3D render of planet Earth viewed from space. Photo: NASA

The National Space Council held its eighth and final meeting under the current administration on Wednesday, as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to assume office in January.

Biden and his advisers have yet to speak of Biden’s plans for the council, which President Trump re-established in 2017 after a 20-year hiatus. Chaired by the vice president and composed of cabinet members who receive counsel from a users advisory group, the council has met eight times since its re-establishment to formulate space policy.

At the meeting in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Dec. 9, Vice President Mike Pence went through a greatest hits rendition of Trump space efforts, including the creation of the Space Force, discussions of which date back at least to the establishment of the U.S. Air Force Space Command in 1982.

Pence’s remarks were punctuated by inaccuracies and half-truths, including his reference to “the new millenium,” which is 20 years old, and a reference to the American economy reaching “all new heights” — despite the recent, sharp economic slowdown driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Space Council meeting on Dec. 9 also saw the release of a new, National Space Policy – one that may become moot with the Biden administration next month. The administration said the new policy builds on the previous four years of space policy. It outlines support for a competitive space industrial base; calls for international collaboration on standards for responsible behavior in space; reiterates the goal of returning humans to the Moon and a subsequent human mission to Mars; and says that the U.S. is “adapting its national security to defeat aggression and protect United States interests in space.”

“The international environment we’re in is very dynamic,” Scott Pace, the executive secretary of the National Space Council, said at the meeting. “It’s influenced by competition and threats to the space capabilities on which we rely. Consequently, it’s important that the U.S. space activities across all sectors — civil, commercial, and national security — be coordinated at the highest levels in an integrated manner to advance our national interests and those of our allies and partners.”

“Space does not exist for its own sake,” he said. “It exists to serve the interests of the nation, and our alignment with those interests is crucial to our success. Establishing U.S. capabilities to operate routinely out to the moon and beyond will deliver strategic assets, not only for ourselves but for all like-minded nations who share our values — liberty, democracy, rule of law, free market economic principles. It is our values we carry with us into space, not merely our machines.”

A version of this article was first published by our sister publication Defense Daily.