Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Space Policy Edition: Are Democrats falling behind on space policy?

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

Have Democrats ceded leadership in space policy? That’s what Mary Guenther believes. She’s the Director of Space Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute and the author of an editorial that claims Democrats have ceded their leadership. She traces the party’s arc from Obama-era reforms to recent data showing that Democrats introduced a third fewer space bills than Republicans in recent years, and proposes ways that the party should embrace this forward-looking field while tying it to their core issues of job creation, supply chains, and climate science.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello and welcome to the Space Policy edition of Planetary Radio. I'm Casey Dreyer, the Chief of Space Policy here at the Planetary Society. Between 2009 to 2011, the early years of Barack Obama's presidency, U.S. space policy went through some dramatic changes. The administration canceled the Constellation Program, the effort to return humans to the moon that began under George W. Bush. They oversaw the end of the space shuttle program and made, perhaps most notably, an aggressive push to support commercial partnerships for not just cargo, but newly crew to the International

Space Station. Pushing these policies through took a lot of work and dramatically changed the course of NASA and space flight in this country. They also codified many of these changes into National Space Policy Framework that they released and the NASA Authorization Act passed by a Democratic-led Congress in 2010. Again, these policies around commercial investment and commercial partnerships fundamentally transformed that market and frankly fundamentally transformed the idea and the role of commercial partners in spaceflight, not just in the United States, but around the world.

Obviously, with the billions of dollars of contracts and investments made by NASA, companies like SpaceX and most notably SpaceX went on to fundamentally revolutionize various technologies of launch and overturn the existing dynamics of launch markets in the United States and worldwide. In recent years though, the number of new policies put forward by democratic leaning groups and administrations and members of Congress has declined somewhat. And the Biden administration in particular

had a relatively lower key approach to space policy than their predecessors in the Trump administration, which went very strong into not just commercial partnerships, but lots of new policy ideas and a reinvigorated national space council that crossed the gamut of a variety of commercial, civil and defense-related space policy reforms. Now, this is not to say that there wasn't good policy

released by the White House in the last few years under the Biden administration. There was, and we featured interviews with several of those individuals on the show. But, and I'd say particularly after the launches of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson in 2021 from private spaceflight, there has at least been a vibe or a seeming change and shift within the Democratic Party about its relationship to the commercial space sector and maybe space more broadly. Mary Gunther is the inaugural director of space policy at the Progressive Policy Institute. She's also a former professional committee staff member in the US Senate that covered space and science topics. Recently, she published an op-ed with this great provocative title in the payload

space newsletter called Democrats Have Seeded Leadership on Space Policy. I, of course, had to have her on the show to talk about this and why she thinks this is happening, but she points to a number that's very important that quantifies some of the claims that I made earlier. In the last few years, Democrats have introduced at least a third fewer space related bills in Congress than Republicans have. Now before we really go into what's going on here, and before we dive into her arguments of this article, I need to make a few things very clear. First is that the Planetary Society is a nonpartisan organization, we're a nonprofit, and this is legally the case, but it's also foundational and philosophically important for us.

So this discussion is not taking the predicate that democratic space policy priorities are better or more important than Republican ones, but rather it's an exploration about why one of the two major parties in the United States may be pulling back from an issue that should be literally and figuratively universal. universal. If there is not engagement on this issue by both parties, by definition, it cannot remain bipartisan or nonpartisan. If space policy becomes or is even perceived as an issue that's only relevant to one party's interests, that perception builds and snowballs and ultimately could turn something that is nonpartisan and shouldn't be partisan like space into a partisan seeming one, which would be a terrible outcome for the nation and for policy in general in space.

So this will be, I think, a very interesting opportunity to examine why one party and its real changing relationship with space as space grows and particularly the commercial sector grows in capability and size and influence and how those have shifted over time within this. Remember it was Obama administration, Obama himself walking with Elon Musk around Kennedy Space Center in 2010 and Republican standing against SpaceX at the time. Think of how different that is today. Before we get into this discussion, I need to say, the planetary society, because we

are non-profit, because we are non-partisan, we don't take investments from big aerospace companies, we don't take government money, we are independent. And what enables us to do shows like this, to our great policy work or education work all of our activities They are funded by individuals individuals like you. Hopefully if you're a member, thank you. But if you're not a member Here's an opportunity and something that I just want to ask before we go into the show that we put out for free Which is to consider becoming one planetary.org Join as a way to do it.

Starts at just four bucks a month. I think that's cheaper than most cups of coffee you can get this day and age. But at the end of the day, starting at four bucks a month, or you can give us specific donations to different programs at planetary.org slash donate, that enables this type of work to happen and enables a vigorous and engaged and vocal organization

enables a vigorous and engaged and vocal organization that is independent and represents you, people around the world who love space and share our values of exploration, scientific discovery, and just a broad universal approach to making ourselves better by going into this vast and exciting unknown. I hope you consider becoming a member or donating to support our great work. And if again, if you are and have done so already, thank you so much. This literally cannot happen without you. And now, here's my conversation with Mary Gunther. Mary Gunther, welcome to the Space Policy edition of Planetary Radio.

