Space Policy Case Study

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Pages: 2

Space policy has been around since the beginning of the Space Race between the U.S. and Soviet Union. The President is responsible for directing the creation of policy for the nation. However, when it comes to directing the development of space policy the President has had issues developing a continued focused policy. This has caused the President to figuratively lose policy making power to congress over the years.
No President since the beginning of the National Space Program has really wanted to support the national space program. For the most part President’s would rather just maintain a status-quo mentality, because of fear of political repercussions. Krug pointed out that there are five key factors on why Presidents have recurrently failed to come up with a comprehensible national space program and a complementing space policy.(Krug, pg 61) Due to these factors,
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Krug pointed out, that the shift in power started with the Landsat case, and the determination if it was experimental versus an operational system.(Krug, pg 72) This shift in power, in this case is not actual power, but metaphorical. In this case, Congress got involved when they had a difference of opinion and direction in which they felt policy should go versus what the President wanted. The result was a joint effort between these two branches of offices in coming up with an agreed upon space policy to end phased commercialization of Landsat.(Krug, pg 72) Congress’s main reason to get involved in this process is because of its budgeting powers. Krug does point out however, three different methods of presidency that the President can use to help prevent this metaphorical shift in power.(Krug, pg 69-70) By using a combination of these three methods, the President can prevent Congress trying to metaphorically take any of the policy making