Bush Reveals New Space Policy

Josh Fink writes "Space.com is reporting that President Bush has unveiled his new space policy. From the article: 'U.S. assets must be unhindered in carrying out their space duties,' the Bush space policy says, stressing that 'freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.'... As a civil space guideline, the policy calls upon NASA to 'execute a sustained and affordable human and robotic program of space exploration and develop, acquire, and use civil space systems to advance fundamental scientific knowledge of our Earth system, solar system, and universe.' While this policy does seem to push for more civil involvement in space for exploration and research, the article does go on to say, 'The policy calls upon the Secretary of Defense to "develop capabilities, plans, and options to ensure freedom of action in space, and, if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries."' So it will push into the intelligence community, and will supercede a similar policy from 1996. You can read the entire policy."

Comments

I do find it quite amazing

[Neuropol]

Because not two months ago, he wanted to shut down the ISS missions because they were estimated to cost $200M.

Isn't that like one tenth of what we blow on a war ... weekly?

Mod this to oblivion, regardless of what positive action he takes, I still don't like him.

Re:I do find it quite amazing

[AKAImBatman]

Because not two months ago, he wanted to shut down the ISS missions because they were estimated to cost $200M.

You might be surprised, but a lot of space advocates would agree with this. The ISS, for all it's design and hardware, is a useless space station that can only be serviced properly by the Space Shuttle. Had compromises not been made earlier, the station would be worth holding on to. But as it is right now, the station sits in an orbit that's incredibly hard to reach, cannot be used as a lunar launching point, and isn't even all that spectacular for scientific endeavours.

A much more useful future would be to take that $200M per mission, and spend it on lots and lots of inexpensive, inflatible space stations. These stations could provide all the facilities of the ISS, but at a lower cost of launch and operation. If a particular station outlives its usefulness, a new one could be launched rather than trying to maintain aging hardware.

The ability to spread our resources across multiple stations would also mean that we could put Space Stations where-ever they're useful. Need one to support moon missions? Done. Need a different orbit to support Mars missions? Done. Need a temporary construction yard for a spaceship? Done.

Those options simply don't exist with the current station. So believe it or not, there may be some method to Bush's seeming madness about space.

Re:jesus.

[Overzeetop]

It is because of the way he said it, for one thing.

FTFS: develop capabilities, plans, and options to ensure freedom of action in space, and, if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries.

He was doing pretty well up to that point, assuming that you ignore the fact that he's spent all of our money performing escalatio on the Iraqi insurgency.

What I read was "I want to jumpstart the manned space program, even though we don't have any money to do so, because it's such a feelgood topic to bring up right before the election. Also, I'd like to make sure we spend a good bit of money on space weaponry, because we just might have to saddle up to dispense some justice should someone we don't like start muscling in on this whole 'outer space' thing we've got going."

Its disingenuous to propose a large increase in manned space (high $$$, high popularity, low science) when the budget deficit is so large. It also runs counter to most of the non-military goals of space exploration to talk about engaging in warfare in orbit. Those of us who have memories longer than a year or two remember his goal to get to Mars, but have yet to see the $2T line item in the budget for such an undertaking. Hey George, Show Me The Money.