Posted by
Bert Chapman on Wednesday, February 08, 2012 7:04:18 PM
During a recent GOP presidential debate in Florida, Newt Gingrich was criticized for saying the U.S. should have a manned colony on the moon within the next few years. Gingrich can engage in more than his fair share of hyperbolic rhetoric but, in this case, he is on target. Space should be regarded as another area of geopolitical contention instead of an idealized arena for international scientific cooperation. The Soviet Union entered the space race for to gain strategic military advantage over the United States. China has slowly but steadily been increasing its military space activities and seeks to have a manned mission to the moon in 2020. Numerous works, including my own Space Warfare and Defense: A Historical Encyclopedia and Research Guide (ABC-Clio, 2008) and Everett Dolman's Astropolitics: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (Frank Cass, 2001), (both available via Amazon.com) demonstrate that the U.S. and other countries consider space a venue for military competition. Taylor and Francis press publishes the scholarly journal Astropolitics which examines space's strategic aspects and the Air Force's professional military journal Air and Space Power Journal regularly publishes articles on military users of aerospace forces. Numerous areas of U.S. military policymaking are directed toward space including space command branches within the Air Force and Army and a similar branch of the Navy. Air University, the Air Force's professional military educational institution, conducts significant research on military aspects of space operations and presidential administrations of both parties periodically issue National Space Policy documents.
Our current fiscal constraints, limit our ability to pursue military objectives in space. However, we would be ill-advised if we let China or any other power dominate space and cosmic territories like the moon. Space is vital to U.S. and world economic growth, access to natural resources on the moon and planets such as Mars, and international security and the U.S. must do whatever is required to maintain command of the heavenly commons. Even with our financial restrictions, we remain a bold nation and we would have not reached our level of national power and prosperity without aspiring to achieve big dreams and accomplish large objectives.