Sunday, June 27, 2010

New U.S. push for international space cooperation

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration will soon release a policy supporting increased international cooperation in space, fostering commerce, and pursuing arms control agreements.
COMMENT: I'll be very interested to see this. Civil space exploration is expensive, difficult, and something our whole species should be united in, with nations sharing risks and benefits. The U.S. leads in human spaceflight, while other nations are doing important robotic work, and the synergy could be very beneficial. The organizational aspects will be tricky: there is no realistic chance of a global NASA, but there are many other potential ways to make progress here.
I've always been skeptical of space-related arms agreements, however well-intentioned, because I've never seen a proposal that included strong verification procedures, but we'll see what comes up.

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