I'm happy to have you here. Thank you so much for having me, Kasey. Looking forward to our conversation. Absolutely. So this is something that's also been on my mind quite a bit over the last few years in particular. We have two primary parties in the United States and I want both of them to have really good space policy ideas, but

you had an essay that came out that sparked this invite to the show this month called Democrats have seeded leadership on space policy. So first of all congrats on having a great bold headline that gets right to the point. But what prompted you to write this piece? What's happened in the sense that Democrats have seeded this leadership? What's happened in the sense that Democrats have ceded this leadership? Yeah, so what sparked this was a great gathering by my organization in Denver called New Directions for Democrats. And it brought together some phenomenal public figures from really across the country talking about what does the future of the Democratic Party look like from our perspective,

and how do we rebuild after the election that just passed and think about what went well, what went wrong, given that we did lose a substantial amount of ground within the electoral context. And naturally thinking about how space fits into that picture. And I'm lucky to be the first ever head of space policy at PPI. It's been great to see them engaging on this topic. And so a lot of, you know, returning to some more partisan roots of mine, that being stemmed from being on the Democratic staff of the Senate Commerce Committee, but how we translate the importance of space and a smart space policy to a Democratic audience. And I kept trying to

point to and highlight, you know, who are the best public figures, whether they're elected or not, to kind of highlight within our programming, within our salon dinners, things like that. And having just stopped being a bipartisan lobbyist, I kind of was looking around and saying, oh, you know, not that there's no one out there. There certainly are some prominent figures. But the list is shorter than I certainly would have liked. And so if anything for me, that was a rallying cry, one

that I wanted to communicate to a broader audience and say, hey guys, you know, not only Houston do we have a problem as a party, generally, you know, with the electorate, but I think within the space policy context, we've really backed off of some leadership in that space, not because Democrats have done nothing for the past, you know, four years, six years, eight years, what have you, but because we're seeing Republicans really take ownership of this issue through actions and through messaging in a way that, you know, happy for my Republican colleagues, but wanted to make sure that we were paying attention to and kind of nipping in the bud, so to speak, so that we didn't backslide and kind of fade out

of this policy issue in a way that made it more partisan than it should be, in my opinion. Yeah, we'll get to the partisanship aspect. And what was interesting about this, you had a great, quoted a great number in your piece that said that Democrats led space legislation 30% less often than Republicans. And of what they did, they weren't

engaging in the breadth of topics that Republicans have laid out proposals for. What's your kind of model for why that's the case? Can we add a little more detail on this? Like, what would Democrats generally focus on when they did talk about legislation? And then what would Republicans broadly more address? Yeah, absolutely.

So looking at the breadth of space policy legislation in the last Congress, which is what I was analyzing, a lot of the dumb pieces of policy were, and this is a generalization, of course, focused on science, focused on STEM, whereas I saw Republican legislation talking about regulations, talking about NASA policy, putting together big packages, many you know, talking about regulations, talking about NASA policy, putting together big packages, many of which, to be fair, were bipartisan and had some Democratic engagement, but they were not being kind

of led and championed by Democrats, broadly speaking. So when I said that, you know, I was referring to, I think, science, STEM, regulatory streamlining, all of that is important for our industry and for space policy generally, but when we have the parties kind of specializing in certain areas, I think it really takes away from the dialogue about what a smart policy looks like and takes away from a lot of the permanence as well of what that policy is. We're seeing right now this administration think about potentially making major modifications to

the Artemis program, which has had bipartisan support heretofore, which is concerning because these space missions take many years, if not a decade plus, to really come to fruition. So if you don't have both parties at the table having the conversation, driving what a program looks like and having strong bipartisan buy-in to what that program should look like, we're never going to have a program that is successful and is able to reach the goals that we all want to see them reach. So really, it's concerning from the perspective of permanence, of having some clarity on where we're going, and having that vision be something

that is an American vision, not a Democrat vision or a Republican vision or a third party vision, so to speak. This is interesting, too. And you mentioned this in your piece as well, that in the past, Democrats have been quite bold on space vision, so to speak. This is interesting too, and you mentioned this in your piece as well, that I mean, in the past, Democrats have been quite bold on space policy, notably John F. Kennedy proposing the Apollo program and Lyndon Johnson both executing it, but also being, I think, one of the lead politicians on space policy at the birth of the space age.

Very recently, you had under Obama's administration, kind of almost an inverted level of focus where they really pushed through the big embrace of commercial space and commercial partnerships, most notably with SpaceX building out the commercial crew program. Did something change after Obama era that you see this type of reaction? Did something predicate this? Did it become unpalatable? And let's put the whole Elon Musk question to the side just for a second, because I think that's a part of this. But beyond that, did something shift in the Democratic Party

about what priorities were? Did something happen elsewhere? Where do you see this change happening? I've been thinking about and trying to pinpoint the exact moment myself. I don't know that I can pinpoint the exact thing, but some of the forces that played into this from my perspective, we saw Trump and his first administration really embrace space in a big way, right? The space council came back. There were a series of regulatory streamlining initiatives. The Artemis program was revitalized and named, obviously, and

pushed forward. That's wonderful. But during that administration, I think we also saw a lot of the congressional leaders who had been traditional space policy champions. I'm thinking of my former boss, you know, Senator Bill Nelson, who lost his election during that administration, folks like Ed Perlmutter, who lost their election, right? A lot of the congressional champions that we had, who had served, you know, wonderful long careers on the Hill and had talked to their colleagues frequently about the importance of space and really drove progress on these issues also lost their elections that were no longer there.

