A ccording to press reports, the Trump Administration may reestablish the National Space Council, a coordinating body in the Executive Office of the President that was last active in 1993. This report summarizes the history and statutory status of the National Space Council, its predecessor the National Aeronautics and Space Council, and other White House bodies that have been responsible for coordinating space policy. It then discusses previous proposals to reestablish the National Space Council and identifies some issues for congressional consideration. The National Space Council was authorized in November 1988, near the end of the Reagan Administration, by Section 501 of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1989 ( P.L. 100-685 ). The newly established council came into being in February 1989, shortly after the inauguration of President George H.W. Bush. In April 1989, President Bush issued an executive order establishing the council "in order to provide a coordinated process for developing a national space policy and strategy and for monitoring its implementation." The executive order stated that the council would be chaired by the Vice President (Dan Quayle) and would include the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Commerce, and Transportation, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the President's Chief of Staff, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The following year, Congress passed three acts affecting the operation of the council. The National Space Council Authorization Act of 1990 ( P.L. 101-328 ) made several provisions regarding staff and funding and requested a review of U.S. space launch policy. Section 104 of the Global Change Research Act of 1990 ( P.L. 101-606 ) directed that certain aspects of the National Global Change Research Plan shall be developed "in consultation when appropriate with the National Space Council." Section 121 of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1991 ( P.L. 101-611 ) directed the council to establish a Users' Advisory Group of "non-Federal representatives of industries and other persons involved in aeronautical and space activities." It is unclear whether the Users' Advisory Group was ever established, but the April 1989 executive order had provided for the council to have an advisory committee, the Space Policy Advisory Board, consisting of private citizens appointed by the Vice President. The Space Policy Advisory Board was activated in mid-1992 and issued three policy reports later that year: The Future of U.S. Space Launch Capability , The Future of the U.S. Space Industrial Base , and A Post Cold War Assessment of U.S. Space Policy . The National Space Council and the Space Policy Advisory Board ceased to operate soon after President Clinton took office in January 1993. A leading space policy expert (and former member of the Space Policy Advisory Board) has summarized the activities and influence of the National Space Council as follows: [T]he Space Council staff played an extremely activist role in attempting to revitalize what it judged to be a stagnant civilian space program. The staff was the primary mover behind what became known as the Space Exploration Initiative, announced by President Bush on July 20, 1989. This initiative called for a return to the Moon and then human journeys to Mars. In December 1989, the council assembled a blue ribbon commission for a 2-day meeting to comment on what was perceived as NASA's disappointing response to that initiative, and then convened a synthesis group to examine alternative approaches to human space exploration. In 1990, the council staff initiated another high-level examination of the civilian space program, chaired by Lockheed Martin executive Norm Augustine; this review took place over several months and went into great depth. In 1991, council staff convinced the Vice President and the President that NASA administrator Richard Truly should be replaced and played a key role in selecting his successor, Daniel Goldin. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the council took the lead in outreach to the new Russian government with respect to both commercial and government-to-government space cooperation. ... There is no evidence that the council staff played an equally activist role with respect to the national security space program, and its interventions into the day-by-day management of NASA's efforts were strongly resented by senior NASA officials. Another perspective was provided in 1998 by the then Assistant Secretary of the Air Force: As I look at the work of the National Space Council in the past, there's no doubt that it provided a for[um] for the discussion of space activities ... but it did not solve the fundamental problem ... which is the different funding and jurisdictional arrangements that obtain with each of the agencies ... And that to me is the most significant impediment to cooperation ... [The council is] not in a position to be able to easily implement any of the things that are identified.... The council's former executive secretary testified in 1993: In reviewing the overall success of the National Space Council during the Bush Administration, I am sure that one could find a number of examples where it may have been less than totally effective or successful. But in a bureaucracy the size of the U.S. government, there will never be a perfect policy making process.... When viewed as a whole, the Administration's seven National Space Policy Directives, several other decision memoranda and policy statements, and six major nonpartisan assessments are the legacy of a proactive policy process that served the U.S space program well. Although the National Space Council has been inactive since 1993, the above provisions of P.L. 100-685 , P.L. 101-328 , P.L. 101-606 , and P.L. 101-611 have not been repealed. Most of them are set out in the U.S. Code as notes under 51 U.S.C. 20111. A provision of P.L. 101-328 that sets the rate of pay for the council's executive secretary appears at 5 U.S.C. 5314. Section 104 of P.L. 101-606 appears at 15 U.S.C. 2934. Some observers view the National Space Council as a recreation of the National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC), which was established decades earlier by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, the same act that established NASA. The NASC's statutory function was to advise the President on the interagency coordination of aeronautics and space activities, including "effective cooperation between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Defense." The NASC was initially chaired by the President. It was a smaller group than its successor, the National Space Council. Its membership initially consisted of the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Administrator of NASA, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, not more than one additional federal official, and not more than three members from the private sector. President Eisenhower did not use the NASC extensively, and in 1960 he recommended the NASC's abolition, having rejected the idea of "a single program embracing military as well as non-military space activities" because "in actual practice, a single civil-military program does not exist and in fact is unattainable." Incoming President Kennedy, however, retained the NASC under the chairmanship of the Vice President (Lyndon Johnson) and without nonfederal members. These membership changes were authorized by Congress in P.L. 87-26, which also amended the council's statutory function to be "to advise and assist the President, as he may request " (emphasis added), on topics that included "effective cooperation among all departments and agencies" rather than just NASA and the Department of Defense. In 1961, following the Soviet Union's launch of the first human into space, the council prepared an influential memorandum calling for an acceleration of U.S. space efforts and the establishment of a manned lunar landing as a national goal. After this, however, "the council never again was the primary source of space policy advice to the President, who relied on those with whom he had a personal relationship ... for counsel on space matters." By 1969, when President Nixon took office, the NASC was without a dedicated staff. A review of the national space program was assigned instead to a Space Task Group supported by the White House Office of Science and Technology. The NASC was disbanded in 1973 as part of a government-wide reorganization. Between the NASC era and the establishment of the National Space Council, and during the period since the National Space Council ceased operation, several other coordinating bodies within the Executive Office of the President have had space policy responsibilities. Chief among these are the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Security Council, and the National Science and Technology Council. After the NASC was disbanded, the lead White House organization for space policy was for several years the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), established by the National Science and Technology Policy, Organization, and Priorities Act of 1976 ( P.L. 94-282 ). As provided in that act, one of the responsibilities of the Director of OSTP is to gather and analyze information and advise the President on 13 specified goals, the last of which is "advancing the exploration and peaceful uses of outer space." This language does not explicitly identify an OSTP role in coordinating between civilian and national security space programs, a key element of the NASC's original mandate, although another of the 13 listed goals is "contributing to the national security." From mid-1982 until the establishment of the National Space Council in 1989, national space policy was coordinated through the National Security Council via the Senior Interagency Group on Space (SIG-Space). SIG-Space was led by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.