US Space Policy of Obama’s and Trump’s administrations: a comparative analysis

Abstract

The Space Policy doctrine is one of the main documents determining the direction of space policy in the United States. The article examines and compares the space policy doctrines adopted by the administrations of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. For a complete picture, the article also analyses the key legislative acts related to the development of the US space industry under the two administrations. A comparative analysis of the presented documents serves as a methodological basis; it allows the author to highlight the main changes introduced by the Trump administration. Among them, the key ones are the strengthening of the role of the private sector, the creation of the National Space Council and the revision of the asteroid exploration program with its reorientation to the Moon. At the same time, based on the premise that the US space policy as a system is characterized not only by the influence of individuals, but also by relative stability due to the large number of the actors involved, it is concluded that there was no fundamentally new nature of the Trump administration’s space policy, but rather certain innovations were introduced, with the general continuity being kept. None of those key innovations bring real changes to the space policy system formed in the United States.