Biden to keep the National Space Council and also urges the incoming administration to establish incentives for companies that do not contribute to orbital debris, allowing limited space cooperation with China, and sustaining support for the Artemis mission to return humans to the moon.

But it recommends the administration pursue the moon mission on “an achievable timeline that leverages commercial capabilities,” choosing not to weigh in on the 2024 deadline set by Trump.

The Biden administration should also fully fund NASA’s effort to find and catalog the majority of near earth asteroids larger than 140 meters. The mission was supposed to be completed in 2020 but NASA is far behind schedule.

FOR YOUR RADAR: I’ll be moderating a discussion on Tuesday about the top issues facing the Biden administration with the foundation’s Brian Weeden, Victoria Samson and Ian Christensen.

Industry Intel

MEET THE NEW HEAD OF CSF: Karina Drees, the CEO of Mojave Air and Space Port, will take over as the president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation on Jan. 4, the trade group, representing more than 85 member companies, announced on Monday.

Drees, who is also vice chair of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee, has served on the foundation’s board of directors for five years. She joined the Mojave Air and Space Port, which is the headquarters of space tourism company Virgin Galactic, in 2012.

Her top priority is also keeping the National Space Council, which has “provided the entire aerospace industry with a level of executive leadership on the nation’s space policy,” she said.

She believes the Biden White House could be a positive force for the commercial space industry — especially companies focusing on remote sensing technology that “are now playing a pretty clear role in monitoring climate change.”

From the Capitol

AUTRY ADVANCES: With less than 50 days until Biden takes office, the Senate Commerce Committee approved Greg Autry, Trump’s pick to be NASA’s chief financial officer.

Autry, a professor at the University of Southern California who served on Trump’s NASA transition team in 2016, was nominated for the post in July and the Senate committee that oversees NASA held a confirmation hearing for him on Nov. 10.

It’s unclear if the full Senate will approve his nomination so close to the end of the administration. But multiple space industry officials told us they are baffled that his nomination is still progressing despite so little time left to potentially serve.

COLONEL KIRK? Congress will not require the Space Force to use Navy ranks, instead allowing the new service to decide for itself what officers and enlisted personnel should be designated, according to an explanatory statement on the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act that was released Thursday.

The bill, however, urges Space Force leaders to consider “all of the military services historic rank structures.” It also directs the secretary of the Air Force, which oversees the new branch, to share the final decision with Congress two weeks before it is implemented.

The House version of the legislation included a provision from Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), a former Navy SEAL, that would have required the Space Force to adopt the Navy’s rank structure. Supporters pointed to similarities between the space and maritime domain and the long history of naval nomenclature in space-related science-fiction. Other practical reasons included differentiating between Air Force and Space Force personnel.

Crenshaw’s cause gained some high-profile support, including an op-ed from William Shatner, who famously played Capt. James Kirk in Star Trek. But it looks like that starship has sailed.

THE ZED FACTOR: How can the aerospace community be more diverse? A new initiative backed by the Aerospace Industries Association, Satellite Industry Association, Planet, and an expanding number of other companies is designed to blaze a new path into the industry for underrepresented communities.

The Zed Factor Fellowship, so named for the z-axis, representing a change in altitude, is dedicated to “the creation of an on-ramp, or launch pad if you will, into the aerospace community, where one did not previously exist.”

“With all of the social justice upheaval happening in the nation we thought, ‘why isn’t there a fellowship focused on people from underrepresented communities getting into aerospace?’” co-founder Carie Lemack, a space entrepreneur, tells us. “We are getting new host companies all the time.”

In addition to placing fellows at companies and start-ups, the fellowship also has an outreach aspect in which “every fellow is going to be doing a community service project,” Lemack explained, ”so that the impact of the fellowship falls not just on an individual but an individual and their community.”

“We don’t expect this to be someone’s fifth fellowship, adding to their prestigious number of fellowships,” she added. “We’re focusing on students from historically Black colleges and universities, minority-serving institutions, community colleges.”

Applications for the first fellowships are due Jan. 4.

Making Moves

Blue Origin this week tapped seven former Pentagon, NASA and industry leaders to serve on its newly-formed board of advisers, including Heather Wilson, former Air Force secretary; Kari Bingen, former deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security; Charles Elachi, former director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Dan Hastings, former chief scientist of the Air Force; retired Maj. Gen. Sue Mashiko, former deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office; Todd May, former director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center; and Bill Smith, former president of Primex Technologies Aerospace Division.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Congrats to Bianca Prumo, the space ground systems lead at the Air Force Research Lab’s Space Vehicles Directorate, for being the first to correctly answer that the Air Force X-37B’s longest mission in orbit lasted 780 days.

This week’s question: Who is the only president to attend a space shuttle launch?

The first person to email [email protected] gets bragging rights and a shoutout in the next newsletter!

Reading Room

— NASA picks four companies to bring moon rocks back to Earth: Washington Post

— An old rocket booster from a failed moon mission whizzed by Earth this week: New York Times

— Failed power unit in Orion capsule could take months to fix: The Verge

— SpaceX CEO Elon Musk named Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year: Fortune

— SpaceX could launch the first crewed mission to Mars in 2024: Space.com

— Congress must act to speed up the Space Force’s acquisition process: Breaking Defense

— China’s successful robotic landing on the moon is just one part of its ambitious space program: The Associated Press

Event Horizon

TODAY: The American Geophysical Union fall meeting continues online.

TODAY: NASA holds a prelaunch news conference for the SpaceX mission to resupply the International Space Station.

SATURDAY: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s mission to collect a sample from an asteroid returns to Earth.

SATURDAY: The SpaceX CRS-21 Dragon Cargo mission is expected to launch to the International Space Station.

MONDAY: European Space Week 2020 begins online.

TUESDAY: The Space Foundation hosts an event with young space industry leaders on workforce development and recruiting diverse employees.

TUESDAY: The Secure World Foundation hosts a briefing on space sustainability issues facing the Biden administration.

WEDNESDAY: The National Space Council meets at Kennedy Space Center.

WEDNESDAY: The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs hosts a virtual World Space Forum in partnership with the United Arab Emirates Space Agency.