White House Announces New Space PolicyJuly 02, 2010
 President Barack Obama announced a national space policy at the end of June, which touched on such wide-ranging issues as international cooperation, managing orbital junk, and sending humans hurtling beyond low-Earth orbit, according to a White House policy paper. The plan calls for the government to lean more heavily on the commercial space products and services offered by the U.S. aerospace industry, and to invest in new and advanced technologies and concepts. The policy will also encourage partnerships with industry to promote innovation, with the U.S. government actively promoting the sale of domestic commercial space goods and services to the international market as long as it does not interfere with international cooperative agreements. These agreements with foreign countries appear to be a pillar of the Obama space policy, calling for far greater international cooperation on issues such as arms control in space and other space-related issues. The policy "is not a revolutionary document," a senior administration official said during a press briefing. The Christian Science Monitor reported on the briefing, noting that the official said it represents continuity with the space policy of previous administrations. The Monitor article also noted that some analysts were struck by the document's tone and an increased call for international cooperation across a range of space-related issues. The change in tone may be a necessity because space is no longer just one more front in the competition between two superpowers. Instead, it reflects the reality that a growing number of countries now rely on satellites in space for navigation, communications, and national security, according to the article. The number of countries capable of launching satellites and astronauts into orbit has also risen sharply. The Obama space policy has some unrefined sections, Eliott Pulham told the Monitor. He heads the Space Foundation, a Colorado-based non-partisan organization supporting human expansion into space. He cited the administration's plan for NASA, which "would defer human exploration of space beyond low-Earth orbit for 15 years, to 2025, essentially ceding U.S. leadership in human space exploration." But the policy is also stronger in several ways, Pulham told the Monitor, because it aims to strengthen the commercial spaceflight sector. And unlike the previous Bush administration, it plans on extending U.S. participation in the International Space Station to 2020 instead of cutting it off at 2015. |
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