State Department Officials Afraid To Use Real Names When Talking About Space Policy

Do you think it could simply be an issue of avoiding turning up the heat on the simmering congressional pot?

I know one thing, this transitional period for the Space Industry will be denied, alleged and talked about for quite sometime, that's for sure.

For Pete's sake, is there nobody in overall charge of U.S. space policy? And if NASA must implement this policy, and interface with the foreign entities that may be interested in a joint program, shouldn't the agency be included in at least being notified of these discussions? and lastly why the select nature of their choosing reporters?what a screwed up mess. Are these the guys in charge of the BP oil spill?

Thanks for getting this out there Keith. It matters.

Tough times call for tough measures Frank. It's nothing new. Besides, it does show that they are in charge, even if it's not appreciated by some.

Unbelievable...this administration is without question the most non-transparent in history. The 2012 election cannot get here fast enough.

Here is the "HOPE" he can keep his change!!!

To predict how a politician will act, pay attention to what he or she says, then expect the opposite.

The dysfunction in government knows no bounds.

Transparency? What's that!

Thanks for posting Kieth.

Agreed, Frank.

This behavior is very typical of the chaos coming out of the White House these days in all directions. In cases such as NASA's, that campaign slogan should have been CHANGE, THEN HOPE for the best!

Frank,

This is an example of what some of us have been saying for a while. The "new plan" that some here are so enamored with is really no plan at all. Just keep the money flowing and all will be well, until people wise up and realize that they are getting nothing from a paper space program.

"if NASA must implement this policy, and interface with the foreign entities that may be interested in a joint program, shouldn't the agency be included in at least being notified of these discussions?"

Um, what makes you think that NASA wasn't included in these discussions that led to development of this policy? According to Bolden, Lori Garver led the agency working group on developing this policy.

As to the last minute notification by NASA PAO, yes, that could have been handled better, but remember that NASA is actually a pretty small part of civil and military space in this country, which is what this policy covers. This is NOT a NASA policy. It's a White House policy that includes NASA. I guess no one got any warning from the DOD PAO or NOAA PAO either. Neither arrogance or cowardice need be implied. This was just a policy announcement by the administration. Get over it.

It's a little amusing that the comments here thus far are about how the policy was released, rather than what's in it. Has anyone here read it?

I guess anyone can call Jamie Mannina and ask why this conference was conducted in the manner that it was.
At the very least the press and interested parties did get invited. This idea for the realtime notice is so the truth can be displayed.
have fun!

Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
June 28, 2010
There will be a conference call press briefing on the President’s National Space Policy given by senior White House and State Department officials. The briefing will be ON-BACKGROUND, attributable to Senior Administration officials.

The briefing will take place today, Monday, June 28, 2010 at 4:00 pm. To join the call:

Dial in: 1-800-369-2002
Passcode: Space

The President’s National Space Policy will be posted today at www.whitehouse.gov.

Press Contact:
Jamie Mannina
Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation
ManninaJF@state.gov
(202) 647-7939

I loved when they referred to themselves by number in the conversations. I would have loved even more to have been aware of this in time to go and ask questions myself. All in all, after reading the transcript I am struck by an overwhelming impression of having just read a retelling of Lewis Carroll's The Walrus and the Carpenter.

You know, I like the policy. I was surprised how little it diverged from the Bush space policy on use of force. As for transparency .... well, this is obviously yet another administration who read Machiavelli's "The Prince" as a manual rather than a warning. Which puts into some doubt the entire policy....

I think it should just be expected that any administration we're likely to get any time soon will retreat into state secrecy in direct proportion to the degree they lose control of the means of communicating the message. The Obama administration clearly confuses transparency with with favorable press coverage.

If the press got involved wheres the names of these people? I mean were they actually wearing bags on their heads? As far as the election in 2012? I just hope it doesn't come out to be the lesser of the 2 evils so to speak.

As I read this description of our space policy I could not help but wonder why we are giving up our leadership in space to the United Nations?

Gar01 and all? I wonder of the UN comment was in regards to a SpaceGen Conference? SGAC has thousands of members in over 100 countries around the world. They have a variety of UN Action Teams and Working Groups on space issues, as well as the UN Programme on Space Applications? The time period that this 'mysterious' state department person said may match the SpaceGen Conference. View points of the next generation of space leaders (international generation)? If so, then I think that our senior NASA leaders did take part in the direction of the policy?
See the May SpaceGen Conference: http://www.spacegeneration.org/index.php/eventstopics/news/155-sgac-executive-director-serves-as-master-moderator-for-the-26th-annual-national-space-symposium

Gary01, I read the policy front to back looking for the internationalism fully expecting it to be a major part of the policy. There's damn little of it there, in fact it's only a slight retreat from the 'Total Spectrum Dominance' sort of policy you'd get from the Bush admin. Really, there's not much difference between this guy and the last guy. Think Bush would not have bailed out Wall St? Then why did they bail out Fannie and Freddie? Anything change in Iraq or Afghanistan? Our phones are still being tapped, GTMO still open for business, our stance toward .... well the rest of the world has not changed. Space is a real change, but not the radical change everyone is having a heart attack over when you look at actions and not words. VSE was a bastard child of the Bush admin within months of its inception. If I were looking for a space policy I'd look for one less dependent on the presidency to get it through, because it's been almost 50 years since civil space has had real presidential tending, and that's not going to change any time soon. No matter who is in office.

Your phone is being tapped? Why?

So's yours Gary. It works a little like this.

http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/presskit/ATT_onepager.pdf

Here's the case.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/court-rules-warrantless-wiretapping-illegal

As for the why, well I guess it's the typical double standard of any government, the rules apply to you and me but not to them. Some people have problems with that, others don't.

But that's not the point. The point was there is little real change from the Bush policy excepting VSE. Someone made the point that Moon and Mars are only mentioned once and thus make the claim that they are not targets of this new policy. An reasonable claim. Yet if memory serves the UN is also only mentioned once. What is mentioned a lot is ensuring access to space, use of space for national security needs, and defending access to space in the face of hostile actions. So again like I said, there's very little real substantive change when you consider that VSE was not furthered by the previous admin, yet it furthered military use of space to a similar degree. That speaks volumes to me that this admin has the same EFFECTIVE space policy as the last admin.

Heck I use a IP based phone, They can listen all they wish.

Gary, did you dial into the conference or call Jamie Mannina yet?