Leaders of the U.S. Space Force and researchers recently met at the University of Arizona “to confront challenges in securing the cislunar domain during the first-ever Cislunar Capabilities Forum, forging an evolving space defense collaboration,” the University of Arizona’s PR office reported on Nov. 10. “The quarter-million-mile expanse between Earth and the moon, known as cislunar space, has transformed into one of the most competitive frontiers within the national security arena in recent years. What was once solely a passageway for scientific discovery is now a strategic domain that the United States must work to secure and defend.”

Against whom, and for whom, one might ask. The U of A article, which is mostly focused on puffing up U of A’s relationship with the U.S. military, never answers that question, but, as has been documented by this news service, the Trump administration has defined outer space from low Earth orbit all the way out to the Moon as a domain of warfare with the objective of suppressing Chinese and Russian space activities, particularly in the cislunar region.