Is Trump-Musk bonhomie bad news for space sustainability?

Elon Musk’s influence over the Donald Trump administration means that the new regime could block and destabilise any global momentum to regulate the responsible behaviour of private entities in outer space and deprioritise space sustainability and planetary protection.

An overwhelming number of Americans have voted for Donald Trump, and he is all set to take charge of the Office of the President of the United States for the second time. The US is still a focal point of global politics, and the election’s implications will radiate across the global community.

Is it a rejection of liberal values, a new era of democratic authoritarianism, or a new world order in the making — these questions will be answered in the coming years. However, something that raised eyebrows during the campaign was the outsized role and multi-faceted support of tech-mogul and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.

 According to the Federal Election Commission, Musk donated $132M to Trump and other Republicans, in addition to unreported donations and controversial cash giveaways in key swing states. Moments before Trump won, Elon wrote on X, ‘The future’s going to be fantastic’ along with a picture of a SpaceX rocket.

It is speculated that Musk, who will lead Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, will wield clout as a major government contractor. Experts fear that he would end up regulating the regulators. Trump, during his campaign, echoed support and showered praise for SpaceX multiple times. Most notably, he called upon Musk to “get those rocket ships going because we want to reach Mars before the end of my term.”

 Trump’s campaign focused on the deregulation of US industries, an issue Musk has been voicing over the last few years. Trump announced that he planned to put Musk at the helm of a new ‘department of government efficiency’. As a response, Musk wrote on X, “there is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go”. In September, Musk called for the resignation of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief and threatened to sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach” after the administration fined SpaceX for two launch violations.

 Trump’s last tenure received tremendous support from US space investors. As per the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the space economy accounts for $131.8B. NASA’s latest economic impact report shows that its activities contributed $75.6B to the US economy in FY2023. The large investments, the role of commercial players, and the capacity to shape global space policy put the US at the centre of space leadership.

Trump, in his last term, established the US Space Force and re-established the US Space Command, as well as the National Space Council, to support the development and operation of military space technologies.

 Trump has also actively encouraged commercial actors in his last term, and Musk’s plans for sending humans beyond the Earth’s orbit will undoubtedly get the new administration’s support. In 2020, in his campaign video, he lauded his role in the SpaceX Demo-2 mission.

Musk’s influence over Trump could help advance his business interests, including sending the first crewed mission to Mars. The Artemis Accords programme initiated by NASA has 47 member states (as of November 10) and is reshaping the international space law discourse. This programme is set to return astronauts to the Moon and lay the groundwork for the first crewed mission to Mars.

SpaceX would be pivotal for the Artemis programme’s human Moon landing and Mars mission. NASA intends to use its Orion spaceship and Space Launch System to send four astronauts towards the Moon. For the first time since 1972, the ship would arrive in lunar orbit and meet up with SpaceX’s Starship, which would carry two humans to the Moon’s surface. Musk, who was often spotted at the Trump rally wearing an ‘Occupy Mars’ t-shirt, also means that SpaceX would push for governmental support for his vision of putting people on Mars, thereby increasing the co-dependency between NASA and SpaceX. It is also important to note that SpaceX is NASA’s second-largest contractor at $2.25B in FY2023. It would certainly become the largest in the coming years.

While the commercialisation of outer space will shape the US space policy during Trump’s tenure, debates on space sustainability are bound to suffer. Climate Change negotiations will be attacked vociferously. Trump’s campaign echoed the undoing of the Joe Biden administration’s subsidies on green energy, the second withdrawal from the Paris pact, and even a US withdrawal from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

In June 2019, following an eight-year process, the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space adopted a set of 21 guidelines for the long-term sustainability of outer space activities. It allows for flexibility in adapting sustainable practices and frameworks to specific national circumstances. The success of the guidelines will depend on national regulations, oversight, and monitoring. While Musk was the poster boy for green energy a few years back, SpaceX’s Starlink mega-constellation is responsible for 40% of disused satellites burning up in Earth’s atmosphere and clutter incinerated in Earth’s atmosphere. SpaceX’s Starlink constellation flies about 6,500 of the spacecraft, and it aims to have a fleet of more than 40,000 satellites in the coming years.

Article VI of the UN Outer Space Treaty 1967 says that States shall bear international responsibility for activities carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities. What if the State itself is a beneficiary of violations by private activities? Will SpaceX be too powerful to be regulated? Musk’s influence over the Trump administration also means that the new regime could block and destabilise any global momentum to regulate the responsible behaviour of private entities in outer space and deprioritise space sustainability and planetary protection.

With Trump reclaiming power, it seems sustainability efforts could face turbulence not just on Earth but also in space.

(Adithya Variath is an OICSD Scholar, University of Oxford, and was Head of the Centre for Research in Air and Space Laws, Maharashtra National Law University, Mumbai.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.