Pursuing Space: Why America Needs to Invest More in Space

The United States is in an asymmetrical position of power in the world. As the world’s sole superpower, the United States leads the world in political, economic, military, and cultural influences. The legacy of the Second World War has led to this position the United States now holds. The war led to the emergence of only two superpowers for the world’s first era of bipolarity. What resulted was a half-century long standoff between the United States and the USSR. At the crux of this conflict was the nuclear arms race, but the escalation of nuclear weapons would only be one of many conflict points between the two powers. The arms race with nuclear weapons would give way to the space race. Space technology has long revolutionized the technological status of the world. The first of the long list of space-inspired technology would be the ICBM’s contrived from the USSR’s launching of Sputnik. America suddenly realized that if the Soviets can put a satellite in orbit, then they can engineer a warhead into a missile that can be launched from Russia and reach Los Angeles. Sputnik opened the possibilities of space and space technology. No longer would space be the unreachable frontier of sci-fi Dyson Spheres or astronomers. Among the many advances to technology that space tech has fostered are major military advancements that have created the recent RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs). The first Gulf War showed the world the impact of space technology that gave the United States military an unprecedented advantage in communications and networking. Satellites provided GPS for the precision movement of soldiers and supplies, and the precision strikes of missiles and artillery. Space tech had secured the power of the United States to a completely unrivaled level. Twenty years later, however, the desire of the United States people and political elites to pursue space like they had in the 1960’s has waned, leaving the future of NASA in doubt as it is jostled between passing administrations. In order to ensure the future security of the United States as the world’s hegemon, the US Government must allocate the necessary resources to significantly aid both NASA and private space programs in the development of a space elevator, distant manned exploration, and the armament of space-to-earth weapons systems.

Re-Launching Space Interest amid the Waning US Advantage in Space: The beginning of the space race against the Soviet Union was disheartening for the US. The USSR launched Sputnik into orbit in 1957, spurring the United States into action. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created a year later, beginning the US race of prestige in space. But for years to come, the Soviet Union continued to best the United States in practically every important measure of space achievement, “including the first space walk, the longest space walk, the first woman in space, the first space station, and the longest time logged in space. But by defining the Cold War contest as a race to the moon and nothing else, the United States gave itself permission to ignore the milestones it missed along the way.”1 Kennedy set this mission in 1961 when he famously declared “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” Enthusiasm for space was huge, and NASA captured the imagination of America and eventually led the US to be the leader in space. Kennedy made his declaration a goal that would span two of his administrations should he have been reelected, making the race to the moon a solid objective of his administration alone, instead of a dream to be shoved off onto the next administration. The 21st Century, however, has seen the decline of interest in space exploration. President Bush began the discontinuation of the long running shuttle system, and Obama has set an ambiguous goal of putting a man on mars by the mid-2030’s, long after his administration has left office. The shortsighted, “live in the moment” culture of the US has diminished its drive to be the dominant presence in space. Should this trend continue, other aspiring space powers will work hard to usurp the US space superiority.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, former member of the NASA Advisory Council under Bush joked that “the United States would land astronauts on Mars in a year or two if only the Chinese would leak a memo that revealed plans to build military bases there.”2 Such a statement could create another “Sputnik moment” for the United States and galvanize its space program. Though, one could argue that what China has already done should be enough. China continues to pour huge attention into their space program, meeting each of their desired achievements on schedule with their “five year plans.” China’s central command also allows for longer term decisions to be made regarding their space program; which in turn gives longevity to their visions.3 The Space Program in the United States was long a nonpartisan project, where party lines stayed out of the way of NASA’s finances and development. Today, however, it is used as a tool by both sides for political goals, jeopardizing the stability of a program that needs long term focus and financing to accomplish the R&D requirements to reach new levels in space. The US’s inability to realize the continued need to focus on space, partisan politics, and the rise of external space programs will threaten the supremacy of the United States as a superpower, allowing other nations like China and Russia to catch up to the US, and thus removing the major RMA advantage it has held for the last few decades. This is made worse by the discontinuation of the Shuttle Program in NASA, for it forces the United States to rely on these other space powers to simply get into space to accomplish the tasks the shuttles long had done. Launching the shuttles was expensive, and each flight, according to NASA, was about $450 million.4 With its expense and its over-extended lifespan of 15 years, the shuttle program needed to end. The reliance on foreign powers such as Russia to get into space needs to be ended as quickly as possible. Until the US government can implement a new system to get into space, the US should turn to private US corporations to provide reliable transportation into LEO (Low Earth Orbit). The US can’t afford to have itself at the mercy of another nation to maintain its space assets.

What has been/ is being done: The DoD issued a directing in October of 2012 outlining what the United States’ policy would be in space, in particular from the aspect of national security. They outlined the current difficulty in space due to three issues: Space is congested, contested, and competitive.5 How is the United States to approach space policy in a space full of debris that threaten everyone’s satellites in an orbit that has 60 different nations operating in space in one degree or another (largely through owning and operating a satellite). Analyzing these issues the DoD, through the NSSS (National Security Space Strategy), issued these three challenges for the US.

