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The White House has announced that Vice President Kamala Harris will lead the National Space Council, a sign that the Biden administration plans to keep former President Donald Trump’s space program intact.
"The council's basic objectives — national security, basic science, technological development, contributions to U.S. economic growth and the commercial sector — will all be maintained," a senior administration official told a group of reporters on Saturday. "To that, I would just want to add that the vice president also intends to put her own personal stamp on the council."
Harris’s position on the space council, which was revived in 2017 by the former president, will allow her to lead the country’s space policies and direct America’s activities in space.
The position will also allow Harris to pursue the "sustainable development of commercial space activity," as well as explore the possibilities for using such technology to combat climate change, the official added.
Harris will fill a vacancy left by former Vice President Mike Pence, but it is unclear how big of a role she intends to play.
"I think her approach to this is just going to be to get the job done and use this to lead our space policy and not really focus, perhaps as much, on big displays," the administration official said.
While the Biden and Trump administrations have offered different solutions to many of America’s political and social issues, they seem to be on the same page about the revival of America’s space exploration.
Within weeks of Biden taking office, the president said he would keep two signature components of Trump’s space plan — the Artemis program and the Space Force. The former is an initiative that would return astronauts to the moon’s surface, and the latter is the sixth branch of the U.S. military designed specifically to operate outside of Earth’s atmosphere.
“So, for those of you who have not been following it as closely, through the Artemis program, the United States government will work with industry and international partners to send astronauts to the surface of the moon (another man and a woman to the moon, which is very exciting) conduct new and exciting science, prepare for future missions to Mars, and demonstrate America’s values,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in February.
(MSN)
