Opinion > Opinions - Finance The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill NASA fired its economists. It desperately needs to bring them back. by Mary Guenther, opinion contributor - 03/04/26 11:30 AM ET by Mary Guenther, opinion contributor - 03/04/26 11:30 AM ET Share ✕ LinkedIn LinkedIn Email Email NASA administrator Jared Isaacman answers questions at a news conference during the rollout of the new moon rocket, Artemis II, at the Kennedy Space Center, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux) The Trump administration has  talked a big game  about ushering in a “new space age” as  China threatens to beat us back to the moon  and  national security risks grow in space . To achieve these goals, the White House said it would “unleash” the innovation and know-how of the commercial space industry.   It is a good bipartisan idea — one that took off in earnest under President Barack Obama — to enlist commercial players to modernize our space program. But execution is the hard part. And unfortunately, it’s clear that the administration has already shot itself in the foot by allowing the Department of Government and Efficiency to eliminate one obscure but important team.   That would be NASA’s Office of the Chief Economist, which the agency relied on for an independent understanding of the commercial space market.   If NASA wanted to land cargo on the moon, for instance, its economists were the ones who would figure out whether it made sense to lean on the commercial space sector, which would require a market for those services beyond the government, or if it would be prudent to rely on a traditional contractor. This was critical to NASA’s ability to work together intelligently with industry.  Collaboration with private companies is supposed to deliver win-win solutions for NASA. The agency gets innovative capabilities that are typically lower-priced than government-developed solutions, while the company gets to make a profit.  This is a simple enough principle, but it is challenging to design programs that align the two parties’ incentives. Corporations exist to make money. It is NASA’s responsibility to have experts on staff who can examine economic and business information to ensure the American taxpayer is getting a good deal.   A good deal isn’t just about the price, although that’s obviously part of the equation. When the funds are disbursed and how the contract is structured matter too, because these affect a company’s ability to secure funding from outside investors, which is essential for this way of doing business.    Unfortunately, during its firing spree, the Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts eliminated the entire office without any explanation. And we have already started to see why that’s a bad idea. Take former acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy’s rewrite of the rules for the next-generation space stations in low-Earth orbit. He inherited a bad situation and made it worse.   The International Space Station is scheduled to deorbit around 2030, and NASA has worked with industry for years to bring commercial successors to life. These replacements need to be operational before it deorbits, meaning companies have been building their space stations for some time.   But NASA has been slow to deliver information the companies need, including basic requirements to enable the government to purchase services down the road. Given that most of these companies are expecting to launch either next year or the following, modifications to their designs or capabilities would be expensive today, but they become harder to make the closer we get to their expected launch dates.   Rather than ameliorate the situation, Duffy, citing an anticipated budget shortage, put forward a new acquisition strategy that changed the rules of the game. The new strategy side-stepped the question of government requirements and reduced the amount of funding slated for the program long-term. The changes put commercial space station providers on shaky ground financially, endangering the whole initiative. NASA and these companies have been working to build the market for non-government users of space stations, but the market is not yet large enough to sustain commercial space stations without the government as an anchor customer. Duffy’s cuts to the program may have been penny-wise but will almost certainly prove pound-foolish, especially if it reduces competition in this sector prematurely.   China already has its space station in orbit  and is actively recruiting other nations to partner. Without an American alternative for nations to use for their crewed and scientific space programs, the U.S. stands to lose significant