There seems to be little hope of better defining U.S. space policy, given the current underfunded NASA vision of human expeditions to Mars and its ambitions to turn responsibility for low Earth orbit transportation over to commercial providers, according to members of an expert panel hosted by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Policymakers, some with ties to previous Republican as well as Democratic administrations, suggested that the nation’s space objectives must be more closely aligned with larger strategic interests, including formative relations with China.
The Jan. 24 forum, “Lost in Space: The Need for a Definitive U.S. Space Policy,” assembled in response to recent critical assessments from the National Research Council and the Space Foundation, found the nation’s current political climate too contentious to further define the kind of long-term goals that typically underpin human spaceflight initiatives. Washington will likely remain consumed by the country’s fiscal ills and short-term domestic issues for some time, forum participants predicted.
“I’m not very optimistic,” declared John Logsdon, founding director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute and a former member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. NASA’s emergence during the Cold War with the former Soviet Union and its early successes with the Apollo Moon missions gave it a national prominence that it has struggled ever since to regain, he said.
This is not only a shame, but a national security issue. To read more, click here.