So I think what we saw is electorally, Republicans really seized the issue and the electoral benefit from it. At the same time, Democrats, for better or for worse, who were very supportive of space, were not winning their elections for likely very unrelated reasons. And so I think it was hard to come back from that. And I think that is a lot of the origin of what we've seen, is it was less an intentional choice and more

than a lot of the forces surrounding that changing in such a way that Democrats were quieter on the issues and Republicans had surged forward in their support, leaving us in the dust, so to speak. I'd like to posit maybe a broader structural shift as well. And I'm curious to hear your response to this, which is, maybe after the Obama era, and there's a lot of this

is kind of reactive politics. I think you brought up the first Trump administration, not besides space policy, relatively divisive, particularly for Democrats. Things like space policy, they're not firmly grounded in ideology generally, and so they can shift and move around based on relative areas of focus depending on

which party is really talking about it or not. But I wonder also if in the Democratic Party, you know, I think it's broadly accepted that it's shifted to the left over the last 10 years. And do you think that it's something in relationship to the more skeptical approach of the Democratic Party to business and wealth and commercial industry in general? Whereas whereas, as you said, there's a lot of this energy, a lot of this focus, and a lot of this policy is relating to this new commercial sector. Is it an issue with this or a discomfort even with American muscular foreign policy or symbolism

as opposed to more of a practical focused set of the fundamental areas of interest of social issues, climate, wealth and inequality. Does that play into it in a way that made it hard for space policy to kind of be a priority given that it's almost in contrast to some of these other areas? Potentially though, I mean, I think it depends on what,

which wing of the party you're speaking to. I think it's particularly interesting to raise that point given the way many people see the space industry. I think if you were to ask the average American on the street, what is space? Obviously, Apollo would likely come up with a space shuttle, but more recently it is broadly speaking a lot of the space billionaires who are great pioneers within our industry, but I would posit are the minority of folks backing commercial space businesses. And so it's interesting that you raise that because I think there's some truth certainly to what you're saying, but I also think part of that is the way that the space industry is framed and the way

things make it into mainstream press or do not, in that there's a lot of focus on what these big companies are doing and much less on some of the quiet successes of companies, you know, Rocket Lab comes to mind of, you know, a great company that was not billionaire backed, but that it's been really successful. There's any number of examples of those kind of quiet successes, to the extent you can call it quiet, that I don't know are making it into what the average American is reading, which from my perspective feeds into this broader issue of a lot of what folks

think about space comes down to a focus on, you know, big launches and the rockets and the rockets are amazing. We need rockets to get to space, right? You can't do anything without a great rocket to get you there. But they're not necessarily hearing about or seeing things like remote sensing, you know, things like climate monitoring and the amazing facts and pieces of information that we can get from space assets. They're not seeing that when you open Google Maps and you type in an address that you want to go to. That's GPS that's helping you navigate

and that's driving to the back end. Commercial space imagery. Even. Yeah. How damaging was the very visible Bezos and Branson back-to-back launches back in 2021 in terms of kind of, I would say, on the left flank of the Democratic Party in terms of defining commercial spaceflight and maybe making it politically more difficult to highlight it.

Would you say that was a real impact or was that just perceived? Is that like a Twitter effect of that moment? I think it just feeds into that broader narrative that I was talking about, where folks hear about and get excited about these, you know, kind of big moments that are more often than not things that involve crew, things that involve rockets, and that are really focused on crewed missions rather than looking at the broader picture of what space is doing to help them day-to-day, terrestrially here on Earth.

When I think about where we need to go and where I'd really like to see the party go is thinking about and doing a better job of communicating to the American people why we go to space. Because at the end of the day, crude missions, particularly tourist missions, are a small percentage of the industry. And I don't think anyone is looking to stop that, right? Folks are able to spend their money however they'd like. It's a free country. But some of the good news stories,

even when we're talking about crude missions, things like the science that you can be doing on suborbital missions or orbital missions up to the ISS and things like that seem to be getting lost, for better or for worse. Yeah, it does drown out that human brains resonate with other people strongly and other personalities. It's kind of a natural response to it. And you did see after those flights,

