Nick Carraway has thoughts — 

When you are worried about the health of the republic, some issues end up taking a backseat. Space exploration happens to be one of those. However, since Ms. Carroway is one of those rocket scientists at NASA, space exploration and the politics around it are very important. For instance, I’m sure you heard about the successful launch for SpaceX this past week. Did you know that the Russians used to charge 70 million round trip per astronaut? That fact and the fact that they are crazier than a bed bug is great incentive for making our own way.

The two interesting questions with the transition will be what happens with Space Force and what happens with Moon 2024. Forgive a humble school teacher for pontificating on this, but the usual course is for agencies and military branches to remain once they are created. Ronald Reagan talked about killing the department of education back in 1981. Somehow, it survived the purge. Space Force might as well even though most people in the industry chuckle every time it’s mentioned.

Moon 2024 is another of what we call the unfunded mandate. They were already robbing Peter to pay Paul on that one, so it would be easy for Biden to scrap it and move on. However, you have a group of scientists without a clear direction. Where are you headed? Do we want people to walk on Mars? Do we want a colony on the moon? Do we want to focus on more unmanned exploration in the solar system and beyond? Should we make more Tang and Velcro?

Even small government decisions effect the lives of millions of people. Upwards of half of the Clear Lake area where we live make their bones through the space industry working on site or working as a contractor or sub-contractor. Who knows if a Biden administration will be good for the space business or not. It’s been a pretty tough go for over a decade now.