us President George W Bush recently signed a new national space policy, which claims that the nation has the right to deny access to space to anyone hostile to its national interests.

"The us will preserve its rights, capabilities and freedom of action in space... and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to us national interests,' notes a 10-page unclassified version of the us National Space Policy, posted on the White House Office of Space and Technology Policy website. Bush's top goals, as noted in the policy document, are to ensure that space capabilities are available in time to further us national security, homeland security and foreign policy objectives, besides enabling unhindered us operations in and through space to defend the nation's interests.It also labels human-made space junk as posing a risk to continued reliable use of space-based services and operations.

The new space policy has, however, drawn flak from experts who feel that it goes beyond the previous Clinton policy that opened the door to developing space weapons. In a media statement, the us administration has clarified that the first full revision of overall us space policy in 10 years is not about developing or deploying weapons in space.