Biden’s China space dilemma — Landmark legislation on protecting lunar landing sites — Artemis projects in trouble, GAO warns

Presented by Northrop Grumman: Delivered every Friday, POLITICO Space examines the policies and personalities shaping the second space age.

Dec 18, 2020 View in browser   By Jacqueline Feldscher Presented by Northrop Grumman With Bryan Bender Programming note: We'll be publishing next week on Wednesday, Dec. 23, ahead of the newsletter's winter break. We'll be back to our normal schedule on Jan. 8. Quick Fix — Advisers crafting President-elect Joe Biden's space policy have argued for cooperating with China in orbit. — A House bill to preserve lunar landing sites has implications for future commercial activity on the moon. — NASA's acquisition of systems to return humans to the moon faces "further risks," a government watchdog found. WELCOME TO POLITICO SPACE, our must-read briefing on the policies and personalities shaping the new space age in Washington and beyond. Email us at jklimas@politico.com or bbender@politico.com with tips, pitches and feedback, and find us on Twitter at @jacqklimas and @bryandbender. And don't forget to check out POLITICO's astropolitics page for articles, Q&As, opinion and more.   A message from Northrop Grumman: What if you could get a second chance in space? Revitalize a satellite when it's low on fuel? Or move a spacecraft to another location? In our mission to Define Possible in space, we've built a spacecraft that can do just that: MEV.   Space Spotlight PEACE THROUGH SPACE: Some of Biden's top space advisers have argued that it's important to cooperate with China in space, even as Beijing's behavior continues to threaten America in nearly every other area, we report in a deep dive available to our Pro subscribers. Despite China's theft of intellectual property, humans rights violations and weapons to threaten U.S. troops, "trying to exclude them I think is a failing strategy," Pam Melroy, a former astronaut who is serving on Biden's NASA transition team and is among those being considered to lead the space agency, told us before the election. "It's very important that we engage." One of the biggest barriers is Capitol Hill , where lawmakers imposed a ban on the two nations working together unless a mission is vetted by the FBI for any risks of data sharing. And the man behind that barrier — former Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) — doesn't think his namesake Wolf Amendment is going away any time soon. "China has taken a lot from the United States. China is catching up. We are still ahead of them, but they are catching up," he said. "China has more to learn from the U.S. than we have to learn from them. … So any cooperation would mean they take from us, not that we take from them." The U.S. used common pursuits in orbit to ease tensions with Russia on Earth during the Cold War, but the situation with Beijing is very different. Whereas the former Soviet Union was crippled and in need of American help, China would be coming to the U.S. as an almost equal, having already accomplished difficult missions like this week's return of lunar samples. "We could have sucked in a lot of their human spaceflight program , as we did with Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the Naval War College. "It's possible if not probable that the next transmission from the moon will be in Mandarin, and since the vast majority of space technology is dual use, they have reaped significant military space benefits from going off on their own." Some worry "we may have missed the window to cooperate with China," said Leroy Chiao, a Chinese-American astronaut. From the cutting room floor: Some juicy tidbits from interviews on international cooperation didn't make it into the final version of the article. One of our favorites came from astronaut Garrett Reisman. He recalled that astronauts get to choose just a couple holidays to celebrate during long-term stays in orbit. In 2008, Reisman and the rest of the International Space Station crew picked Victory Day, the Russian celebration of allied victory in World War II. That morning, when astronauts began their daily check in from ground stations around the globe, the former WWII allies confronted a little diplomatic conundrum. "Moscow always went first. They called up and said … 'Congratulations! Happy Victory Day!' So Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov responded, "I congratulate you too." Reisman continued the story: "The next one up was Houston and they got right in the act. … I looked at Sergey and I said, 'You know who's next, don't you? … It's Munich. What are you going to say to them?'" "He picked up the mic and said, 'Munich, this is the International Space Station. Our current atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi.'" 'Ceding leadership': But focusing too much on locking arms with China at the expense of enlisting other less developed nations could be a mistake, writes Brian Hart, a research associate specializing in China at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "NASA's approach to international cooperation has failed to reorient to a world in which access to space is increasingly affordable for developing countries," he says in a new paper. "Over half of NASA's agreements in 2018 were with the European Space Agency and five countries (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom). In other words, U.S. international cooperation in space is heavily concentrated in 24 wealthy countries, which are home to less than 9 percent of the global population and which already have a substantial presence in space." "While the U.S. is prioritizing relationships with nations that have highly-developed space programs," he adds, "China is building out partnerships with nations that have underdeveloped programs. If the U.S. does not reorient its focus, it risks ceding leadership in this critical domain to China."     