(Editor's Note: The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party or candidate on the part of Newsmax.)
President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris may take vastly different policy directions for NASA, commercial space, and defending the high frontier.
Will America lead the world to great accomplishments and opportunities in space, or surrender our lead to China? The stakes are critical for our future and that of the free world.
Americans have been astonished by the grand achievements by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and by NASA over the decades. Soon, NASA and SpaceX will take Americans back to the moon.
President Trump achieved a powerful record of successes. He resurrected the return to the moon that President Barack Obama had abolished. He established the United States Space Force. He recreated the National Space Council for the first time since 1993 and made it a serious policy-making entity.
Trump expressed his vision as, “We are a nation of pioneers. We are the people who crossed the ocean, carved out a foothold on a vast continent, settled a great wilderness, and then set our eyes upon the stars. This is our history, and this is our destiny.”
We can count on Trump to continue leading us into the future in space.
Available evidence shows a Harris administration would not support a bold expansion of our space program or allow commercial ventures to reach the planets. She specified her policies in general, “will not be a continuation of the Biden administration, I will chart my own course.”
That could mean feeding the anti-SpaceX hunger of the radical left, and not Biden’s more moderate support for NASA.
Kamala Harris showed no discernable leadership in her four-year role as the chair of the National Space Council. Her record consists mostly of incomprehensible statements about space. Any serious statements were written by others.
In her own words, Harris is less than inspiring and shows a great lack of understanding about the space program:
"There’s this whole, uh, I talked with somebody once who said, ah, ah, you know, if you just look at where the, the, the stars are in the sky? Don't look at 'em as just random things. If you just look at 'em as points, look at the constellation — what does it show you? What does that show you?"
Hardly JFK’s stirring “We will go to the Moon in this decade.”
No words send a powerful message, too. Harris refused to congratulate SpaceX following the historic capture of the Starship booster on its launch tower — a science fiction dream until a few weeks ago. President Biden and Gov. Tim Walz were also silent about this historic accomplishment.
Beyond words, understand that Harris represents the far-left of the Democratic Party. Her expressed plans include packing the Supreme Court, price controls on food, state-censorship of social media and increasing the war against affordable energy.
A search of her website found no results for ‘NASA,’ ‘SpaceX,’ ‘Moon,’ ‘Mars,’ and ‘space program.’
It is likely that a Harris-Walz administration would engage in an even greater war with Elon Musk to destroy his free speech platform, X.com. That would mean more regulatory and legal attacks on SpaceX.
Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently called for the arrest of Musk for defending freedom of speech, and canceling all government contracts with SpaceX. That would effectively end the US space program. Advantage China. This is not a minority view in the Democrat Party.
Walz would supersede Harris as Chair of the National Space Council — unless they abolish it altogether, where he could exact revenge on SpaceX instead of advancing the space program.
Walz recently attacked the founder of the company that NASA most relies upon, "Elon's on that stage jumping around, skipping like a dips***. That guy is literally the richest man in the world, spending millions of dollars to help Donald Trump buy an election."
These indicators will make it very difficult for a Harris administration to not take vengeance on Elon Musk.
Harris offered no leadership at the National Space Council, nor has a serious understanding of the necessity to keep America the leading space power in the world. Her policies would be formulated entirely by the far-left wing of their party.
Four years of a President Harris could see our space program on life support, SpaceX constrained or bankrupted, the once-proud NASA focused just on global warming, and China assuming worldwide control of space in our absence.
Another four years of President Trump’s leadership would see Americans returning to the Moon and preparing for missions to Mars. Renewed support for space-based missile defense, the greatest-ever advances in commercial space, and setting an example that inspires students to work exploring the high frontier.
Art Harman contributed to this article. He is the president of the Coalition to Save Manned Space Exploration, SaveMannedSpace.com and @SaveMannedSpace.
From 2007-2010, Mark Vargas served as a civilian in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, traveling to Baghdad, Iraq, 14 times. Follow Mark on Twitter: @markavargas. Read Mark Vargas' Reports — Click Here Now.