What does the 2020 presidential election mean for space exploration?

Space is not one of the presidential election's big battlegrounds.

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden haven't talked much about the final frontier during the 2020 race, which peaks today (Nov. 3) with Election Day. (That moniker is a bit misleading, however, given that more than 90 million people cast their ballots early and multiple states will be counting votes for days afterward.)

But a lot of us care deeply about the United States' space policy and how the next four years could shape it. Here's a brief rundown of where the two main candidates stand.

Donald Trump

Trump has been quite active in the space-policy realm. For example, he resurrected the National Space Council, which had been dormant since the early 1990s. Vice President Mike Pence chairs the council, which serves to streamline the country's off-Earth plans and priorities. 

Trump has also signed five different space policy directives. The first of them, which amended and updated a directive issued by President Barack Obama in 2010, set the U.S. firmly on a crewed course to the moon and beyond.