Obama's new national space policy focuses on...Earth

President Obama's new National Space Policy is going to be a tough pill to swallow for anyone wanting NASA to pursue traditional goals of manned space missions. But NASA has always been a contentious destination for public funding, and Obama's plan uses the department's expertise to help solve problems right here on our home planet.

The policy statement is pretty ambiguous, but at least we can get a sense of the direction in which Obama wants our space policy to go. It lays out NASA's new role in supporting private firms like SpaceX, and also its new policy to focus on Earth-bound issues like climate change, human environmental impact, and changes to land and water.

The policy ropes in other governmental departments for this task, including the Departments of Defense, Commerce, the Interior, and Homeland Security.

In addition to a new focus on issues here at home, Obama makes a drastic change from his predecessor in relationships with other countries in the space arena. He actually says that "space belongs to all nations," which former President Bush may not have agreed with, and asks for all space-bound countries to work together on projects like cleaning space debris.

You can read the entire policy here (warning: PDF file).

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com