Space Alert Volume VII, Issue 1, January 2019 ORF Quarterly on Space Affairs CONTENTS FROMFROM THE THE MEDIA MEDIA COMMENTARIES ISRO launches India’s heaviest satellite GSAT- Privateering the Solar System: A Long ISRO’s Mars Mission Successful, India 11 to boost rural broadband View of Commercial Space and National Makes History Kerala plans aerospace park, aims to supply Security ISRO Inks Deal with China for Space components for Isro projects By John Sheldon ISROIndia to OffersDemonstrate Outer TechnologySpace Expertise Which toWill The inner Solar System will likely become UseBangladesh 'Dead' Last Stage of PSLV Rockets more accessible for economic exploitation in It'sU.S. Business Dismisses Time! Space Rocket Weapons Lab TreatyLofts 6 the coming decades, whether through robots, SatellitesProposal on as 1st “Fundamentally Commercial Launch Flawed” humans, or a mixture of both. This creates a SpaceXNASA launches Plans India'sto Send first Submarine private satellite to dilemma for long-range policy thinking. builtSaturn’s by Mumbai Moon startup With China’s help, Pakistan plans its first An Australian Space Agency: Has the manned space mission for 2022 Country Woken up? OPINIONS AND ANALYSIS China launches Chang’e-4 spacecraft for By Brett Biddington pioneering lunar far side landing mission Australia’s alliance relationships and Japan-India 'Space Dialogue' to include geography have been, and are likely to remain, NEWsurveillance PUBLICATIONS sharing the fundamental determinants of Australia’s Japan to explore satellite-jamming technology approach to space. One area where enduring Australia’s first commercial orbital launch facility to be built in South Australia interests and new possibilities emerge is in space security, notably space situation Virgin Galactic achieves space on awareness. SpaceShipTwo test flight Chang’e 4 in the Global Lunar Exploration OPINIONS AND ANALYSES Context By Vidya Sagar Reddy NEW PUBLICATIONS Chang’e 4 certainly boosts China’s use of space missions for showing its technological EDITORIAL BOARD superiority and gain geopolitical benefits. However, the major difference would be the Editor: Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan landing zone being closer to the lunar South Pole. Associate Editor: Vidya Sagar Reddy 1 Privateering the Solar System: A Long physical laws, and technological requirements, View of Commercial Space and National never mind relative scale. Still, in spite of the Security flaws in the strategic analogy, many policy makers and military strategists insist upon its John Sheldon use. Oceans are vast, space is vast, ergo space is an ocean, so the analogical thinking goes. The role of commercial space in today’s Science fiction books and cinema is replete national security environments is known well with ‘fleets’ of ‘ships’ that ply the galaxies, enough. There are useful policy debates to be commanded by ‘Captains’ and ‘Admirals’. In had over what national security space systems the realm of strategic thought, the study of a state should absolutely provide for to ensure space power has seen military thinkers attempt sovereign decision making in war versus to apply the maritime and naval thought of Sir where commercial entities can step in. In this Julian Corbett and Alfred Thayer Mahan to essay, however, I propose to take a longer space power as a result of the pull of the sea view of commercial space and national power analogy for space. security as the exploitation of space resources, In the final analysis, this author is largely and establishing a permanent presence on the skeptical of strategic analogies applied to any Moon, and even Mars, becomes a plausible domain, but I understand their usefulness as a reality in the coming decades. To aid this longer view, I should like to turn to history as cognitive crutch for the process of understanding new domains (and historically a broad guide. speaking, space is a new domain), how to The roots of English – and subsequently operate in them, and their strategic British - sea power lay in 16th century significance for polities. It is in this spirit that Elizabethan privateers that harassed and I offer some thoughts about the emerging plundered the Spanish fleet, and ultimately strategic implications of commercial space for destroyed the Spanish Armada. What would national security, and for the grand strategy of eventually become the sine qua non of sea a spacefaring country. power in the 19th century started off as a Let us begin with an assumption that is rough-and-ready commercial venture that admittedly debatable, but that I use actually lasted until the 19th century through companies such as the East India Company nevertheless to support my argument that ultimately commercial concerns will be the who operated large, armed fleets of ships. primary strategic actor in spacefaring activity Here we also see that the roots of modern – to include warfare – in the future, but will European naval power was also the progenitor of colonialism in the Indian Subcontinent, eventually morph into and under state