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

Re:Arms race in space

[electroniceric]

Ensuring US superiority in space ... that's what the new policy boils down to.

This is probably true as far as policy goes: I would argue there's more mundane priority to this, which probably even predominates over the policy priority. This is an effort to give the Pentagon yet more authority over US law, funding and activity regarding space. Part of the reason you've seen so much leaking and counterleaking about torture, warrantless wiretapping and other intelligence activities is that the Pentagon is trying to gain the upper hand over the extramilitary diplomatic & intelligence institutions. Donald Rumsfeld is a notoriously assiduous bureacratic warrior, and he has made clear in various way that he wants the Pentagon to have a very broad mandate. This would trouble me under the best of circumstances: for the military to be the only party that manages and funds some with as many and as broad consequences as space exploration strikes me as foolishly one-dimensional. It troubles me doubly with Rumsfeld and Bush, because they have such a clear history of refusing to listen to any advice they don't like. I would call this development very troubling indeed.