Turning to Congress PRESERVING LUNAR LANDING SITES: It's one small step for future agreements governing neighborly relations in space. The House this week passed a bill to protect the Apollo landing sites on the lunar surface. It has major implications for preserving history but also commercial activities such as mining, according to Michelle Hanlon, the co-founder of For All Moonkind, a nonprofit focused on preserving historical sites in space. By requiring companies who want to partner with NASA not to disturb historic sites, it sets precedent for private actors to leave others' exploration equipment alone. There is currently no legal definition of what should be protected or how far away other spacecraft should operate from other players, Hanlon said. "We are starting to cement this concept of 'due regard' and understand what it means," she said. "Does due regard mean 10 kilometers or 100 meters away? What does it mean if I have an operational piece of equipment? What if I'm mining something? What does it mean to have due regard for that?" The Senate has its own version. The House legislation would require NASA's private partners to protect the Apollo landing site, while the Senate bill would make preserving historic locations a requirement for getting a federal license for space operations. Under the House plan, companies going to the moon without NASA would not be bound by the restrictions, Hanlon said. Rep. Kendra Horn (D-Okla.), one of the bill's co-sponsors, said on Wednesday that the Senate agreed to consider the House language after passage. That sets up the bill to be sent to the president's desk before the new Congress comes in Jan. 3. In Orbit 'FURTHER RISKS': NASA's management of acquisition programs has been designated as "high-risk" by the Government Accountability Office for three decades. And its main efforts to return humans to the moon are no different, the government watchdog warned in a new assessment this week. The Orion crew vehicle built by Lockheed Martin, the Space Launch System rocket developed by Boeing, and Exploration Ground Systems, which support the assembly, test, and launch of the two systems as well as recovery of the crew vehicle, all face significant delays and cost growth that could delay missions for years. "NASA is making progress on its multibillion dollar effort to transport humans beyond low-Earth orbit, but this progress has also been accompanied by extensive cost overruns and schedule delays for the SLS, Orion and EGS programs," the report found. "NASA is also facing further risks as it begins to commit billions of dollars to the development of future capability upgrades for these programs while mission requirements remain in flux." "... NASA currently lacks effective programmatic tools to maintain oversight and measure programs' cost and schedule performance for ongoing development efforts worth billions of dollars in support of future missions," it added. Compounding the problem is too much turnover at the space agency. "These challenges have also been exacerbated in some instances by NASA changing leadership responsible for the programs working on major development efforts," GAO said. NEW: "NASA Appropriations and Authorizations: A Fact Sheet," via the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. LOOK UP: Jupiter and Saturn are set to be the closest they've been in almost 400 years in a planetary conjunction that you can see with the naked eye. The Planetary Society has a viewing guide for how to spot the two planets almost touching just after sunset on Dec. 21.   A message from Northrop Grumman: Space missions have always lived on a fixed timeline. Satellites carry a limited supply of fuel, so it's always been accepted that they'll eventually have to be retired. But now that Northrop Grumman has created the revolutionary Mission Extension Vehicle, we've defined a new era of possible for your satellites. MEV provides propulsion, so expensive satellites no longer have to be decommissioned while they're still useful. MEV-2   Making Moves John Bailey, the associate director of Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, will become the new deputy director on Jan. 2, when current deputy director Randy Galloway retires. Mary Byrd, the director of the Center Operations Directorate at Stennis, will replace Bailey as associate director. Frank Culbertson, a retired Navy officer and astronaut, has joined the board of the Space Foundation. Reid Wiseman is the new chief of NASA's astronaut office. QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Congratulations to Clay Scott, an outside plant fiber planner, for being the first to correctly answer that Judith Resnick was the first Jewish American astronaut in space. This week's question: Who were the first three astronauts to celebrate Christmas in orbit? The first person to email jklimas@politico.com gets bragging rights and a shoutout in the next newsletter! Reading Room — What updates are needed for a 21st century space law framework: Real Clear Defense — Biden's space policy should not throw out Trump's success: Center for Strategic and International Studies — The White House unveiled a directive on using nuclear propulsion in orbit: Space News — The next Americans to walk on the moon could both be women, according to NASA's Kathy Lueders: TechCrunch — Japan brought home more asteroid material in Hayabusa2 spacecraft than it expected: Associated Press — SATIRE: It took Sen. Mitch McConnell a month to congratulate Biden on his victory, but it took him 50 years to commend Neil Armstrong for walking on the moon in this Borowitz Report: The New Yorker Event Horizon TODAY: NASA hosts a panel discussion on the 20th anniversary of humans continuously living on the International Space Station. MONDAY: The Mitchell Institute holds a virtual event with Brig. Gen. Brook Leonard, the chief of staff at U.S. Space Command.   Follow us on Twitter Bryan Bender @bryandbender Dave Brown @dave_brown24 Jacqueline Feldscher @jacqklimas   Follow us

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