Contributing factors/components of national space policy - Essay Example

government. The expectations of the public in regard to the advancements in the space program has always been in tension with public funds available to realize those expectations. As an example, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2005 was a policy that was directed towards making sure that NASA retained sufficient employee talent to put into place the planned exploration goals.3 However, through most of the policies released since the turn of the century, those goals have not seemed to be clearly marked.

There have been definitive shifts in the loosely set policies. During the George W. Bush administration, a decision was made to shift the focus from the shuttle program to more lunar exploration. In September of 2005, Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator, suggested that human lunar exploration was the next goal on the agenda of NASA.4 However, the potential for the U.S. to be the next nation to once again step foot on the moon is doubtful. According to Herzfeld, the U.S. has been the leader in the field of space exploration for the last 50 years.

However, globalization has created a great number of competitors in the race for space throughout the world through nations and industry. As a result “overall space policy directives have slowly been transformed from a cold-war emphasis that marginalized the economic and commercial implications of space activities into a truly integrated policy that recognizes the maturity of many space applications, sophisticated industrial capabilities, the globalization of space technologies and the importance of the space infrastructure to both civilian uses and security concerns”.

5 The race into space should no longer be a competition between nations, but a cooperative effort between private industrial and state participation. Creating national space policy is a multi-faceted problem that supports a multitude of