What the Next Trump Term Means for Elon Musk’s Plans in Space

• Elon Musk and Donald Trump are each captivated with area exploration alternatives amid a want to slash laws.
• It is not but clear how highly effective Musk’s function within the new Trump administration will likely be.
• Nonetheless, Musk’s affect might advance his enterprise plans, together with sending Starships to Mars.

Now that president-elect Donald Trump is ready to return to energy within the US, Elon Musk’s plans for sending people past Earth’s orbit could also be extra prone to come to fruition.

Area business consultants instructed Enterprise Insider that Musk’s affect over Trump might assist advance his enterprise pursuits, together with sending the primary crewed mission to Mars.

“I am massively optimistic about what is going on to occur in area now,” Michelle Hanlon, government director of the Middle for Air and Area Legislation on the College of Mississippi College of Legislation, instructed Enterprise Insider.

Hanlon’s optimism is not unfounded, particularly if Trump’s second time period focuses on area as a lot as his first.

Throughout his first time period, from 2017 to 2021, Trump’s administration based the Area Pressure, re-launched the Nationwide Area Council, and established NASA’s Artemis program. This program is ready to return astronauts to the moon and lay the groundwork for the primary crewed mission to Mars.

However area is not the one curiosity Trump and Musk share. In addition they need to slash authorities laws.

Musk’s ‘Division of Authorities Effectivity’

Trump has stated that he would lower 10 laws for each new one his administration creates.

Musk and his companies, in the meantime, have clashed with regulators, together with the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration.

“There’s a whole lot of waste and unnecessary regulation in authorities that should go,” Musk wrote on X after Trump introduced that he deliberate to place the billionaire on the helm of a brand new “division of presidency effectivity.”

It is unclear how a lot affect Musk would have over laws if this division got here to fruition. Trump’s belief in Musk to run such a division, nevertheless, is a testomony to the pair’s burgeoning relationship.

The 2 males teamed up on the marketing campaign path, with Musk contributing thousands and thousands to Trump’s reelection marketing campaign and showing with him at a rally in Pennsylvania.

In his election-night victory speech, Trump praised Musk for SpaceX’s Starship automobile, designed to shuttle the primary people to Mars, and for the corporate’s Starlink web satellites, that are designed to supply quick, low-cost web to distant areas worldwide.

Musk additionally joined a name between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday — underscoring how influential Musk might be as soon as Trump returns to workplace, Axios reported.

Whether or not that affect interprets to Trump founding a brand new “division of presidency effectivity” for Musk, although, is unclear.

SpaceX and Musk didn’t reply to a request for remark. A spokesperson for Trump’s marketing campaign stated that Musk’s concepts and effectivity will profit federal forms however his function in Trump’s administration stays underneath wraps.

“It is a loopy scenario, however you possibly can’t simply create a brand new division,” Deborah Sivas, the director of the Environmental Legislation Clinic at Stanford, instructed BI. She stated Congress must approve it, which could also be extra seemingly since Republicans gained the Senate majority.

Altering a authorities company’s powers or guidelines, Sivas stated, requires making new guidelines or passing a legislation by means of Congress. That may take months, and it is not assured to work.

So, it is unlikely that Musk would be capable to single-handedly get rid of key steps in regulatory processes, like the everyday environmental evaluation requirement for constructing a brand new rocket launchpad.

“I believe Elon Musk will likely be extra seemingly within the background, whispering in his ear,” Sivas stated of the billionaire’s relationship with Trump.

“Is he going to have the ability to affect area coverage? Sure, no query,” Hanlon stated, including that she sees that as a “good factor” due to Musk’s expertise.

In different arenas, like environmental regulation, Sivas is not so positive.

“I really feel like he ought to keep in his enterprise lane and keep out of the federal government lane,” Sivas stated. “Whenever you put these two collectively, it is like placing church and state collectively.”

Smoothing potholes on the street to Mars

Even when Musk cannot change laws, a space-friendly Trump administration might easy the trail to Musk’s objective of constructing a metropolis on Mars.

Musk not too long ago stated that he plans to launch Starships to Mars for the primary time in simply two years. If these flights go nicely, he stated that the primary human crews would comply with 4 years from now.

“That is a fairly bold timeline,” George Nield, former affiliate administrator of the FAA’s Workplace of Business Area Transportation, instructed BI. To satisfy it could most likely require “completely different regulatory frameworks or contractual preparations than we have used previously,” he added.

“If anyone can do it, it will likely be Elon Musk,” Hanlon stated. However the authorities may help, she stated, by making regulators extra environment friendly.

To assist even additional, she added, “It could develop into a coverage of the US authorities to help business flight to Mars.”

With Trump’s curiosity in Starship, the probabilities of that look higher than ever.

Rules aren’t the one impediment. There are nonetheless a whole lot of technical hurdles to beat earlier than we will attain Mars, Nield stated.

The moon, alternatively, is extra achievable, and Trump has had his eye on it. Weeks after Musk endorsed Trump, the president-elect instructed reporters that the moon was step one towards his final objective to achieve Mars.

The subsequent moon touchdown

For the Artemis program’s first human moon touchdown, NASA plans to launch 4 astronauts towards the moon utilizing its Area Launch System and Orion spaceship.

In lunar orbit, the ship would meet up with SpaceX’s Starship, which might carry two astronauts to the moon’s floor, placing boots within the lunar mud for the primary time since 1972.

The date for that mission has been repeatedly pushed again, with September 2026 being NASA’s present goal.

There is no indication that Trump is contemplating this, but when he desires a sooner moon touchdown, he might ditch the NASA {hardware} and ship astronauts aboard Starship alone, Nield stated.

“If we see fast progress with Starship and encouragement from the administration and Congress, I do not see any cause why that could not occur in a small variety of years,” Nield stated.