“• Strengthen safety, sustainability, stability, and security in space;
• Maintain and enhance the national security advantages afforded by the use of space; and
• Energize the space industrial base that supports U.S. national security.”6

All of these challenges are synonymous with one another, meaning the enhancement of one of these challenges affects the US’s ability to secure the other challenges. The United States has already begun the work on these goals. The degree to which they are being pursued, however, is not enough. The United States needs to innovate to bigger ideas in order to ensure space dominance. One could perceive it as an implementation of one of the concepts of the Rumsfeld doctrine in space: become so technologically beyond one’s potential foes that no one even considers contesting one’s power.

Counterspace Threats: Recent developments have highlighted the need for the United States to take action against the counterspace capabilities of other nations. January 11, 2007, China conducted an anti-satellite (ASAT) kinetic kill with a missile, destroying a defunct Chinese weather satellite. It is believed that China began the development of these ASAT missiles shortly after the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, which has given the United States a free hand to move forward with missile defenses and space-based missile defenses.7 This move is exactly what the United States needed to do to pave the way to establishing space based weapons, and not surprisingly, China has moved to counter US space capabilities. China believes that the United States is directing its effort to instate orbital missile interceptors at China, which they believe would effectively nullify their relatively small ICBM nuclear arsenal.8 Such a capability with the implementation of an orbital based anti-missile defense system would be a major advantage for the United States in its projection of power abilities.

Satellites are Weak and Predictable: The issue with building a missile defense system via a satellite platform is that a satellite follows a predicable course through orbit, and is relatively easy to hit via a kinetic kill weapon, the likes of which China demonstrated to have during its 2007 test.9 Therefore the United States should focus on building a platform in space that is armored and durable as well as maneuverable, providing a weapons platform that could defend itself against counterspace threats. An actual space ship, whether it is designed after the Enterprise or not, isn’t completely far-fetched. There are already serious proposals and plans for how a space ship could be built.10 Ships could act as space ports, science labs, and weapons platforms. But instead of being confined to Earth orbit, a ship could break away from orbit to avoid an enemy missile launch. A ship’s counter would be nuclear weapons, but that would require that nation to break the Outer Space Treaty; to which every nuclear power is a signatory. However, such designs are currently too expensive for the US public to stomach, which is why stepping stones are needed to reach these goals.

The Stepping Stone to Space Dominance: A Space Elevator: The national security of the United States is not only secured by military means, but economic as well. Arguably, the greatest obstacle to pursuing space isn’t the dangers of being up there, or the inability to create reliable technology. Instead, it is the cost of getting into space.11 Every nation that has seriously pursued their own space program and every corporation that has paid to put a satellite in orbit understands the unbelievable cost just to move material from Earth into orbit. The main cargo ships, the US Shuttles and the Russian Soyuz, both have strict weight and design controls, limiting the size, weight, and design of items that need to be transported into space. In order to construct anything of significant size like the ISS (International Space Station), many consecutive (expensive) trips need to be made to bring parts up separately. Getting into space is not economically practical. The nation or entity to create a truly cost effective way to get into space would hold a powerful advantage in what happens in space, and revolutionize what mankind can accomplish in space. Therefore, the United States should look to benefit in the construction of a space elevator. The cost of moving material into orbit currently costs around $10,000 per pound to get to LEO12. The cost of transportation through a space elevator would drop that cost to the vicinity of $100 per pound13 to even as low as around $10 per pound by other estimates.14 Such a drastic cost advantage will revolutionize mankind’s approach to space. Business ventures into space would finally become financially feasible. Thus far, the cost to profit ratio of mining materials in space has just not been great enough to tempt a gold rush to the celestial bodies beyond Earth. A space elevator would change that, however, by removing the expensive launch position around the strong gravity pull at the Earth’s surface. Being able to build and launch ships directly from orbit at an orbital docking station for example, would greatly reduce the costs of operating in space for exploratory and commercial ventures, removing the need to design the greatest part of a craft around the rockets just to get the craft off the ground and into or beyond orbit. A space elevator would act as the foundation to building the rest of the US space program off of, not only acting as an inexpensive means of getting a lot of material into orbit with relative ease, but as a tool for international cooperation. Every other nation in space would seek to use the elevator for its extreme cost efficiency, and nations not yet in space would see this as an opportunity to finally get into space due to the lower costs. Thus, the elevator would open a major outlet for diplomacy and relations with other nations that would greatly benefit national security.

