A Shift in the Tone of Our National Space Policy

Last week the White House released, with a modest amount of fanfare, its version of the National Space Policy. The document, 14 pages long (18 counting the cover and other front matter) provides the Obama Administration's stamp on various civil, commercial, and national security policy issues, just as the Bush Administration, Clinton Administration, and its predecessors have done over the years.

While the administration's significant changes to NASA's human spaceflight plans, announced earlier this year, might lead one to suspect that overall national space policy could be similarly subject to major changes, in reality national space policies do not undergo such major shifts from administration to administration. That's the case here, where much of the language in the Obama Administration space policy can also be found in the Bush Administration's policy released in 2006 and/or previous editions. What's more useful is to look for changes around the edges, so to speak: subtle shifts in language and emphasis that can provide insights into how the current administration will redirect and reprioritize space activities. And there are several such shifts that can be found in the policy.…

See The Space Review for links to further info.