House Editorial: A whole new meaning for ‘Star Wars’
One small step for the president is one giant leap for the country
Posted on October 19, 2006

When picking up the Washington Post yesterday, it did not take much to imagine John Cleese from Monty Python sitting at his desk: “And now for something completely different — the president of the United States has officially annexed outer space.”

According to the cover story, a new National Space Policy has “[asserted] a right to deny access to space to anyone ‘hostile to U.S. interests.’” As if being the world’s policeman hasn’t proved hard enough these last few years, the United States has now essentially declared the galaxy a protectorate.

Despite repeated denials by the White House, experts on the issue of space weaponry have characterized the new policy as the president’s way of getting a leg further up on the space arms race. The suspicion has only been furthered by U.S. diplomacy; last October the United States was the only “nay” vote against United Nations negotiations on space weapons — opposite 160 “yeas.”

This policy shift is a dramatic departure from President Clinton’s space ambitions, which were to “enhance knowledge of the Earth, the solar system and the universe through human and robotic exploration.” The administration’s goals are now to “strengthen the nation’s space leadership and ensure that space capabilities are available in time to further U.S. national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives,” and to “enable unhindered U.S. operations in and through space to defend our interests there.”

It remains to be seen how the president intends to enforce this new policy. None of the well-educated neoconservatives lurking under the White House kitchen cabinets have seemed to realize that one cannot stake a flag in a vacuum. More pragmatically, one cannot believe that the Russians or Chinese will take very kindly to American blustering. And blustering it is; there is no remotely reasonable way to unilaterally prohibit other nations from launching whatever they darn well please into space.

The president’s shift does illustrate the necessity to increase protections for U.S. interests in outer space. In the last decade we have become increasingly dependent — militarily, economically and socially — on outer space. Come rush hour, millions of us will be driving our GPS-equipped car while talking on our satellite-linked cell phone as we go home to watch our DirecTV.

But there must be a better way than claiming outer space in the name of Uncle Sam. As the president has discovered in no uncertain terms in the last year, we can hardly keep our own, terrestrial, borders secure. How the United States think it can fence in space is anyone’s guess.