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The US Space Guard Ziarnick The US Space Guard Institutional Support to Space Commerce Brent D. Ziarnick Captain, U.S. Air Force Reserve © Captain Brent D. Ziarnick, 2010. All Rights Reserved. Introduction This chapter discusses some methods and institutions that will bridge the gap between today’s practical reality of space commerce as satellites and signals and future visions of commercial empires in an outer space populated by thousands of human beings and shared by space enthusiasts. It argues that the present and future of space commerce are not two isolated and foreign concepts, but merely two points on a continuous wave of human progress that already shares a common character and logic. By identifying the underlying structural similarity between the present and future of space commerce, we can envision a way to connect the two concepts in the mind of the public that will enhance the former and prepare the way to reach the latter. The ultimate purpose of establishing a continuum of space commerce in this paper is to argue for the logic and necessity of creating an institution that can act as the stewards of the space industry in any form – a military space service. 334 Space Commerce The service will be formed by merging some of today’s military and civil space agencies, and would be immediately relevant and useful in today’s space activities. At the same time, it will be inherently adaptable to any future direction of space commerce while maintaining a doctrine and culture that will be equally comfortable operating Global Positioning System satellites or rescuing stranded passengers on a punctured and decompressing space station. It will be built from military personnel currently serving in uniform as well as civilian professionals, instructed by heroic deeds from the past, and possessing an unswerving belief in space’s limitless potential for the future. It will be a guardian and protector first, but a warrior always. It will take its name and lineage from the guardians that protect Americans from the foreign environment of the sea, and seek to protect her charges as they conquer the vast reaches of outer space. It is the United States Space Guard. Importance of Institutions to Economic Development Many chapters of this book appropriately focus on the private sector as the critical driver of space development, but there is a key role for governments to play as well. Visionaries, entrepreneurs, capital, and successful business plans are the most critical needs or the development of space commerce, but other necessary pieces of the puzzle include the institutions that provide critical infrastructure and guidance which encourage space commerce to flourish. One such institution may be the formation of a military space service modeled after the US Coast Guard and dedicated to supporting space commerce. To begin to understand how a Space Guard could assist the expansion of space commerce, we must first seek to understand the building blocks of space commerce. The Space Commerce Dichotomy Space commerce is a wide and varied field of human endeavor. The possibilities span a range, from science fiction notions of galaxy-hopping passenger liners like the gargantuan Hyperion in E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s space opera Triplanetary, to the hard financial reality of satellite-enabled entertainment and navigation firms like Sirius XM, DirecTV, and Garmin, companies whose stocks currently trade on major exchanges. However, because the concept of space commerce is so varied, between space enthusiasts and current space commerce executives there exists a seemingly unbridgeable gulf in perspective. Space enthusiasts often think of space commerce as human colonies in space, mining for Space Commerce 335 Helium-3 on the moon, giant solar power generating satellites beaming clean power back to Earth, and tourists spending honeymoons in low Earth orbit. The CEOs in charge of ‘real’ space commerce operations often view it as haggling for better insurance rates on a new satellite launch, negotiating for more electromagnetic spectrum bandwidth, and finding ways to keep bad weather from degrading the picture on a satellite TV during Super Bowl parties. However real this separation feels, it belies the fact that both are intimately connected and share the same internal logic and building blocks, building blocks that can be identified through the exploration of a perhaps unlikely subject - military history. A Continuum of Space Commerce “In these three things – production, with the necessity of exchanging products, shipping, whereby the exchange is carried on, and colonies, which facilitate and enlarge the operations of shipping and tend to protect it by multiplying points of safety – is to be found the key to much of the history, as well as the policy, of nations bordering upon the sea.” 1 Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, US Navy, 1890 Space commerce is much like sea commerce before it, and thus it should come as no surprise that the words of the prophet of sea power, Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, can again be pressed into service to explain the fundamental nature of space power as well. And space power, regardless of the popularity of the term in warfighting circles, is primarily space commerce. Like sea commerce, space commerce (in the past, present, or even in the far future) is comprised of three essential elements: production, shipping, and colonies. These three concepts will always be paramount in space commerce, and the maturation of space commerce from the present to the visionary will only change these elements in their manifestation, not in their essence. As Mahan describes it above, space commerce production is goods and services that are derived from or created in space, are traded, and from which wealth is generated. Shipping is the total of services that transport space production to their respective markets, as well as the lines of communication that allow the transportation to take place. Colonies are the places which generate the production, and which constitute markets in and of themselves, and which advance the safety of shipping by offering places of ‘safe haven’ and protection. 1. Mahan, Alfred T. The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783. John Wilson & Sons. Cambridge. 1890. P 28. 336 Space Commerce These elements are easy to envision for sea commerce: production includes oil, marine products, and other raw materials and manufactured goods that are transported over the sea. Shipping includes the countless oil tankers and container ships seen throughout the world’s ports and oceans. Colonies (also called bases) are the many ports around the world that offer shelter in storms as well as places for shipping to obtain and deliver loads of cargo. For space commerce these elements are identical, even though the time frames under examination showcase very different forms of each element. Figure 1 A Space Commerce Model Elements of space commerce extend across the spectrum of present and future industrial opportunities. It is inspired by the writings of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan on sea commerce. As Figure 1 shows, the space commerce elements are present no matter what sort of commerce is examined. Whether the aspect of space that is being exploited for commerce is relatively simple, such as high altitude or orbital dynamics using contemporary technology (as exploited by navigation, communication, and imagery satellites), or an opportunity requiring more advanced technology (such as extracting asteroid or lunar resources for economic use), the same elements are still present. Whether they are in use today or exist only in the lab or in a science fiction writer’s imagination, all types and tools of space commerce can be described with these fundamental space commerce elements. Space Commerce 337 Production – Space commerce production is the total of goods and services, both drawn from and transported through space. As space commerce matures, types of production will be added, subtracted, and expanded over time, and it is also likely that the nature of the production will change dramatically from that which is prevalent today. Current Form – Near-term space commerce production mostly includes information in the form of imagery and navigation data. Visual data such as satellite photos and weather data are produced by platforms in space using the unique space environment of high altitude, which cannot easily be obtained by other means. Though digital information does not equate with production in a classical ‘goods and services’ sense, it is in fact the primary product of today’s space commerce. Future Form – As space technology matures, future production may include spacecraft propellants from in-situ resources, industrial quantities of solar power, other natural resources including water, and microgravity- processed pharmaceuticals or structural materials. Shipping – Shipping is the means of transporting space production from the place of its construction or extraction to its ultimate market, whether on Earth or another space destination. Current Form – Most space ‘shipping’ today is conducted not by rockets and transports (though certainly some is), but rather by electromagnetic (EM) radiation in the form of signal waves that transport data from a satellite to its ground station on Earth. Satellite dishes, not space shuttles, are the prime tools of today’s space shipping as they collect the transmissions that allow communication across the entire globe. As a proportion of total commerce, rockets are currently only minor players compared to antennas, although they will take will take a larger role in the future. Future Form – Although electromagnetic transmissions will always play an important role in space commerce, the future will be the era of spacecraft that are truly analogous to the merchant marine of today. Near term examples include unmanned ‘space tugs’ that will transport spacecraft from low earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit, as well as manned spacecraft traversing the void between the Moon, Mars and Earth.
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