WASHINGTON — The U.S. needs to flex its space muscles in the face of China’s lunar ambitions, argues a new report from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies released Jan. 17.
More specifically, the U.S. military should step up collaboration with NASA and support the development of infrastructure for scientific and economic activities in cislunar space, “as well as the means to secure those activities from potential threats such as territorial claims and irresponsible or hostile behavior,” writes Charles Galbreath, senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute.
Cislunar space — the region of space between Earth and the orbit of the moon — is becoming increasingly important strategically and economically due to potential lunar exploration, space mining and other commercial efforts poised to ramp up in the coming years.
“The DoD must establish an infrastructure for the cislunar regime extending the types of services and capabilities currently in operation closer to Earth, such as space domain awareness, high bandwidth communications and cislunar navigation technologies,” the report contends.
Galbreath suggests that DoD needs an additional $250 million in annual funding to devote to cislunar space activities.
“Modest, early investment will simultaneously accelerate U.S. efforts and reduce the future need for larger investments to overcome a Chinese advantage,” he said.
While doing research for the paper, Galbreath spoke with U.S. Space Force leaders, “and none of them disagreed with the importance of cislunar space or the role that the military will ultimately have to have there,” he said. But they don’t have the resources to pursue these initiatives. “They don’t have enough funds to get after the threats they’re facing today, let alone prepare for something that will happen down the road.”
He hopes Congress in the future turns more attention to this issue and adds funding…
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