Some recent space policy related items :

• Space Experts: NASA Is Dangerously Adrift – Popular Mechanics
• Logsdon and Pace Criticize Lack of White House Leadership on NASA, Say Agency is Adrift – spacepolicyonline.com
• YHABFT: RD-180 Sales Ban Rumor, A-Com, and FY11 Budget Request HLV Propulsion – Selenian Boondocks
• Guest column: NASA lacks vision- Florida Today
• Gambling with a Space Fence: An analysis of the decision to shut down the Air Force Space Surveillance Fence – The Space Review

Update:

• Drift or Sanity – Space KSC – Stephen C. Smith responds to the comments by Scott Pace and John Logsdon reported on in the Pop Mech and SpacePolicyOnline items above and the following Florida Today article.
• Experts: ‘Drift’ is plaguing NASA: Human spaceflight not a foregone conclusion in future, prof says – Florida Today

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See also The Cold War Returns to Space – Greg Autry/Huffington Post

Oddly, while the White House has been a strong advocate for privatization in space, some Republican Senators and Members of Congress still envision America’s future in space as looking more like the Postal Service or Amtrak. They’ve subverted CCiCap and its predecessors by diverting funding to an old school, nationalized space program known as the Space Launch System (SLS), designed to eventually carry astronauts to Mars or the asteroids. This giant launch vehicle is not well suited for primary the job at hand – delivering Americans to the ISS and satellites to Low Earth Orbit. More recently the Capitol Hill opponents of New Space have moved to force these entrepreneurial firms into the same Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) model that has corrupted big government aerospace projects for years. All of this delays America’s return to space in a blatant effort to protect socialized space jobs in Alabama and Texas.

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Neil deGreasse Tyson says Elon Musk can’t get to Mars:  Neil deGrasse Tyson On Elon Musk SpaceX – Business Insider.

There are several factors that Tyson is overlooking:

• Musk is saying that Mars can only be affordable for private entities if the costs are drastically lowered.
• Musk’s goal is for SpaceX to achieve drastically lower costs by developing fully, rapidly reusable launch vehicles.
• Since propellants make up less than half a percent of the current cost of getting to orbit, full reusability could lower costs by as much as a factor of 100 over the current cost of getting to orbit.
• The only progress being made in lowering space transportation costs is in the private sector.
• If SpaceX succeeds in lowering costs that much, they can in fact make lots of money in selling transportation ranging from commercial spacecraft to people buying ride to Mars.
• Tyson continues to ignore the many, many examples of private entities leading the exploration of a frontier, e.g. Columbus voyages were funded by Italian banks, polar exploration was mostly privately funded, IBM research has won several Nobel prizes, etc.

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Update 2: NASA may finally get a 2013 budget: JWST, Commercial Crew Spared Cuts in NASA FY2013 Operating Plan – SpacePolicyOnline.