Space Manufacturing, Mining Seen as Growing Security Issue

National competition going on now to dominate in-space manufacturing and for asteroid and lunar resources will determine what nation is likely to dominate the balance of power there for the next century, said American Foreign Policy Council Senior Fellow Peter Garretson at a Hudson Institute event Tuesday. "This is not some piece of policy to be left for later," Garretson said. He said, along with dominating space commodity production and space infrastructure, the U.S. needs to ensure as many partners as possible are using that infrastructure system. The U.S. and China will likely be the main rivals for space dominance, with India being a later arrival, Garretson said. He said Russia, France and Germany will likely follow the norms established by those space powers. The U.S.' lack of a national plan to develop space-based solar energy generation is "negligent and irresponsible," especially given how numerous other nations, including China and various U.S. allies, have their own space solar programs. Other Congressional space priorities also should include making commercial development of space a national policy, Garretson said. He said the national cislunar strategy put out last week by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy references economic development multiple times; commercial development isn't part of the national space policy or in NASA's charter; and it's unclear whether Commerce or NASA would be the lead in those commercial development efforts. Congress also needs to accelerate development of space infrastructure perhaps through designating a public corporation to finance and build that infrastructure, and create space infrastructure bonds, Garretson said. There also should be a space commodities exchange and space commodities futures exchange, he said. The estimated value of mineral resources in the solar system "is truly vast" and easily dwarfs projections of the space economy being anywhere from $1 trillion to $3 trillion by 2040, Garretson said.