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Look at it this way.
Who is the latest threat to the US?
And what is that threat?
N. Korea and China. They are the ones currently devising and testing long range Ballistic missiles that can carry bio or nuke heads.
With all the war on terror, don't forget that the US still has to wave it's no-no finger at some parts of the world. And it's up to the US alone, like it or leave it even with Bush in charge, to be the cop on the block.
The terrorist threat will not be much of a space based threat, nor does it really have the capacity to use satellites for threatening reasons. They may however. use commercial satellites to plan attacks and organise, communicate.
So what you do is strongarm satellite service providers with the 'Ooops' threat of the possibility of accidentally taking their system out of the sky unless they either allow US/UK/NATO access to monitor it or deny access to terrorists.
Back to China & N.Korea.
It worked for USSR and bankrupted them when Reagan announced Starwars. This is just the next step althought the Chinese and Koreans are probably wise to the old game. This time the US has to actually make something that works and not bluff it.
Because of the US's nuclear arms race, they have the technology to put satellites up and control what goes on up there. In proxy, they also control most of the information that goes on up there.
China's next big step is to provide competition. It's against US interests to allow that to happen. Funding for space exploration and future colonisation is dependent on money received for putting satellites in orbit and testing new uses for devices up there.
I think that although any person landing and living on the moon would be exciting, the US govt would prefer it if that person was American.
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