Space Policy Edition: Change for the Sake of Disruption at NASA

Marcia Smith, the founder and editor of Space Policy Online, joins the show and revisits a conversation we had one year ago, recorded just weeks before the second Trump administration took office. That episode, “The Challenges of Change at NASA,” explored the institutional and political roadblocks to radical change at the U.S. space agency.

A lot has happened since that show, including DOGE, mass staff departures, a draconian budget cut proposal, a dramatic shift toward sending humans to Mars, and the rapid departure of 20% of NASA's workforce.

But at the end of the year, much remains the same. The SLS and Orion programs continue unchanged, with funding locked in through 2032. The humans-to-Mars policy has effectively vanished; returning U.S. astronauts to the Moon, to stay, is again centered within civil space policy. NASA's science missions, though still facing a serious budgetary threat, have not gone away.

So, did we see real change at NASA? And to what end? Or was it merely disruption masquerading as change?

Marcia Smith and host Casey Dreier revisit their original analysis and discuss what they got wrong, what they got right, and what surprised them about 2025 in civil space policy.

Related Reading and References

• Space Policy Online
• Trump issues executive order to ‘ensure space superiority’
• 2025 Space Policy & Advocacy Program Impact Report
• Subscribe to the monthly Space Advocate newsletter