The re-election of U.S. President Barack Obama for a second four-year term in a bitterly polarized political climate and era of crisis-level budget deficits can fairly be seen to promise a continuation of the status quo in U.S. Government space policy. That policy was led by the Obama Administration’s fiscal year 2011 budget and the…

The 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing, and the approaching end of the space shuttle program after a nearly 30-year run have prompted reflection and soul-searching in the United States as to the direction of future space efforts. While the shuttle has provided enormous scientific benefits and given the U.S. astronauts…

January marks the inauguration of President Barack Obama and offers a good moment to review what the space policy of the new administration likely will be. Clearly, any incoming president would be constrained by the massive deficit created during the Bush administration. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bailout of the financial services industry (and…

While this column has examined the impact on the satellite industry of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) regime, the April decision by Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice to block the $1.3 billion acquisition of Canadian space systems manufacturer MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates Ltd. (MDA) by U.S. space equipment and munitions…