White House Space Plan Cool on Manned Program

摘要

Man in space—for decades the glory and budget buster of the US space program—receives curiously ambiguous treatment in a major statement on National Space Policy issued September 19 by the White House. For between-the-line readers, the document is especially interesting on the eve of what looks like the coming of a second Clinton Administration. The product of an inter-agency review by the National Science and Technology Council, the statement is described as the first post-Cold War policy guide for civil, military and commercial goals in space. It came out about a year later than expected, which suggests difficulty in arriving at substance and text.