U.S. Space Policy

Rather than examining only the civil or military side of the US space program, as have many books in the past, Space, the Dormant Frontier takes a unique look at the space program as a whole. Part of the book's treatise is that the two communities must stop ignoring each other if the US space program is to move forward beyond being a science project, jobs program, or political football. How the program got into its current, semi-desperate state is also examined, as history has given space a legacy once glorious, now an albatross. The authors include information and analysis on the military and civil space programs, challenge the perspective of the Washington Beltway analyst with vested interests in the status quo, and make policy recommendations based on realism, rather than idealism.

Over the last two decades, the image of the U.S. space program has become seriously tarnished. Its problems have ranged from massive cost overruns to serious program delays to catastrophic mission failures. The space program, once the most prominent symbol of American scientific and technological preeminence, now seems but one more example of government bumbling, extravagance, and waste. In this study, Kay examines the recent problems of the space program and finds that NASA's failures, like its earlier successes, are ultimately traceable to the way the American political system operates. Asking "can democracies fly in space?," the author suggests that the traditional workings of democratic politics actually exacerbates those very features of space projects--size, expense, and complexity--that make their development so difficult in the first place.

The military is moving slowly but surely toward a world in which weapons will be stationed in outer space, and officials argue that these developments are essential to the maintenance of U.S. national security in the post-Cold War world. Handberg explores these recent proposals for change and assesses the policy implications that might well result in a challenge to proponents for the militarization of space. Taking the reader through the first Sputnik launch and then the Gulf War, the "first space war," Handberg introduces his audience to a broad overview of space as an arena for the conduct of military activity. He argues that the new policies are likely to result in a world that is less, not more, secure.