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President Donald Trump’s newest executive order on the commercial space industry brings to mind the competitive nature of the 20th-century Space Race, only this time, America is firmly in the driver’s seat in the battle for space supremacy.
On Thursday, the president’s newest EO focused on enabling competition in the commercial space industry, aiming toward achieving “American greatness in space” by cutting regulatory red tape and accelerating permitting processes for U.S. companies. Importantly, it also seeks to expedite rocket launches by speeding up cumbersome environmental review processes.
“To accomplish this, the Federal Government will streamline commercial license and permit approvals for United States-based operators,” the EO read.
The order also directs the Secretary of Defense, Transportation, and the Administrator of NASA to “align their review processes to eliminate duplicative regulations and expedite spaceport development.”
Additionally, the action “mandates the creation of a streamlined process” for space activities or missions, with special attention by the Secretary of Transportation to speeding up infamously slow EPA reviews.
While the United States has not put a man on the moon since 1972, perhaps President Trump has set in motion an apparatus that could soon return American astronauts to Earth’s nearest galactic neighbor.
“It is imperative that we build on the far-reaching actions taken by my Administration during my first term to ensure that new space-based industries, space exploration capabilities, and cutting-edge defense systems are pioneered in America rather than by our adversaries,” the president said in his executive order.
In 2019, Trump created a new branch of the armed forces, the U.S. Space Force, which aimed to beef up American military presence and capabilities beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
His 2025 executive action on the industrialization of space will allow American operators to expand and reach innovative objectives by 2030. Importantly, this EO also seems to wrest considerable regulatory control away from NASA and move it toward a market-led ecosystem.
