It was not so long ago that interest in space began to wane. With the “
space
race” settled and budgetary cuts restricting activities, there was a period in which space was more of an “out of sight, out of mind” frontier. Then, private industry and visionary entrepreneurs stepped up to breathe new life into space, collaborating with governments and partners not just in the United States but abroad as well.
Today, space is a worldwide focal point — for what we are achieving in exploration as well as the advancements that improve life on Earth. In 2022, we saw the largest number of satellite deployments ever, the launch and lunar orbit of
NASA
’s Space Launch System, numerous groundbreaking private sector missions, and the “first light” from the long-anticipated James Webb Space Telescope. We’re also experiencing firsthand how our dependence on space technology is impacting everything from precision agriculture and environmental sustainability to medical care and
national security
.
Quite simply, space is an indispensable critical infrastructure, and it’s time it should be treated as such.
When most people think of infrastructure, they think of roads, dams, bridges, and utilities. These types of infrastructure are necessary for society to function and are appropriately treated as “critical” when it comes to policy, budgetary and legal decision-making. Space should be viewed the same way.
Today space affords essential data and connectivity that is necessary for every country, industry, and community to be part of the 21st century. It also provides economic opportunities throughout the world, and it is key to national security.
While the Department of Homeland Security has 16 defined critical infrastructure sectors, space is not one of them. The reasons are both political and economic. Many still fail to see just how essential space is to everyday life, and if it were designated as critical infrastructure, the government would have to fund it in ways it is not prepared. That must change. The disruption or destruction of space assets and access would have a debilitating effect on national and economic security that would ripple across the globe.
As a retired rear admiral, I can’t help but harken back to the earliest days of the Navy to describe the role space plays. In 1794, Congress established the Navy to protect commercial ships from pirates in the Mediterranean and Atlantic waters. This branch of the service operated under maritime law, securing our borders and ensuring safe trade and commerce, as well as facilitating international cooperation. It’s difficult to imagine a world in which the Navy hadn’t performed this role.
Like our oceans, no single country owns space. Today, 90 countries operate in space with research, exploration, commerce, and security operations in motion every day. As amazing as this is, it poses significant risks in terms of our assets both “up there” and on Earth as other countries possess and seek to acquire capabilities to adversely affect our national security, global commerce, and more.
Failure to exploit space appropriately will be a national and economic security downfall if we do not act strategically. We are at a critical point where the commercial industry is not only using space assets to provide services and compete but also becoming a vital resource in military endeavors. Ukraine is a perfect example. With the help of commercial satellites and space technologies, Ukraine has been able to help fend off Russian aggression for nearly a year. In what many anticipated to be a rout, Ukraine has been able to stand its ground inflicting significant damage on the Russian military and allowing it to retain its sovereignty. Without space, this would have been unimaginable.
But just as the oceans needed international guidelines as established by maritime law, we also need them for space. It is how we will cooperate with and support other nations in the future regardless of who is waving a flag for help. The lives of people across our planet increasingly depend on space, and as such, we have a responsibility to one another. At the same time, whoever controls the higher ground of space will be the greatest superpower the world has ever known.
With the establishment of the Space Force and the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy, the U.S. government has declared our dependence upon space assets, systems, and networks — and the need to protect them from a range of threats. But those recognitions do not go far enough. Space must be viewed, funded, and resourced as critical infrastructure.
To be sure, a formal declaration of critical infrastructure will not on its own mitigate those threats. However, a declaration of space as critical infrastructure from the administration and Congress will allow the mobilization of policy and programmatic structures to better integrate space into the resilience planning and coordination efforts necessary to secure it.
Those steps will secure the promise of a growing and enterprising space economy and all the services, resources, and people that depend on it — today and for every generation thereafter.
That has always been the intent with every other critical infrastructure, and the same should be true for space. And that time has come.
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Retired Navy Rear Adm. Tom Zelibor is the CEO of Space Foundation, a 501(c)(3) global space advocate headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