I think, I forget who it was in Congress who introduced legislation to tax private flights into space. And there was definitely Congress who introduced legislation to tax private flights into space. And there was definitely some sort of reaction to it that fit into this narrative, I think, of wealth inequality. But at the same time, you're kind of framing this as what I like as space as an industrial policy. There's a fundamental national interest

that I think we both agree on and maybe most people listening to the show do. But making it kind of rise to the level of awareness to be relevant with among the other priorities, or at least not antagonistic. And again, maybe we can bring Elon Musk in here a little bit. I mean, you had maybe an argument I could see coming from someone on the left at the moment,

on the left side of the Democratic Party, would say, why in the world should we support more commercial space? Obama went all in on that. And we got Elon Musk, who then basically turned into this fundamental antagonist to Democratic priorities, working not just against their interests, but to elect the opposite member

of the party, the Republican. Is that what we get by investing in, you know, commercial space policy? So why should we do that if we're just going to enable monopolistic billionaires to take control of space? Is that the type of response you hear when you raise this issue? Yeah, I have heard a lot of concerns about Elon Musk and his, you know, outside role within the commercial space industry, because for many people, commercial space is synonymous with Elon Musk and SpaceX. And you know, informed minds knew that they are, there are so many different space companies.

But going back to your original point, I do think that is something we hear. I don't know how many folks make the connection between Obama's policies and where we are today. I know within the space industry certainly we do. Having come from the Hill though, I know many folks don't necessarily track history going back quite that far. They just are seeing this issue in front of them where we have an administration that's very openly hostile to

democratic priorities and I'd argue the democracy itself being aided by a very visible CEO from a commercial space company and I think you know for better or for worse they're looking to respond to that and find ways to get their boss in the news. And yes, I do think that there has been some backlash against commercial space, broadly speaking, because of the way so many visible folks have gotten involved with the administration, not just in a, you know, quietly supportive way, as we've seen historically many, many times, but in a very vocal and even in a explicitly governmental way.

So it's been interesting to watch, and I think it is a communication challenge right now in terms of helping folks understand that, you know, Elon Musk and SpaceX and Tesla and his other companies are certainly part of the conversation, but they are not all of the conversation. And also helping folks think about how to rise to the moment and be responsive to some of the challenges of this administration without completely shutting

down our presence in space, which, you know, for better or for worse is what moving away rapidly from SpaceX at this time would do. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's one of those things where you have to separate the individual from the capability, which is not easy for people to do, but I mean, that's in a sense the job of the policymaker. What type of response then did you get from this essay? I got a mix of responses from the essay. Kasey, you know, I had some folks who had reached

out and were happy to see some conversation at this point. I think we're really proud in the space industry of being a bipartisan issue and frankly even a nonpartisan issue. And for a long time that was true. I don't know that it is quite as true right now and I think we're at risk of losing that status at this point. So there were a number of folks who were very happy to see that be pointed out and kind of address that issue head on and start addressing it

so that we can think through what responses are. I also got folks who were very concerned. Within the Democratic Party, there is a time on our tradition of eating our own that sometimes can hold back progress because we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And I think there were some folks who were concerned that that was what I was doing or that I was overlooking the contributions that, you know, their

particular boss or they had done in a role previously, which, you know, was not my intent. As I stated earlier, Democrats have never stopped doing space policy and, you know, it would be easy to name last administration some of the great victories that were made on commercial space topics. The problem is the people aren't seeing it. We are talking about it as a party. We don't have kind of a message. And we're seeing Republicans continue to own the issue, broadly speaking.

And so I think that is where the problem lies and where we need to focus rather than trying to think about, oh, that guy did a bad job, because I don't think anyone serving within the government's looking to do a bad job. And I would be hesitant to say that anyone who is working for the people is. It's more a question of where do we go from here? How do we rebuild? And how can we come together to make the change we want to see?

What would you recommend? I mean, you did recommend, but what are you recommending to the people in the party? What can Democrats do to embrace space policy? And is it, by doing so, does it drive partisanship in the aspect of that? Then Democrats take a certain antithetical position to Republican ideas on space policy?

Or are you just saying to embrace talking about it at all and highlight it as a cooperative or endeavor? How do they do that in a way that doesn't kind of make this partisanship worse? Yeah, absolutely. And I think the last thing any of us want to do is make this a partisan issue, whether it's Democrat partisan, Republican partisan.

Rather, what I think we need to see is a surge in interest from Democrats, a surge in kind of talking about and making this issue more central to our platform. Going back to what I was saying earlier, talking about how space helps us on earth and helping folks understand why we go to space. Because there are so many applications and so many ways space touches every American's life every day that folks just are not aware of. And so I think a lot of this comes down to messaging about how we talk about this, about how we think about this, and how we tie it back to priorities that are already

within the parties. That it's not climate or space, it's not workforce and good jobs or space, it's an ant. Because space can help us achieve many of the things that we want to achieve here on Earth. So, you know, I think as Democrats engage further, and I'd certainly encourage them to do so and pick the topic that makes the most sense for their district or their state. But I want to see Democrats come to the table in a more active and full-throated way, regardless of what position they hold, so that we have bipartisan policy that is driving progress,

that brings us together and that forms a consensus view of where we're going. So we don't have programs that are being tossed around like political footballs, as we're seeing right now, unfortunately. In your essay, you really embrace this idea of the space industry as being the kind of one of the core areas that Democrats can embrace and start engaging on more. And putting aside the broader left perception

