http://www.spacepolitics.com/archives/001101.html
The White House released late Friday afternoon the new US National Space Policy, a document that completes the years-long review of overall space policy by the Bush Administration. (Interesting, the document states that this policy was formally authorized by President Bush on August 31; there's no reason why the administration took over a month to release the report, but give that they did so late on a Friday before a three-day weekend, with no fanfare, suggests they weren't terribly concerned about giving this document much publicity.)
A quick skim of the ten-page report doesn't turn up much in the way of new major policy statements: it appears to largely restate policies previously made by this administration, as well as older policies. There is a particular emphasis on ensuring access to and control of space, as the background puts it:
"In this new century, those who effectively utilize space will enjoy added prosperity and will hold a substantial advantage over those who do not. Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power. In order to increase knowledge, discovery, economic prosperity, and to enhance the national security, the United States must have robust, effective, and efficient space capabilities."
Elsewhere, the document notes that the US must not only have the ability to freely access space and stop those who would deny the US that right, the US must be able to "deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests"-an opening for the development and use of weapons in space, although that's not explicitly stated in the document. I suspect that this passage will raise the hackles of anti-space-weaponization community.
