| President Joe Biden on Monday issued a Buy American executive order that toughens existing requirements for U.S. federal agencies to buy products and services from domestic suppliers. At a White House news conference Biden criticized the Trump administration for not enforcing Buy American rules and allowing billions of dollars worth of contracts to be awarded to foreign suppliers. "The previous administration didn't take this seriously," Biden said. "They promised Buy American and then issued waivers and found loopholes." Biden's executive order would have the most impact on the Defense Department, the federal government's largest agency that issues about $380 billion a year worth of contracts. The order says any agency that wants to buy from foreign suppliers will have to provide detailed justification. Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Center for Government Contracting in the School of Business at George Mason University, said this order came as no surprise. "This is something that Biden talked about during the campaign," said McGinn, a former Pentagon official in the office of industrial base policy. "He's putting a stronger focus on domestic manufacturing than the Trump administration." What does this mean for defense technology and space? The Biden administration will need a plan to strengthen the domestic base in industries that develop and produce advanced technology like space, microelectronics, robotics, 5G communications, artificial intelligence — all sectors that rely on global supply chains, says McGinn. "We need to build more capacity." The emphasis on domestic sourcing has implications for the space sector, experts said, because space is a growing industry that is projected to create jobs and fuel economic strength. "I think it would be fantastic if the Biden administration looked for ways to leverage the commercial space industry — and its supply chains for ancillary products and services — to secure and grow the U.S. economy as it rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic," said Bruce Cahan, a lecturer at Stanford University's Department of Management Science and Engineering. Cahan is co-author of "U.S. Space Policies for the New Space Age: Competing on the Final Economic Frontier," a study endorsed by the U.S. Space Force, the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Innovation Unit that advocates for a national effort to advance space technology and innovation. "In so many ways the pandemic has shown that having U.S. suppliers and technologies available for existential missions for space up there can be of great and timely value down here on Earth, while creating new and good paying jobs for all Americans," Cahan told SpaceNews. This is not an issue that DoD or NASA alone can address, he said. "A whole-of-government approach" is needed to identify needs and requirements for the industrial base in support of the national economy.
Hyten to DoD: Buy commercial space tech Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been a longtime critic of how the Pentagon acquires technology, especially when it comes to space systems. On a National Security Space Association webcast on Friday, Hyten was asked why the Pentagon is not tapping all the innovation coming out of the commercial space industry. "That's been a frustrating question for me," Hyten said. There is cutting-edge technology "sitting right there, and the only people that are in the way of taking advantage of it are us." DoD's partnership with the launch industry has been a huge success, he said, and it should be replicated in other sectors of the space industry like satellite manufacturing, remote sensing and space situational awareness, he said. "We should be partnered with everybody that's operating in space. If somebody wants to partner with us we should figure out how to come up with the resources and partner with them." Partnering is not the same as subsidizing companies, he noted. "Space is still expensive, it doesn't matter who you are. If you can partner with others to share the cost, it's to everybody's benefit." Hyten also spoke about the Space Force and why its supporters should not fear that President Biden will get rid of it. | 
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