When President Trump re-established the National Space Council (JFK had been the initiator), we had a clear and bold vision: we wanted to return America to the Moon, go to Mars, and ensure American economic and military superiority in space. By the end of President Trump's term, the U.S. Space Force was launched, Artemis manned missions to the Moon were on track, and our commercial partnerships were thriving.
Now, as chair of the National Space Council, Vice President Kamala Harris has destroyed everything the Trump Administration built. The Boeing Starliner debacle is just the tip of her iceberg.
The fiasco means the two astronauts on a short mission to the International Space Station (ISS) won't be able to return until February 2025. If they do return, they'll have to ride in Elon Musk's SpaceX capsule rather than the ill-fated Starliner.
As head of the Space Council, Kamala must bear a great deal of the blame. Under the Trump Administration, Boeing and other commercial partners knew very well that they had a leadership team that could not tolerate such delays or failures. Under Chairman Kamala, the wheels and the rocket have come off. There is no accountability, no urgency, no planning.
To understand the extent to which Kamala is responsible for Starliner, one only needs to take a quick look inside the National Space Council. Under the Trump administration, it held eight major meetings, all of which were public, substantive, and included real questions and answers. The Space Council was not a formal meeting, it was policy-making.
By contrast, Harris has held the legally required three meetings, the last of which was hastily convened in December, when she quickly delivered her scheduled opening statement and then walked out, presumably to plot her path to the presidency and try to defeat Joe Biden.
Memo to American voters: This is the second time Kamala Harris has abdicated a major responsibility. The first time was as Secretary of State for Border Affairs. What's going on?
Kamala Harris also destroyed another key part of our nation's space strategy: the Space Council's Users Advisory Group (UAG), a group made up of space industry, academia, and other relevant sectors whose mission is to bring expertise on everything from satellite technology and space exploration to commercial space activity and national security.
But now, with Kamala Harris at the helm, the people who should be driving innovation are wasting their time in scripted meetings. Under Trump, these same people were collaborators in making America a space leader. Now they're just frustrated bystanders.
NASA is also in disarray: The Artemis program, the crown jewel of President Trump's space program, is now facing endless delays, and a moon landing is now expected to arrive in 2026 at the earliest, rather than 2024 — and that's if you believe the most optimistic projections.
Meanwhile, Red China is on its way to turning the moon red by 2030. If Kamala Harris is elected President and unashamed China fan, Comrade Tim Waltz, becomes Vice President and the next Chairman of the Space Council, not only will China reach the moon before us, Waltz will be cheering for China.
Harris' involvement in NASA science missions is one of the Kamala disasters. Look at the Mars Sample Return Mission. Under Trump, it was a $7 billion project. Expensive, yes, but manageable. Now? It's ballooned to $11 billion and Congress won't even fund it. NASA is asking industry for new proposals just to save the day. So what is Harris doing? Absolutely nothing.
And let's not forget that the International Space Station has now become a hotbed of tension, due to the Biden-Harris administration's weak response to the Ukraine crisis. Russia first announced it would withdraw, then backtracked. Now uncertainty plagues us.
Meanwhile, a commercial replacement for the ISS is lagging, potentially creating a “space station gap.” Meanwhile, China is moving full steam ahead, expanding its space station and attracting partners around the world. So what has Harris done? He has done nothing to counter China's reckless behavior in space, from testing anti-satellite weapons to dangerous out-of-control rocket re-entries.
This, my friends, is what failure looks like, and its name is written big and bold in the sky: Kamala Harris. Harris has only one policy directive for the Space Council, and is completely uninvolved in the issues that matter most. Her public comments are tiresome, from telling Space Force guardians that “space is exciting” to, even worse, appearing in a space-staging video with child actors imitating Mr. Rogers. This is the work of an amateur, and it's doing us a disservice.
In contrast, Donald Trump has issued six major space policy directives, created an active Space Force, and established clear and demonstrably achievable paths to the Moon and Mars. With J.D. Vance leading the Space Council as President Trump's Vice President, Trump 2.0 will restore NASA leadership, hold commercial partners accountable, and reassert U.S. primacy in space exploration.
Donald Trump is going to win the space race. Kamala Harris is doing everything she can to lose. That's it.
Peter Navarro served as a top adviser to Donald Trump. His new book The New MAGA Pact The final chapter, “America Does Not Sleep by the Moonlight of Communist China,” goes into more detail about the space race.
The views and opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
