<P> The Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy was a group of prominent US citizens concerned with the space policy of the United States of America . It is no longer active . </P> <P> The Council's roots date to 1980 as a group which prepared many of the Reagan Administration Transition Team's space policy papers . The Council was formally created in 1981 by joint action of the American Astronautical Society and the L5 Society to develop a detailed and technically feasible space policy to further the national interest . Participant Gregory Benford would in 1994 describe the activities of the council: </P> <P> The Council, a raucous bunch with feisty opinions, met at the spacious home of science fiction author Larry Niven . The men mostly talked hard - edge tech, the women policy . Pournelle stirred the pot and turned up the heat . Amid the buffet meals, saunas and hot tubs, well - stocked open bar, and myriad word processors, fancies simmered and ideas cooked, some emerging better than half - baked...Finally, we settled on recommending a position claiming at least the moral high ground, if not high orbits . Defense was inevitably more stabilizing than relying on hair - trigger offense, we argued . It was also more principled . And eventually, the Soviet Union might not even be the enemy, we said - though we had no idea it would fade so fast . When that happened, defenses would still be useful against any attacker, especially rogue nations bent on a few terrorist attacks . There were plenty of science fiction stories, some many decades old, dealing with that possibility . The Advisory Council met in August of 1984 in a mood of high celebration . Their pioneering work had yielded fruits unimaginable in 1982 - Reagan himself had proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, suggesting that nuclear weapons be made "impotent and obsolete". The Soviets were clearly staggered by the prospect . (Years later I heard straight from a senior Soviet advisor that the U.S. SDI had been the straw that broke the back of the military's hold on foreign policy . That seems to be the consensus now among the diplomatic community, though politically SDI is a common whipping boy, its funding cut .) </P> <P> November, 1980 July, 1983 May 9--11, 1986 August 10, 1997 </P>

Citizen's advisory council on national space policy