Trump’s Space Deregulation Bonanza

Why wait for approval when you can launch now and lawyer up later? That’s the underlying promise in President Donald J. Trump’s latest Executive Order signed August 13, 2025, generously titled “Enabling Competition in the Commercial Space Industry.”

Don’t be fooled by the name. It’s about making sure whoever’s got rockets and friends in the White House doesn’t have to waste time dealing with environmental impact assessments, coastal land rights, or any other pesky rules written by people who like trees.

If you were wondering whether the U.S. government would finally embrace the Silicon Valley model of “move fast and explode things,” congratulations. That future is now. Environmental reviews? Consider them optional. Interagency coordination? Streamlined into a polite nod. Local jurisdictions? Advised to sit down and keep quiet, especially if they were hoping to keep their coastlines uncharred.

The order makes the Department of Transportation the new party planner for the space race. They’re tasked with scrubbing out any rule that might slow a launch. The FAA is getting a new Associate Administrator, which sounds like a job, but is really more like an escape hatch for the industry to bypass regulators. The Department of Commerce, NASA, and the Department of Defense are being told to stop stepping on each other’s toes and just say yes to whoever wants to build a launchpad next to your kid’s beach camp.

And let’s be clear: the winners were pre-selected. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and ULA, all flush with federal contracts and private cash, now get to play ball without the nuisance of competition from upstarts who might have the gall to care about safety margins or the long-term viability of the atmosphere. Meanwhile, smaller companies get table scraps, sure, the barriers are lower, but only if they’ve already got the capital and launch readiness of a billionaire’s vanity project.

Foreign competitors? Left in the dust. The EU and India are still measuring rocket emissions while the U.S. is painting “USA #1” on the side of their boosters. This deregulation masterstroke ensures America’s leadership in space, not through science or ethics, but by simply ignoring the rules faster than anyone else.

Investors are thrilled. Risk? That’s for insurance companies. ROI? Practically guaranteed now that lawsuits and environmental protests are just a PR line item. Launch cadence is expected to spike, and so are valuations, for now. But the margin for error in aerospace is thin, and if the cost of doing business comes with flaming debris and coastal evacuations, you can expect the public tolerance to erode quickly.

Still, it’s a fantastic time for anyone who wanted space to resemble Wall Street in the ‘80s. Fast, loose, loud, and allergic to regulation.

Only this time,
instead of insider trading and junk bonds,
we get orbital debris and rocket-stage beachcombing.