control, much like the private seafaring fleets of the Africa, and large parts of Asia. The horrors and vicissitudes suffered by the victims of 16th through 19th centuries. European colonialism also offer important The first assumption is that contrary to lessons for commercial space activity and fashionable yet nonsensical and ahistorical national security in the future. analysis in some corners of political science, the state will endure as the primary actor in The domain of oceans is often used as a strategic analogy for the space domain, despite international politics on Earth, and furthermore, the political concept of the state huge differences between the two in terms of will travel with humanity as and when it environmental and topographical conditions, 2 settles on other celestial bodies, even if initial and state-owned (or subsidized) companies. settlements are tenuous in numbers and These companies will engage in intense survivability. cooperation with each other, and will likely end up being proxies for Earth-bound states as Since the late 1990’s commercial space they compete with each other to both dominate entities spend more on space activities than and benefit from the wealth generated off- governments do, primarily in terms of satellite planet. acquisition and launch services. This trend is only increasing as space access becomes The political and historical debate over cheaper and more reliable, and as satellite and whether flag follows trade continues to this robotic technologies become more affordable day. The East India Company was a private and therefore are no longer monopolized by corporation with private shareholders, but it the state. It is therefore most likely that it will still required a royal charter to carry out its be commercial companies – private, like Elon business and pay its share of revenue to the Musk’s SpaceX, or state-owned such as, for state treasury. As commercial interests example, a company from China – will exploit morphed into state interest, the already blurry space resources and even settle celestial line between private and national interest bodies. disappeared altogether; merchants became political agents; armed employees guarding This does not mean, however, that the state is goods and stores on wharves soon became not relevant for space activities, and that enforcers of company, and government, governments cannot shape and influence the policy against local populations and their character and scope of commercial space legitimate political arrangements. These armed activity. Commercial space entities are employees are then replaced by uniformed physically located in, and under the legal soldiers; navies are built and deployed to jurisdiction of, states and are therefore subject protect trade routes, and before anyone is to regulations and laws, as well as the national really fully aware, governments find that they security imperatives of governments. Indeed, have interests they never realized they had. the emerging geoeconomic competition today between major powers such as China, United History rarely repeats itself, but it tends to States, India, and others, is characterized by rhyme. For sure, there are nontrivial technical national security concerns and imperatives challenges to be overcome, but the inner Solar determining the way in which (and the scope System will likely become more accessible for of) commercial competition is taking place economic exploitation in the coming decades, internationally. Our exploitation of space, whether through robots, humans, or a mixture whether it is in Earth orbit or beyond, will be of both. Thankfully, at least as far as we know no different. there are no civilizations to exploit and dominate, but human civilization will extend The space domain, to include celestial bodies, its reach and this in turn will sow the seeds of is increasingly seen as an economic resource future conflict between off-planet settlements that, theoretically at least, could generate vast and the insatiable demands of Earth. wealth for those with the resources and initiative to exploit it. At least in the Earth- Looking this far into the future, it can be seen Moon system, the space domain will be that commercial space is far from an unalloyed economically exploited in the coming decades, good, even if it will be an economic necessity. and this exploitation will be done by private This creates a dilemma for long-range policy 3 thinking, how to enable and encourage responsible exploitation of space resources in space and on celestial bodies while at the same time ensuring that commercial interests do not blindly morph into state interests. This may all seem far-fetched as companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries who, only a few years ago were breathlessly heralded as the brave new future, now languish in disappointment, steep costs, and technological dead-ends. But these can be viewed – albeit at a stretch - as the historical equivalent of the doomed North American Jamestown colony financed by the Virginia Company of London in 1607.