of that industry right now, you really key in on in a sense, the workforce, this is a workforce issue, this is the type of job Democrats say they want to support due to both the national security and the types of materials and other kind of quality production needed, it's very much a localized and national industry rather than one that's going to be outsourced. Do you see that as the primary issue then that this is an economic development, industrial

policy issue that space industry fits into this and that's where Democrats need to engage on? I think it's an all of the above but I do think it's a particularly salient issue. For better or for worse the polling and the focus groups coming out of the last election basically associate Democrats with niche social issues and Republicans with being strong on national security, strong on the economy, strong on immigration. And if I had a choice between which of the two we were associated with, I probably would rather switch places. So I think it's part of how we respond and how we talk to voters and how we reframe and help voters realize kind of what democratic leadership looks like and what it looks like

for them. And economic issues are and will always be really central to what people care about, right? When they're voting, they want to be voting for a party that they believe is going to make their life better. And frequently, that stems from an economic sense of wanting, you know, either a better job or wanting a higher paying job that they already have. So I think that is going to be a core argument in large part because the space industry is in so many districts across this country.

You know, looking at the 535 congressional representatives, the vast majority of them have, if not primes, then at least suppliers that are part of the space industry. And so talking about space in a way that ties it back to the issues that are relevant to their district, I think is the most critical, whether that be economic issues or things like wildfires. I think space has a real role to play in detecting wildfires and making sure that we have a better feeling

for how to control wildfires. Just to give an example of other messages that I think will be resonant depending on where folks are within the country. Do you think Democrats need to also embrace the symbolism side of space more? And is that possible given the kind of, again, the general nuances and interests represented by the party in the sense that, you know, we see President Trump often talk about putting the stars and stripes on Mars and beating China to the moon and you know, having space dominance and you know, kind of putting this particular use

of language aside. I mean, it's all about big symbolic national power and representation functionally soft power. And, you know, that's a that's basically what John Kennedy or JFK decided to do with Apollo. But certainly what I haven't heard from the Biden administration or even really the Obama administration going back prior years, does that need to be part of this

too, that there would need to be kind of a more muscular or emotional or kind of resonant idea beyond kind of the democratic staples of good jobs and strong industrial policy and addressing other kind of immediate needs for folks. I do think that's part of the vision. And I think that hits on a topic that has been particularly resonant within democratic circles recently, which is the abundance movement. If you're not familiar, it's the concept of supply-side liberalism,

so saying we can be abundant, we can do great things that drives prices down, and that is inherently a good thing and a way to handle many issues. And so really connecting that to the space industry gets interesting in that I think that we are still able to do great things and we need to be able to, and to be able to inspire folks that we are looking to, you know, to borrow the parlance of the Trump administration, make America first, right? Make American leadership great again.

I don't know that that can or should be a partisan statement. And now, certainly, I disagree with how that is interpreted. And I think most Democrats would. But that concept, that vision of leadership, of doing great things, of being proud to be an American is critical. And I think that that has always been part of the motivation of why we go to space.

So I do think that we need to embrace that in some way to be able to continue bringing voters back to the Democratic Party and bringing Democrats back to space policy in a more full-throated manner. Yeah, I think about this, again, just kind of going back to the structural challenges that may have led to this point, where Democrats, I'd say, are broadly seen

as less embracing of space that you've identified in your essay. It does seem, for lack of a better term, more of a collective approach to policymaking, right? And what I've defined also as an individualistic kind of appeal to more emotive and right-brained aspects of one's existence that space can touch on, it does seem like, for again, very broadly generalizing here, the Republican framing of those tends to be on that more of the individualistic side, right? Like this will make you feel something.

This will make you feel strong and powerful, makes our nation feel strong, makes you feel proud to be a citizen of the United States, versus the more practical policy aspects of addressing climate, addressing jobs, addressing economic development, STEM education. Those are all really important as well, but they don't have necessarily the same level

of kind of an intrinsic emotive feeling. And this is a topic I've talked about a lot in the show, but this framing of what would some people call the real reasons for space flight and the acceptable policy discussions that people have for it. But really those are, I think, discussions of a collective policy-making process

and an appeal to the individual. And I could see that as being like, that's almost like a foundational division or a self-identity of, in a sense, the left and the right in the United States of a more individualistic approach versus a more kind of collective and society-wide approach to solving problems.

So I could see how over time the focus would kind of drift on both directions towards this type of framing and activity, not even intentionally necessarily, but just how it resonates with the individuals who represent these fundamental ideals within their parties. Sure. And I think we also see that in terms of the approach to international relationships. I think Democrats have historically really embraced going together, you know, going as a world leader in space, but taking all of our allies with us and forming these strong international partnerships that have served us and have broadly been incredibly mutually beneficial all around.

