Scott Pace, who served as Executive Secretary of the National Space Council in the Trump administration, has stepped down and returned to the George Washington University effective January 1.
In a statement issued on December 31, Dr Pace, who was also the Deputy Assistant to the President, said, “The leadership of the President in reviving the National Space Council and active chairmanship of the Vice President have made the past four years among the most ambitious and productive years for the United States space enterprise.”
“One of the primary strengths of the National Space Council was its ability to take a ‘whole of government’ approach to space policy where the interrelationships among civil, commercial and national security space are recognized and understood. This allowed for, I believe, a more integrated consideration of space issues that affect multiple national interests,” Dr Pace later told Geospatial World in an email interaction.
“This approach, in turn, ensured that space issues were not considered in isolation, but as part of larger, enduring national interests such as security, economic growth, scientific progress, and international relations,” he underlined.
He added that he didn’t know what the incoming Administration would do with respect to the Council. “I would point out, however, that unlike in prior instances (e.g., The George H.W. Bush Administration), the current Council has also received congressional support and has its own appropriated funds. Thus, keeping the Council will be up to the Congress as well as the President. Space has enjoyed solid bipartisan support from Congress so I am hopeful that space issues will continue to do well.”
It is still unclear whether the Biden Administration will continue with the National Space Council. The council was created in 1989 during the George H. Bush administration by the NASA Authorization Act, but was disbanded in 1993 when Bill Clinton took over. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama continued without the council, managing space policy through the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and National Security Council instead. President Trump re-established the Council in 2017 as part of the Executive Office of the President. It is chaired by Vice President Mike Pence.
Dr Pace said if asked he would be happy to provide counsel to anyone interested strengthening and improving the US space enterprise, but for now he planned to focus on research and teaching. He was the Director of the Space Policy Institute at GWU’s Elliott School of International Affairs before he was invited by President Trump to lead the Council.
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Streamlining policies
The Council has been very active throughout its term starting with the Space Policy Directive (SPD-1) in December 2017, followed by the National Space Strategy in March 2018 underlining the strategy to implement national security, commercial and civil space policy. The Space Policy Directive-2 came in May aimed at streamlining regulations on commercial use of Space, followed by the Space Policy Directive-3 in June 2018, which sought toestablish agency roles and responsibilities for space situational awareness and space traffic management. Space Policy Directive-4 was announced on February 2019 that proposed the establishment of a US Space Force as part of the US Air Force.
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Year 2020 in particular was very active for the administration in terms of its space policy activities. Executive Order on Strengthening National Resilience through Responsible Use of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Services came in February 2020 that called for ensuring that disruption or manipulation of PNT services did not undermine the reliable and efficient functioning of its critical infrastructure, while simultaneously increase the awareness of the extent to which critical infrastructure depends on PNT services.
The Executive Order on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources was unveiled in April that spelt out the national policy on mining space resources especially with regard to commercial exploration, recovery and use of such resources. In May, the Department of Commerce released a set of new regulations to support US leadership in commercial satellite remote sensing industry, which found widespread support from the industry.
A New Era for Deep Space Exploration and Development, a document from the White House and National Space Council, was released in June laying out the Administration’s rationale for deep space human exploration. This was followed by the Space Policy Directive 5 in September that spelt out the cybersecurity principles for Space systems.
The administration rounded it up all with a National Space Policy on December 9, which updated the 2010 National Space Policy. The policy recognizes the significance of the rapidly growing commercial space industry within the country and calls for driving America’s leadership in space commerce, while underlining the security aspects of it. On December 16, it issued Space Policy Directive-6 that lays out a National Strategy for Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion.
