Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

130 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe
Geneva, the U.S.S.r. further modifed its position to allow some antiballistic
missile research in space. talks later that year in Washington, DC, cemented
a new relationship between the two countries, and on January 15, 1988, the
Soviet Union presented a draft Strategic arms reduction treaty (Start)
protocol, which committed both countries to abide by the 1972 aBM treaty
for ten years and froze the number of launchers. 31
the 1972 aBM treaty lasted for more than ten years until president
George W. Bush, who was always critical of the treaty, took the next step and
announced in December 2001 that the country was withdrawing from the
treaty—a major goal of the conservative space agenda—efectively terminating
the treaty on June 13, 2002. 32 additionally, in recognition of the national
priority that Bush gave to missile defense, Defense Secretary Donald rumsfeld
announced the elevation of the efort to agency status and its new designation,
the Missile Defense agency, on January 4, 2002. 33 With that bureaucratic boost,
the conservative space agenda seemed alive and well.
the other major element of the conservative space agenda was the
commercialization of space. as political scientist W. D. Kay has pointed out:
“for the frst several months of his presidency, ronald reagan did not appear
to even have a science policy of any sort, let alone a plan for the U.S. space
program.” 34 that changed after the frst fight of the Space Shuttle Columbia in
april 1981, when “the general feeling within the White house after Columbia
was that anything was possible.” 35 the Space Shuttle, Kay added, “appeared
to provide the reagan White house with the fnal ingredient—the requisite
technology—that it needed to integrate the U.S. space program into its larger
political and economic goals.” 36
Indeed, the Space Shuttle stoked the reagan administration’s fres of
enthusiasm for commercializing space, among other projects. the commercialization
of space under the reagan administration was an entirely new space initiative
and was one of the two key pillars of the conservative space agenda along
with the militarization of space. reagan’s commercial space policy grew out
of an examination of military space policy carried out at the highest level, the
31. John C. Lonnquest and David F. Winkler, To Defend and Deter: The Legacy of the United States Cold
War Missile Program, USaCerL Special report 97/01 (Champaign, IL: U.S. army Construction
engineering research Laboratories, 1996), 129-130; reiss, 89-90.
32. U.S. Department of State, Fact Sheet, “aBM treaty Fact Sheet,” December 13, 2001, http://www.
state.gov/t/ac/rls/fs/2001/6848.htm (accessed November 13, 2007).
33. “BMDO’s Name Changed to Missile Defense agency,” Aerospace Daily, January 7, 2002, article
196406, [electronic edition].
34. W. D. Kay, Defning NASA: The Historical Debate over the Agency’s Mission (albany, NY: State
University of New York press, 2005), p. 125.
35. Kay, 128-129.
36. Kay, 127.