Crafting a Democratic space policy in the Trump era

In space policy today, Republican views dominate. The party holds majorities in the House and Senate, while the White House is stretching — or breaking — the limits of executive power. Democratic views on space are largely couched in terms of opposition to White House initiatives, such as proposed cuts in NASA’s budget or efforts to break up unions at the agency.

If recent events have shown what Democrats oppose in space policy, what do they support? A panel at the New Liberal Action Summit in Washington Oct. 21 made the case that the party should back an ambitious space program with roles for both the government and the private sector.

“At a time when the role of government in our world is, I would say, under attack, space is a very interesting landscape to evaluate how parties and groups are thinking about government,” said one panelist, Rep. George Whitesides (D-Calif.), vice ranking member of the House Science Committee.

Citing the Apollo program as “the greatest example of government doing a big thing,” he said that a strong, well-balanced space program — spanning science and exploration — could show that government is capable of tackling other major challenges, from climate change to the rise of China.

“It’s a really important place to make a stand, to say that science matters, to say that the federal government could do big things,” he said. “We need places where we can come together as Americans to say we can do big things together that inspire us as a people.”

Rich DalBello, who was director of the Office of Space Commerce in the Biden administration, specifically backed “a renewed commitment to the Artemis program, not as some kind of nostalgia project, but as a generational commitment to a really long-term lunar activity and economy.”

He called on Democrats to also support commercial space. “The one area that would be a positive thing for the Democrats to own is this incredible explosion of commercial space activities,” he said, likening it to the dot-com boom of the 1990s.

“One of the great fears is, somehow, the Democrats just want to regulate,” he said, pointing instead to regulatory reform efforts in the Biden administration. “This is an important issue, and one where it would be great to put a Democratic stamp on it.”

“What makes the United States such an incredibly exciting place to be doing space activities is a well-thought-out strategy that takes advantage of the best of the private sector and government,” Whitesides said. “It really can’t be all one or the other.”

That message, the panel said, needed to be spread to wider audiences. “We need to talk to more young people,” said Poppy Northcutt, who was the first woman to work in Mission Control during the Apollo program and later was involved in the Democratic Party in Texas. “They find space exciting — I don’t blame them, it is exciting — so we need to talk.”

That outreach should extend to other groups, she argued. “We need all of our community to be able to see themselves as participating in this great frontier that’s out there with this great opportunity.”

The 45-minute panel did not delve deep into policy specifics. DalBello offered a few suggestions, from supporting continued work on a space traffic coordination system — which he oversaw at the Office of Space Commerce but is now in jeopardy — to reconsidering cooperation with China. “We engaged with Russia at multiple times during our very fraught history with the Soviet Union,” he said. “We can intelligently engage with China.”

The panel, though, could not escape reacting to the current administration, including the damage they see it doing to NASA through budget cuts and workforce reductions.

“Someday, this administration will be gone, and we will have to repair the damage, and we will have to rebuild these programs,” Whitesides said. “We will have to reweave a common sense of support and purpose for these things.” That will have to include explaining not just what you’re against regarding space policy, but also what you’re for.

This article first appeared in the November 2025 issue of SpaceNews Magazine.