Becoming the Space Hegemon: The concept of dominating space would be the same concept of how the United States dominates the seas. It isn’t that the seas are unavailable to other nations; on the contrary, the seas are more accessible and safe due to US naval power. Since the US is not truly interested in fighting and winning wars, but preventing them in the first place, it brings its power to a position of absurdity so as to dissuade competition in the first place. This is why our current foes have resorted to the asymmetrical terrorism in the War on Terror, because they have no hope of ever defeating the US on a true battlefield. Currently, the United States Navy is such a dominant force that “dissuades others from investing in competing navies -- because it would cost them a fortune and would not provide them a margin of military advantage…”15 Rumsfeld goes on to say that “Hardening U.S. space systems and building the means to defend them could dissuade potential adversaries from developing small "killer satellites" to attack U.S. satellite networks. New earth-penetrating and thermobaric weapons… could make obsolete the deep underground facilities where terrorists hide and terrorist states conceal their WMD capabilities.”16

“Weaponizing” Space: The current weapons ban treaty in space is the Outer Space Treaty, first signed in January of 1967 between the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom. More recently, on the 12th of February, 2008, China and Russia proposed a complete weapons ban in space that would include conventional weapons and ASAT weapons. The United States objected and discredited the Chinese and Russian focus on a potential arms race in space.17 The US needs to continue to keep itself from being hampered by these treaties and then find a moment to establish itself at such level that is unattainable by these other powers so as to dissuade them from trying to counter the US. Space-based anti-missile defense systems “may dissuade others from spending to obtain ballistic missiles, because missiles will not provide them what they want: the power to hold U.S. and allied cities hostage to nuclear blackmail.”18 Plans should also be implemented to establish a platform through either a satellite or a ship to launch a system similar to the “Rods from God” concept. This weapon would fire tungsten rods from its platform with great precision to its target, destroying the target like a precision meteor strike. It has the capability of destroying targets deep underground,19 allowing it to effectively counter the deeply hidden nuclear arsenals of North Korea and the nuclear systems of Iran without the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

Mining in Space: The Earth is a finite place with finite distances and finite resources. Space offers the ability to alleviate the latter problem. As more and more nations develop, the amount of resources that are being consumed has grown exponentially along with the population of the human race. Based on the known terrestrial reserves and growing consumption in developing countries along with excessive exploitation by developed countries, there is speculation that key elements needed for modern industry, including antimony, zinc, tin, silver, lead, indium, gold, and copper, could be exhausted on Earth within 50–60 years. Other essential elements like platinum could have their natural reserves depleted even long before then.20 Once the issue of getting into space inexpensively is overcome, reaching asteroids and mining them for their vast reserves of these very materials will become a lucrative venture. Due to the need of maintaining the industry that supports the United States military and the economic boost this would provide the economy of the US, a hard push to establish a long term plan to begin mining asteroids is essential to national security.

In Conclusion: These recommendations are offered to the Secretary of Defense for his role within the National Security Council and ability to bring expedience to these recommendations. Based on the advantages space offers economically, militarily, and technologically as well as the current dependence of the United States on space assets to function at its current levels of power, the United States must seek to implement these plans into a comprehensive and ambitious space policy to ensure its role as the world’s hegemon. The previous and current administrations have begun the framework that is needed to protect US space interests, but they have not gone far enough. The implementation of a space elevator, the building of defensible ships and weapons platforms in space, and focused missions for distant exploration for resources and scientific development therefore need to become chief national security concerns. They will secure the US position as the world’s superpower by making the United States the nation through which humanity truly explores the final frontier and thus serving to bring security to the United States by securing its future economically, militarily, diplomatically, and technologically.

Works Cited

NASA. “Advanced Space Transportation Program: Paving the Highway to Space.” The Marshall Space Flight Center. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/ astp.html_prt.htm
“Building the Enterprise.” 2013. http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/
Cohen, David. “Earth 's natural wealth: an audit.” 23 May 2007. NewScientist.com.
Cumming-Bruce, Nick. “U.N. Weighs a Ban on Weapons in Space, but U.S. Still Objects.” New York Times. February, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/world/europe/13arms.html
Department of Defense. “Fact Sheet: DoD Space Policy.” National Security Space Strategy. 2012. http://www.defense.gov
Department of Defense; Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “National Security Space Strategy: Unclassified Summary.” 2011-2012. http://www.defense.gov
Kennedy Space Center: “FAQ’s.” NASA.gov. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/information/shuttle_faq.html#10
Mankins, John C. “A Fresh Look at Space Solar Power: New Architectures, Concepts and Technologies.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration. pg. 16.
Rumsfeld, Donald. “Transforming the Military.” Foreign Affairs. June 2002. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/58020/donald-h-rumsfeld/transforming-the-military?page=3
Shainin, Jonathan. “Rods from God.” The New York Times. December, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10section3a.t-9.html
The Spaceward Foundation. “Space Elevators.” 2008. http://www.spaceward.org/elevator-ride
The Institute for Scientific Research. “The Space Elevator: What is the Space Elevator?” http://web.archive.org/web/20071013160505/http://isr.us/SEHome.asp?m=1
Tyson, Neil deGrasse . “The Case for Space.” March 2012 http://www.foreignaffairs.com/
Zhang, Hui. “Action/Reaction: U.S. Space Weaponization and China.” Arms Control Association. 2005. http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_12/DEC-CVR

Cited: Department of Defense. “Fact Sheet: DoD Space Policy.” National Security Space Strategy. 2012. http://www.defense.gov Department of Defense; Office of the Director of National Intelligence