Recently, Keith Cowing at NASA Watch reported that Kendra Horn, a one-term Democratic member of Congress defeated for reelection in 2020, was about to be named President Joe Biden’s executive secretary of the National Space Council. The news caused quite a bit of consternation on social media. A typical reaction came from Laura Seward Forczyk, a space analyst: “I have serious reservations about Kendra Horn’s anti-public private partnership stance and her unwillingness to listen to her own hearing witnesses regarding NASA’s Human Landing System contract approach.”
Last year, Horn was the principal sponsor of H.R. 5666, a NASA authorization bill that would have gutted the Artemis program, ending commercial partnerships for the Human Landing System and prohibiting a lunar base and the use of lunar resources to sustain astronauts on the lunar surface. Artemis would become a series of Apollo-style sorties designed solely to support a human mission to Mars. Opposition to the bill was so intense and widespread that it did not advance beyond Horn’s subcommittee.
Cowing subsequently reported that Horn’s name was being advanced by senior Biden adviser Cedric Richmond, but not everyone in the White House is happy about the possible appointment. Also, it is not a done deal — at least not yet.
On close examination, it is not surprising that some people at the White House are unhappy about Horn’s possible appointment. The Biden administration has embraced the Artemis program wholeheartedly, even though it was started by former President Donald Trump. The Artemis program includes commercial partnerships, the establishment of a permanent base on the moon, and the development of lunar resources. Unless Horn has undergone a complete reevaluation of her positions on those aspects of Artemis, she should not be the executive secretary of the National Space Council.
One recent example exists of a rather extreme flip-flop on commercial space. Bill Nelson opposed commercial space partnerships when he was a senator. Now that he is NASA administrator, he supports such arrangements, even claiming, somewhat incredibly, that he has always supported commercial partnerships.
Horn, on the other hand, has not repudiated H.R. 5666 despite the universally negative reaction it received. Unless she does so, she would be seen as a fox in the henhouse where space policy is concerned at the National Space Council.
Artemis should not become a redo of Apollo, which is what Horn’s legislation would have made it. Apollo was a glorious undertaking, the benefits of which continue decades later. But Artemis, as conceived during the Trump administration and supported by the Biden administration, is so much more than Apollo 2.0. A permanent base on the moon would become a center of science and commerce that would benefit all of human civilization. Mining lunar resources, including rare earth minerals and possible helium-3, would jump-start a space-based economy and aid in the effort to deal with human-caused climate change.
NASA is contemplating building a radio telescope on the far side of the moon. Such a facility could peer into the distant past of the universe and study space in ways that are currently beyond evaluation. A permanent lunar base is needed to support such an undertaking.
Finally, a lunar base would serve some of the soft power aspects that the International Space Station facilitates. Artemis is an international effort. If a country is part of the Artemis Alliance, then its astronauts will be able to conduct tours of duty at the lunar base. The message will be: If one is a friend of the United States, great things are possible.
Fortunately, several candidates are available to be selected as executive secretary of the National Space Council who, unlike Horn, are not tainted by politics or dubious space policy positions.
Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration titled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars, and Beyond. He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
