Space as a Foreign Policy Issue: Views from Orbis Contributors

On November 13, 2024, the Foreign Policy Research Institute will present Jared Isaacman with the 18th Annual Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Service. Isaacman served as commander of Inspiration4, the first private human spaceflight in which none of the people aboard were from a government agency, for SpaceX in 2021. In 2024, he commanded the Polaris Dawn mission, which set new records and marked important milestones for what private firms can achieve with crewed spaceflight. How do questions about space exploration and commercial development fit within a “foreign policy” paradigm? We’ve gone back through recent Orbis offerings, and also asked an Orbis contributor—Joan Johnson-Freese, who among other things is one of the country’s leading space experts, and also chaired the National Security Affairs department of the US Naval War College—to give us some perspective. Joan Johnson-Freese notes: Space is a unique physical and legal domain. Perhaps consequently, there is disagreement among the major space powers, and sometimes even within the major space powers, regarding whether it is a global commons like the maritime realm, or something else. Those countries with high vested interests in using space and protecting their space assets – like the US, Japan, Russia, India and China – tend to consider that space is not a global commons, as if it were rights of sovereignty and self-defense would become muddled. That said, the Obama Administration did reference space as a global commons in the 2010 National Security Strategy. Alternative to a global commons, space is sometimes referred to as a “common pool resource” and, within security communities, an “operational domain.” The US has even called space a war fighting domain. The overriding consideration for most space security issues is the dual-use nature of the vast majority of space technology; specifically whether it is offensive or defensive. Space as a domain hosts a vast number of information technology assets necessary for modern living as we know it. Those assets include GPS, which as a timing asset facilitates information that allows individuals to, for example, use their credit cards at gasoline pumps. As a navigation tool, commercial airlines can fly closer together more safely, and hence more efficiently, and fire engines can find your house in an emergency. Weather satellites track storms. Huge amounts of data can be transferred around the globe through communication satellites.