I think of the Biden administration's NASA really focused on the Artemis Accords and kept driving that forward and getting more and more nations signed up. It was truly remarkable what they were able to do, not to mention the way that we, you know, really as a country drove a lot of commitments around anti-debris generating ASAT tests, right? And I think that is sometimes harder to message the importance of and the emotional resonance of. But I think that vision of being a leader among countries and of doing great things and of making the world a better place, you know, needs to be part of the way that we approach this and, you know, as well as, of course, bringing that global down to the individual and thinking about how to connect those kind of collective

ideals and those wonderful things that we're doing for ourselves, but also for the world and thinking about how that leads to things that you see day to day, right? Whether that's your Google Maps navigation, whether that is the weather information that tells you whether you're going to be in danger, whether it's a hurricane or a wildfire or something different. So, you know, I think a lot of that is part of the challenge of messaging

because it can be harder to connect on an individual level, but I think that is a challenge that we need to arise to the occasion of in terms of thinking about this from a global perspective, a national perspective, and at the end of the day, an individual perspective, a voter perspective, to explain why we're doing this. The refrain I hear often is,

why are we spending money on space when folks are homeless, when our nation has any number of other challenges, when folks are homeless, when our nation is, you know, has any number of other challenges, when folks don't have healthcare, I could go on and on. And the reality is, I think folks lose sight of the why. And that's what we need to keep coming back to, even more so than specific policies. It's about why are we doing this? And that helps set the stage for, OK, we're doing this

because national preeminence, competition, our economic security, our national security, so on and so forth. And that is why we are changing Part 450 launch regulations, which the average American probably doesn't and probably never will care particularly deeply about. And I certainly envy them sometimes, as important as the topic is, right? But I think that there, sometimes we get so stuck in the policy particulars here in DC that we're not talking about

DC that we're not talking about the why. We're focusing on the details. When what folks need to be hearing about is that why. I mean, again, even the way that you brought up this counterpoint that you hear a lot, which I've heard, and I think a lot of people themselves who are listening to this have heard many, many, many times over the years that why are we doing this when there are more, you know, again, you said people are without homes, or people need need health care or there's climate change or,

you know, so forth and so on. This idea that there's a zero sum game being played and if you do anything in space, you're directly taking away from some of these activities. Of course, not even to mention the huge disparity in how much we actually do spend on those priorities versus space. But that almost to me sums up at the coalitional politics level of the Democratic Party why this seems to have maybe atrophied as a policy topic over the years, right? That it's the priorities of the party are seemingly completely unrelated to space as a topic. And so to do space is to do something else that should be lower priority or isn't the most important thing.

And I think your point then really rings true about you saying why we do this and how it intersects. But I guess I don't necessarily see that problem on the Republican side. We're doing space takes away from other priorities necessarily. And I wonder if that's only become more the case with this affiliation of private industry with spaceflight, even though again, it really was kickstarted under a Democratic administration, kind of aligns more with the predisposition of kind of a more pro-business Republican party and more skeptically seen through a more, again,

kind of collective or community-oriented focus of Democrats. And so I heard in that you're almost, even though the framing of the questions basically sums up the challenge, it seems that you're facing within the party itself of trying to make this a resonant issue. Definitely.

Definitely. Definitely. I think you've hit the nail on the head, right? I think the Republican Party is just inherently more oriented toward pro-business policies. And I do think, you know, that's wonderful and that makes the argument easier to sell on their side of the aisle. However, on our side, I think any party that is seen as anti-innovation is not going to be particularly long for this world in terms of electoral victory.

So thinking about how do we think about this, tie it to those coalition values that you rightfully highlight, but also think about how we tie it to people's desire for change, to people's desire for innovation, and think about where we go from here and how to tie into existing themes, existing priorities, in a way that resonates for voters, resonates with our party platform, because it is a smidge harder. But that doesn't mean that it's not a challenge worth rising to. We'll be right back with the rest of our Space Policy edition of Planetary Radio after this

short break. Greetings, Planetary Defenders. Bill Nye here. At the Planetary Society, we work to prevent the Earth from getting hit with an asteroid or comet. Such an impact would have devastating effects. But we can keep it from happening. The Planetary Society supports near-Earth object research through our Shoemaker Neo

grants. These grants provide funding for astronomers around the world to upgrade their observational facilities. Right now there are astronomers out there finding, tracking, and characterizing potentially dangerous asteroids. Our grant winners really make a difference by providing lots of observations of the asteroid so we can figure out if it's going to hit Earth. Asteroids big enough to destroy entire cities still go completely undetected, which is why the work that these astronomers are doing is so critical. Your support could directly prevent us from getting hit with an asteroid. Right now, your gift and support of our grant program will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $25,000. Go to planetary.org slash neo, N-E-O, to make your gift today.

