Obama gutted NASA. Here are 3 ways Trump can make space … – Conservative Review

Late last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla. (A, 97%) was seen as the top choice for NASA chief. The announcement has not yet happened, but if Bridenstine is appointed and confirmed, that would mean another member of the House Freedom Caucus joins the Trump administration along with OMB nominee Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C. (A, 94%).

Nominating another solid conservative to be in the Trump administration would also show a commitment to an efficient and effective space program moving forward. NASA has had problems over the past few years with mission creep from space exploration to studying global warming. Hopefully, the Trump administration can get NASA back on track to focus on space exploration.

Maybe this is a new era for NASA. President Donald Trump mentioned space in his inaugural address, and conservatives hope that the future of space exploration is one that stresses fiscal sanity and stays away from mission creep that takes funding away from NASAs core function.

A conservative approach to NASA and space exploration should contain three elements in the Trump administration.

Space News reported on January 3, 2017:

Bridenstine, an Oklahoma Republican active on space issues in the House, has reportedly talked with Vice President-elect Mike Pence about the position, although no final decision has been made by the transition team. Bridenstines name has been under discussion for the position since immediately after the election, along with several other individuals.

Bridenstine is qualified for the position. His biography references his Naval aviation career flying the E-2C Hawkeye off the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. Bridenstine flew combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and gathered most of his 1,900 flight hours and 333 carrier-arrested landings. While on active duty, he transitioned to the F-18 Hornet and flew at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, the parent command to TOPGUN. This is a member who has practical experience flying.

After he left active duty, Bridenstine returned to Tulsa to be the Executive Director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium. Bridenstine recently transitioned to the 137th Air Refueling Wing of the Oklahoma Air National Guard, where he will fly with an MC-12 squadron stationed at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City. His bio also mentions that he is on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Pretty amazing for a member of Congress to both have practical and political experience for the job of NASA administrator.

In addition to his qualifications, Bridenstine is a solid conservative member who has a high score on the Conservative Review Liberty Score. Bridenstine ran a Tea Party-style candidacy in the first district of Oklahoma against an incumbent establishment Republican in 2012 and won. Bridenstines first vote in Congress was against John Boehner for Speaker of the House, and he has been a constant thorn in the side of the establishment wing of the Republican Party. More points to Bridenstine for being a conservative leader in the House.

Putting a solid conservative who wants to drain the Washington swamp is a great first step to getting NASA back on track.

NASA was created to conduct space missions, not to study the impact of global warming on the planet. I cant think of a mission more removed from space exploration than the study of Earths climate change, yet President Obama increased funding for NASAs Earth Science budget from $1.38 to $1.77 billion.

NASA should focus less on the study of Earths temperatures and use those resources to conduct missions to other planets. NASA funding for climate change research should, at a minimum, be dramatically reduced.

Prominent conservatives who support NASA agree. The Atlantic reported on May 7, 2015, that two members expressed support for shifting resources at NASA from global warming studies to space exploration:

House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, last week moved a two-year NASA bill through his committee that would shift money away from the Earth Science program to spend on planetary exploration. "There are 13 other agencies involved in climate-change research, but only one that is responsible for space exploration," Smith said at a recent hearing.

Sen. Ted Cruz, another Texan, who oversees the Commerce subcommittee in charge of NASA, has likewise said it's time for NASA to refocus on space exploration. At ahearing earlier this year, Cruz said that the "core function of NASA is to explore space" and "NASA in the current environment has lost its full focus on that core mission."

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas (F, 58%) and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%) are correct, and Bridenstine would seem to be the perfect nominee to right the NASA ship.

Other nations are competing with the American space industry, and it is important that the U.S. keep a close eye on China when formulating space policy. NASA is not focused on using space exploration as a national security tool, yet NASA resources should be used for those purposes by the defense and intelligence apparatuses of the U.S. government.

NASA should be careful when allowing foreign interests to launch in the U.S. and should especially be wary of China. Dean Cheng of The Heritage Foundation worries that the communist Chinese are battling the U.S. for military domination of space. Although not a mission of NASA, it is impossible to have a space program that does not coordinate with the defense and intelligence arms of the federal government to ensure that the Trump administration keeps America safe from threats coming from space.

China is intent on dominating space. Chengs testified before the House Subcommittee on Space and published in a Heritage Foundation paper titled U.S. China Competition in Space on September 27, 2016:

All of these developments reflect the reality that the U.S. and China are engaged in a competition regarding the ability to access and exploit space in support of national security objectives. For the Chinese, it seems clear that they hope to limit our ability to employ space systems, while ideally preserving their own capacity. This is an asymmetric situation, however, because the United States is far more reliant on space to conduct military operations than the PRC. Most American conflicts, after all, occur at a significant distance from our own shores and the Western Hemisphere. Communications, intelligence gathering, even weather prediction all rely more on space assets.

Any NASA missions to Mars or other space exploration will be answered by missions from China and other superpowers. Expect that NASA will again become a symbol of American exceptionalism, like it was during the Kennedy administration that pitted the U.S. against the U.S.S.R. in the race to put a man on the moon.

Putting a solid conservative in as administrator of NASA, retooling the mission, and making America first a core policy of the agency will all go a long way to restoring the vision of NASA that has kept that program in the hearts and minds of Americans who fondly remember the space race and the space shuttle missions from the Reagan years.

Brian Darling is a former staffer for Sen. Rand Paul. Follow him on Twitter @BrianHDarling.