NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he plans to resign from his role with the agency under a Biden administration.
“The right question here is, ‘What’s in the best interest of NASA as an agency, and what’s in the best interest of America’s exploration program?’” Bridenstine told Aerospace Daily. “You need somebody who is trusted by the administration … including the [Office of Management and Budget], the National Space Council, and the National Security Council, and I think that I would not be the right person for that in a new administration.”
The Associated Press, Fox News, and a number of other major news outlets called the presidential race on Saturday in favor of Joe Biden. President Trump is contesting the results in a number of states, including key battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona. The president would need to find sufficient evidence to shift the results from multiple states in his favor, given the current Electoral College calculus. Barring that, Biden is poised to lock up 306 electoral votes, well past the 270 needed to clinch the White House.
“We’ve had a lot of success, but it’s because of relationships,” Bridenstine said. “You have to have those relationships. Whoever the president is, they have to have somebody they know and trust and somebody the administration trusts. That person is not going to be me.”
Trump selected Bridenstine, who was a GOP congressman from Oklahoma, to lead the space agency in late 2017. His nomination was criticized on both sides of the political aisle, given his lack of technical and scientific experience. Sen. Marco Rubio and then-Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, a Republican and a Democrat, respectively, said that the agency should be led by a “space professional.” Though he was on the Armed Services and Science, Space, and Technology committees, Bridenstine has a degree in business. Before his political career, Bridenstine was the executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum and Planetarium, according to Science.
Bridenstine led NASA as it launched its Artemis program, a two-phase lunar exploration plan that relies on a number of public-private partnerships to land astronauts on the moon by 2024 and eventually establish a sustained human presence on its surface. Eventually, the Artemis program aims to launch a human-crewed mission to Mars. He said he’s confident that there is bipartisan support to continue NASA’s missions.
“There is a political agreement that America needs to do big things in space exploration, that we need to lead the world,” Bridenstine said. “There have been lessons learned from the past, and I think Congress is in a good position to make sure that we have sustainable programs going forward.
