US Space Policy Update Urges International Cooperation 66
eldavojohn writes "The recent shift in NASA's spaceflight goals has caused great stress in the space community and those related to efforts in space. A White House update to the policy is said to emphasize cooperation with the international community and looks to be a move away from individual nations competing in space. Instead, the document urges intense competition (PDF) in the commercial sector and reasons that 'The United States considers the sustainability, stability, and free access to, and use of, space vital to its national interests. It is the shared interest of all nations to act responsibly in ways that emphasize openness and transparency, and help prevent mishaps, misperceptions, and mistrust.' Space.com also notes that you can submit your comments and thoughts to the task force Obama appointed to determine new directions. No doubt this avoidance or departure from another Space Race will have a lot of people concerned that the US is out of the game."
Re:Good new direction (Score:3, Insightful)
One more step towards the "global government" is not a step in the right direction. We need individual organizations held accountable for completing missions (getting to Mars, more probes to the outer planets, etc). Global "cooperation" leads to eternal delays, blame shifting, and inflated budgets. Let's not even get into the fact that everyone wants their approach to be everyone's approach.
Re:Good new direction (Score:3, Insightful)
Competition got us Apollo. Cooperation got us ISS. You sure you don't want to rethink that?
Re:Pfft (Score:3, Insightful)
Until somebody figures out what the ????? is supposed to be between "1) Space Travel" and "3) PROFIT!", we aren't going anywhere.
Re:Good new direction (Score:3, Insightful)
Competition got us Apollo.
It was also a cooperation. With Germans.
Re:Good new direction (Score:2, Insightful)
OR...
Global cooperation provides more hands, funds, and experience to work toward a common goal.
Your paranoia about a 'global government' is completely unfounded and the type of nonsense that only someone with no knowledge of the way the world works would shovel.
Anything to inspire cooperation, explore new areas, improve technology, and deteriorate war and its causes is a good step for our world.
If you think otherwise kindly get the fuck off of my planet and go pollute another.
Re:Good new direction (Score:3, Insightful)
You might want to check again with the Germans [wikipedia.org] to see how well that went. German engineers are pretty good at building rockets, but American politicians killed off (economically) an entire generation of German rocket developers that is only beginning to recover. It is a real pity too as this was a rather ambitious program that could have made a huge difference.