With your support working together, we can save the world. Thank you. I sent you some public polling data for this discussion that we'll reference and for those listening I will include links to on the show page. And I thought that this is really fascinating because we're talking in a sense about broad party-level decisions and elected officials. But just some of the polling data that are looking at attitudes towards various types

of issues in space exploration by party identification is very, you know, this doesn't necessarily reflect it, I think, in the actual voter base itself. right? This is this almost strikes me what our entire discussion and the predicate, which is very real, again, which I agree with your framing of your of your essay is very much a higher level party and self identity and discussion rather than a voter interest discussion. There's a Pew research poll from 2023. And boy, I hope they update this this year,

because I think that'd be really interesting. From 2023, right, so before the current presidential administration, before that even really got off the ground, looking at partisan differences of what NASA should be doing, you know, NASA priorities by party. The biggest difference, not a surprise, is monitoring Earth's climate. Maybe like a 39-point difference between Democrats and Republicans saying that that's a top priority. But what I thought was really interesting is that the difference of support for sending humans to explore the moon and sending humans to explore Mars

functionally didn't exist between the two parties. Both were down at the very lowest level of priority that the voters would place for NASA, well within the margin of error for both of them, about 10% in terms of priority for both Republicans and Democrats. So the fundamental prioritization of this human space flight shift that we're

seeing proposed in the current Trump administration isn't some big groundswell of desire out of their base necessarily, right? And nor is any kind of rejection of that out of hand from the Democratic side. This is a purely higher level activity of the parties. And so I can see, you know, this could maybe then change more easily or why is there such a disparity then, that there isn't such a huge groundswell? This isn't reflecting out of its base in some way, or are these all kind of proxies for other areas of interest being seen kind of reflected through these activities

in space? How do you interpret some of these poll results? Yeah, I thought the poll results were interesting. Both the Pew poll as well as the GSS poll that you sent over. You know, I think at the end of the day, you're exactly right. People like space. Space is cool, right? I know when I travel across the country, that's generally the response I get, regardless of whether I'm talking to someone in the space industry or not. So it's interesting in that I think the the average bearer, if you ask them, you know, do you like science?

Do you like going to the moon, broadly speaking? You're going to get pretty similar results, party by party. It's a question, as I think you're highlighting, of where it falls of priorities within that. And so I think part of the challenge is the polls you had sent over were space-focused, which is completely fair, right? You can't pull everything all at once. But what I think would be really interesting is seeing where folks differ in their prioritization

of what they want to see the agency doing or how much agency spending is appropriate placed against other issues. Because I would be really curious to see if that shifted the conversation, if that form splits or if this is simply something that has to do with the way that the various parties think about topics, think about prioritizations, think about core messages. I could also, I wonder on, particularly on the Republican side, I wonder how much of

it is maybe more idiosyncratic interest of party leadership too. We had some of the great space policy we saw coming out of the first Trump administration, I would say is directly the result of having Mike Pence as vice president who had a preexisting and very strong approach to space mixed with kind of a certain style of Republican think tank associations that brought some very smart people in to make this policy. And of course, President Trump himself is really interested in Mars.

And maybe that's more of a, and maybe this space is kind of seen as a mission of topic that it just, it can kind of, you can do these types of more idiosyncratic interests. There's no groundswell to do it at the same time. It certainly doesn't drive elections. And maybe that's the end of the day, the key issue here. Maybe we just need more Democrats with personal fascination in space to drive some of this stuff.

Like maybe that would actually, maybe the key would be to kind of recruit people who have this fascination into the party so they can bring and use this and prioritize it themselves, which may then actually benefit and influence democratic support down the ticket. Is that a conceivable possibility here, given what we've seen on the Republican side? I do think that's super fair. Having worked in politics my whole career,

it's always a little shocking to me how much personalities and who's in power drives the conversation because you're exactly right. Space is usually not a marquee issue. It's usually not going to be an issue that's going to drive voters for or against. So a lot of it comes down to who is in the conversation and their personal interest in space, generally speaking. And I think the Trump administration's couldn't be a better illustration of that in that the first Trump administration was remarkable in their progress on space policy, just objectively speaking.

And the second Trump administration, I'd say really less so. We haven't seen nearly as much attention on the topic. There have been a number of actions that have, from my perspective, actively harmed the space industry, like the tariff regime that is constantly changing and targets some really vital portions of the space industry, like steel and aluminum and other components.

So all that being said, I think it's interesting how much personality has driven that. We have this case study within the Republican Party, and I think within the Democratic Party, that certainly rings true too. As I was saying earlier on, in a part of where I saw some of this split, some of this change was not only because

Trump really embraced space and his first administration, but also because we saw some traditional space champions who had a good bit of power within their committee structures, lose their elections, and ultimately exit Congress. And so I think part of it is how do we get politicians who are already there to care more about space and to kind of make the connections between space assets, space policies, and the interests of make the connections between space assets, space policies and the interests of their states and their policy agenda personally.

As well as yes, you know, how do we recruit folks like astronauts who, you know, if Mark Kelly is any example, have done wonderfully electorally and, you know, Mark Kelly is likely an exceptional case, but folks like astronauts and astronauts are certainly are not the only representative of our space industry. But thinking about, you know, how we, you know, not only help to shape the hearts and minds and messaging of folks who are already in power, but also help educate folks who are coming in who may have a personal interest in space and bring them into the fold and Have them talk to their colleagues and kind of try to drive some of that excitement from a grassroots level within the chambers

You also before this job a couple times I mean one or two roles before this job You also worked as Senate professional staff on the Commerce Committee, and you dealt with science issues and space issues. How did policy move through at the Senate Commerce level, in that process? How would certain issues, in a sense, raise to the top? Would it really just, again, depend on the individuals that you were working for on the Senate committees

and their relative place in the hierarchy of the committee? Were there things that were really great ideas that just couldn't make it through because of, you know, kind of competing or perceptions of being counter to other, you know, kind of priorities within the party? How did that process work? Cause you're working with a group of people, right?

