The report “State of the Space Industrial Base,” released last week by the Defense Innovation Unit, the U.S. Space Force, and the Air Force Research Laboratory, is, in effect, the space annex to the National Security Strategy of 2017. That document defines Russia and China as strategic adversaries of the United States. “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity,” it claims on page 2. That outlook is extended directly into the space domain by this report. “Today, America is the best in the world at space and our adversaries know it. But leadership in space is not a right, and nations like Russia and China are racing to catch up to our capabilities and deny the benefits we derive from operations in, to, and from space,” writes Gen. John Raymond, chief of the U.S. Space Force, in the foreword to the document.
The report itself flowed out of a space industrial base workshop that met in New Mexico in May and brought together 120 experts in government, industry, and academia; but the report that they produced is not an official policy document. Rather, it’s an assessment of the state of the industrial base along with a set of recommendations. Nonetheless, “it is important that we listen to these insights and evaluate the feasibility of implementing them in the advancement of national interests. America’s future in space is a partnership and, as with any partnership, communication is key,” Raymond writes.
In the introduction, the report cites an assessment produced by Air Force Space Command in 2019 entitled “The Future of Space 2060 and Implications for U.S. Strategy,” which itself was the product of yet another workshop. That report, among other things, complains that “China is executing a long-term civil, commercial, and military strategy to explore and economically develop the cislunar domain with the explicit aim of displacing the U.S. as the leading space power. Other nations are developing similar national strategies.”
