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Policy

The White House Is Afraid To Admit What They Think About Their Own Space Policy

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 14, 2006

The President’s Space Policy: The Facts, The Truth, and The Myths, Washington Space Business Roundtable

“*Please note all parts of this presentation are to be strictly off the record.”

SPEAKER: Damon R. Wells, Senior Policy Analyst Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)

Editor’s note: It sure looks like Damon Wells and the rest of OSTP are afraid that taxpayers will be able to learn about what they have to say about the nation’s space policy – you know, the one they developed. Small wonder that Mike Griffin and Shana Dale (who used to work at OSTP) never mention it – or that the White House never mentions the VSE in their new space policy. What I simply do not understand is how a civil servant, speaking in an official capacity, can talk to a group of people about what they are paid to do (with tax dollars) – yet their comments cannot be relayed to the tax paying public. There’s an ethical issue here, folks. Indeed, this is the height of arrogance as far as this Administration is concerned. For the Washington Space Business Roundtable to agree to such conditions calls their own ethics into question. This is abject cowardice on the part of Damon Wells and the White House.

A space policy that cannot be discussed in public is one that is doomed to fail.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.