It's not just you writing this legislation. It's not just one member of the Senate writing legislation. Did you see this in a sense as a microcosm for some of the topics that we've discussed today, or does it work completely differently on the ground? You know, it does and it doesn't. I think a lot of what we were able to do was driven by consensus at the Senate for better or for worse, right? Because space legislation generally is not, you know, considered important enough most of the time to get its own floor vote and its own floor time, meaning that any legislation needs to be non-controversial enough to pass to what's called unanimous consent where

no member of Congress objects. And so that definitely drives the way the policy was crafted and that you had to take a very consensus-based approach and think through how to make various stakeholders, you know, if not all thrilled with your legislation, because you can never make everyone happy, at least find a happy me and where everyone is not going to object. And I think that drove a lot of the policy solutions that we looked for because, you know, when I'm talking about stakeholders, that includes industry, that includes trade groups,

that includes other members of the Senate and who is influencing them. You know, who are the academics in their state, who are in their year. And so you find ways to come to a really happy medium place that serves the nation, generally speaking. But yes, it is very much shaped by the personalities and who members are talking to and who has political power, for better or for worse. I was really lucky when I was in the Senate. My bosses and their Republican counterparts and therefore me and my Republican counterparts had phenomenal relationships. I certainly still consider

them friends today and I really value that ability to make the issue area very bipartisan. I hope that it is still that way today. Though you know again so much of that comes down to personality, comes down to the priorities of the chair and the ranking member and the downed dais, because the tone is set at the top. So where do you think we go from here? You put your thoughts out in the essay.

Where do you start to see progress, or how would you mark progress in the democratic side? What are you looking for going forward? That is a great question, Casey, because I think it really is more of an art than a science. But what I want to see is more mentions of space in floor speeches, more legislation and being spearheaded by Dems.

I think we've seen some of this in the fight for NASA science funding, which I know that you guys have been doing a great job out and over at the Planetary Society, really getting members to speak up and speak out, which I know that you guys have been doing a great job at over at the Planetary Society, really getting members to speak up and speak out, be quite visible in opposition to cuts to science. And I hope that we see that on a broader set of issues. I'll be curious to see how that shakes out and how active this Congress is on space issues

generally. But given the Dems are in the minority in both chambers, you know, really I think it comes down to how often are we talking about this? How often are we seeing actions, which will likely be, you know, primarily speeches and things of that nature that touch on this topic? And then I think longer term, as we look ahead towards the midterms, as we look toward the next presidential election, you know, I'd really like to see space play more of a role within the party platform, generally speaking. Again, I don't know that I don't think

this is ever going to be a marquee issue. And I think for better or for worse, that actually can be helpful for us in terms of driving some of the bipartisanship because it is a little bit quieter and the tension around it isn't quite as hot on a day-to-day basis. But I do think that having folks who are influencing the way we talk about space and the number of times we talk about space, that would be what victory looks like to me. Well, we will maybe ask you about it in a few years, and I wish you best of luck with this.

Again, I think it's so important that space, not even as, again, I think as an oppositional set of policies, but just as you point out, just a priority, like something that's integrated. So, you know, both parties are able to carry forward smart space policy. So I wish are able to carry forward smart space policy. So I wish you best on your work going forward

as influencing this party. I'll be very curious to see how this develops. Mary Gunther, thank you again for joining us today on this month's episode of the Space Policy Edition. She is the head of space policy for the Progressive Policy Institute and former staff and actually former commercial space federation as well. So you really have seen the gamut of different types of policies over the years haven't you? Thanks Casey. I've been really thrilled to have a long and an interesting career

really looking at this topic from a variety of different perspectives. Well again best of luck. We will follow up with you sometime in the future and we will see how space policy progresses, I guess, in this. As you said, not the best of times, but maybe something good in the long run can come out of all this disruption. Here's Hopin. Thanks again so much for having me, Casey.

We've reached the end of this month's episode of the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio, but we will be back next month with more discussions on the politics and philosophies and ideas that power space science and exploration. Help others in the meantime learn more about space policy and the planetary society by leaving a review and rating this show on platforms like Apple Podcasts

or Spotify or wherever you listen to this show on platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to this show. Your input and interactions really help us be discovered by other curious minds and that will help them find their place in space through Planetary Radio. You can also send us, including me, your thoughts and questions at planetaryradio at planetary.org. Or if you're a Planetary Society member, and I hope you are, leave me a comment in the Planetary Radio space in our online member community. Mark Hilverda and Ray Paoletta are our associate producers of the show. Andrew Lucas is our audio editor. Me, Casey Dreier, and Merck Boyan,

my colleague, composed and performed our Space Policy Edition theme. The Space Policy Edition is a production of the Planetary Society, an independent, non-profit space outreach organization based in Pasadena, California. We are membership based and anybody, even you can become a member. They start at just $4 a month. That's nothing these days. Find out more at planetary.org slash join.

Until next month, add Astra.