New Bush Space Policy Unveiled

U.S. President George W. Bush has authorized a sweeping new national space policy, green-lighting an overarching national policy that governs the conduct of America’s space activities.

The new policy supports not only a Moon, Mars and beyond exploration agenda, but also responds to a post 9/11 world of terrorist actions, such as the need for intelligence-gathering internal and external to the United States.

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.”

Without fanfare, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) rolled out the National Space Policy on October 6—a document that supersedes a September 1996 version of the directive. President Bush signed off on the new space policy on August 31.

A 10-page unclassified version of the U.S. National Space Policy was posted Friday on the OSTP web site.

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