It;s Officially Obama

Barack Obama of Illinois is now President-elect of the United States. Many challenges await him, and somewhere in that mix will be deciding how America will move its space policy.

Obama seems generally supportive of spaceflight. One of his television ads features him telling about he went with his grandfather to see Apollo astronauts come home when he lived in Hawaii. During the campaign, he promised to build the Orion and Aries hardware that would take us back to the Moon. He has also proposed devoting tens of billions more dollars to science research. That kind of mindset is probably good news for NASA.

Another question, though, is whether he will support the move of private enterprise into space-- especially, of course, American companies. By reshaping the so-called ITAR regulations that govern the transfer of technology to other countries, he could open markets for small U. S. companies. By bringing private enterprise into a lunar base program as a major element, he may be able to build stability into a long range effort. By directing the government to work with the fledgling companies of the NewSpace industry to create a workable regulatory environment for both sides, he could help establish a new sector for the American economy.

We shall see.