State of Space Report Released by New Space New Mexico
New Space New Mexico has released its final report following its 2021 State of Space workshop held in July. The report outlines the critical importance of space development and human settlement, and incorporates input from 250 subject matter experts from industry, government, and academia.
“This is a seminal report that highlights issues critical to humanity’s cislunar expansion while addressing vital challenges on Earth. Securing our country’s continued leadership in space, especially in the important domain of low Earth orbit, has far-reaching implications for the remainder of the 21st century."
Karlton Johnson, Chairman of the NSS Board of Governors.
Major themes articulated by participants included how space is relevant to, and must be framed in relationship to, America’s priorities of infrastructure, with a focus on 21st century manufacturing, infrastructure and jobs, tackling climate change, unlocking the full diversity of America’s talent, and serving as a platform for foreign policy soft-power and public diplomacy.
In general, participants assessed the U.S. space industrial base as "tactically strong but strategically fragile. While the pace of innovation and investment in the U.S. is at an all-time high, participants cautioned that this will not be sustained without national strategic direction, meaningful commercial contract opportunities with defense and intelligence agencies, attention to fragile domestic supply lines, and addressing the anemic research, development, test and evaluation funding to prototype, validate and accelerate the adoption of innovative and disruptive capabilities required to retain U.S. leadership in space," according to the report.
That's because the U.S. failed to "recognize the rising threat of China - a nation focused on displacing the U.S. as the predominant space power by 2049; and second, by failing to employ all instruments of national power to accelerate and synergize advancements in commercial, civil and national security space (see Figure 2). The situation is correctable, but it is a fleeting opportunity as the U.S. attempts to outpace and compete with its greatest threat to national security in the first half of the 21st century."
In a news release, the National Space Society (NSS) said that an important component of the State of Space report was the call to make the development and settlement of space a part of America’s national vision for space. NSS has long called for this national focus, and support from major components of the U.S. government is a huge step forward.
“This is a seminal report that highlights issues critical to humanity’s cislunar expansion while addressing vital challenges on Earth. Securing our country’s continued leadership in space, especially in the important domain of low Earth orbit, has far-reaching implications for the remainder of the 21st century," said Karlton Johnson, Chairman of the NSS Board of Governors and retired Air Force Colonel. "This is one of the many areas where the goals of NASA, National Defense, and NSS overlap, and this report is a timely push to move those goals forward.”
The report also highlights the potential contributions of space to healing our planet’s environment and calls for a national program for space solar power enabling the delivery of clean, emissions-free energy from space. NSS has supported space solar power as a key to a bright future in space for decades—an initiative pioneered in the U.S. in the 1970s. This initiative, reflected in a new NSS position paper on Clean Energy from Space: Has Space Solar Power’s Time Come?, could not be more urgent given the slow progress on low-carbon energy sources and the recent interest by U.S. friends and allies.
”Space Solar Power has the potential to provide abundant, zero-carbon energy for baseload power in the near future if the needed investments are made now,” said Dale Skran, NSS COO and senior vice president. “This important report recognizes that direction and incorporates it into a new vision of the space industrial base.”
The State of Space report also underscores the importance of constructing a “space superhighway” and cislunar economy using public-private partnerships and notes the importance of space hardware reusability and the orbital servicing and maintenance of space hardware. Both are critical to long-term success.
(Source: Report Executive Summary and NSS news release. Image provided by NSS)