With an almost a sneak-it-under-the-door approach, the Bush Administration has quietly announced a major new national space policy, one that promotes a Moon, Mars and beyond agenda, and addresses what is says is the need for intelligence-gathering both outside and within the U.S. Don't go looking for it on the White House web site, or even on NASA.com. But at its heart, the policy says no one should get in the way of U.S. space assets as they carry out their future missions (*cough* China *cough*) declaring "freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power."
"Operation Martian Freedom"?
2 comments:
Mac:
A perfectly sensible approach that I suspect Dems as well as Republicans will agree with )if it even hits their radar). The coming century in space is probably going to look a lot like the early days of European exploration, with rival powers looking for an advantage. It makes sense to be at the forefront, and want to stay there.
You might want to chat with Bob Zimmerman about this when you meet him in a couple of days - from what I can tell, he's a pretty big supporter of Bush when it comes to the direction of the space program.
Paul
It's not that I'm faulting the W administration's proactive space platform. It's that it's depressing that we're gearing up to take all of our territorial baggage into space. I had hoped for something better, something more "Star Trek." But I suppose I'll take what I can get!
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