Moon battle: New Space Force plans raise fears over militarizing the lunar surface

The commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory said that it was the first significant chunk of money that they were putting towards.

He likened it to putting the toe into the water, but we think this is an important future tech area.

The Space Force doesn't know how big of a deal this will be in the future, but it could be.

Three years after the creation of the Space Force, the Pentagon continues to launch new endeavors to help secure a growing private space economy and safeguard civilian astronauts. The newest branch believes that nation-states and commercial companies will fly nearly 100 missions to the moon between now and 2030.

Space policy and security experts fear that the armed forces could outstrip NASA in space exploration and thrust what has largely been a peaceful competition into a military contest.

The Pentagon already plays an outsized role in Earth's satellites, where they are used to support military operations and global security, according to the co-director of the Outer Space Institute.

He said that once we move to the moon, this should be driven by civilian organizations to ensure that peaceful purposes are maintained.

There is too much at stake in the space race to leave it to civilians, and the Pentagon will likely have to take on a bigger role, according to some leading military strategists.

China's space agency has made significant strides in its plan to develop the moon, including landing the first craft on the south pole in 2019. There will be at least three more robotic missions to build a lunar base in the next few years.

Proponents of a more muscular U.S. military say they fear that China could use its space program for both economic and military advantage, including a new partnership with Russia to build a moon base.

Peter Garretson, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and space strategist who is now a senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, said that power abhors a vacuum.

I think we all hope that NASA will rise to the occasion again and be able to perform that traditional exploration role.

The Space Force is only interested in developing the means for domain awareness.

That means demonstration technologies that will ensure we can sense and make sense of anything that happens outside of Earth.

As our nation reaches farther and farther into space, the U.S. Space Force must be prepared to protect our interests and provide the capabilities needed for security and stability wherever that may take us.

Dreams come true?

Visions of troops operating on and around the moon have long been popular fodder for Hollywood and science-fiction novels. Military designs on the moon date back decades.

During the Cold War, the Army and Air Force looked at the possibility of conducting nuclear tests on the moon.

The military has supported research in the past, including helping to design the Clementine spaceship that surveyed the moon in the 1990s.

lunar operations have never been larger in military plans than they are now.

An order of magnitude expansion of our ability to sense, communicate and act to protect and defend American interests in cislunar space and beyond has been called for by the recent planning guidance from the Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond.

The military branch's sphere of interest will extend to 272,000 miles and beyond, at the far side of the moon, according to a Memorandum of Understanding between NASA and the Space Force.

The deputy commander of U.S. Space Command is one of the biggest proponents for such an expansive role. The organization is in charge of military operations beyond 100 kilometers from the Earth's surface.

Shaw was a major in the Air Force and argued that NASA was not suited to lead the exploration of deep space.

This is not in line with traditional American approaches to exploring and exploiting new territory. Shaw co-authored a 2002 paper that said it was counter to common sense. It has little incentive to protect and develop new areas.

The primary purpose of peacetime military forces was to explore, map, and protect exploitation of the unknown portions of the North American continent.

Shaw argued in a journal article that Space Command's role must expand into an area of responsibility.

Merchant traffic operated with more confidence knowing a navy was close by to keep things safe and transparent. There must be similar conditions for space commerce.

Shaw did not respond to a question about how his views have changed.

There are disagreements about whether the stated ambitions should be central to military planning.

Ali Stickings, a space security analyst at Frazer-Nash, a systems engineering consulting firm in London, said that the concept was being put forward as the next strategic high ground. That concept is overblown.

There is a need for the military to play a stabilizing role closer to Earth.

Stickings said that sometimes that takes away from the real focus of what militaries are when it comes to space and that is the near-Earth orbits and the assets there that actually support military operation on the ground.

Treaty questions

There are international limits on what can be done in cislunar space.

Weapons of mass destruction and the testing of any type of weapons are forbidden by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

It allows for a large share of NASA astronauts to be military officers.

The treaty states that military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes can be used.

There is debate over what qualifies and what might be a violation.

A project being pursued by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency called the Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials and Mass-efficient Design, or NOM4D, has raised some flags.

One of the project's goals is to study resources obtained from the moon's surface as they apply to future defense missions, the agency said.

Critics say the Pentagon is sending a mixed message by not using the moon for combat operations.

Boley said that the image shows the intent to violate the Outer Space Treaty.

The Cislunar Highway Patrol System is one of the moon-related military plans announced this month by the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The project is taking our reach to the far side of the moon, according to the lab, which supports the Space Force and Space Command.

The Air Force Research Laboratory is working with the Space Force to test a lunar spy satellite called the Defense Deep Space Sentinel, which will be used to spot old and discarded components that could endanger future missions.

There is no current need for debris removal in cislunar space, and there is unlikely to be any need for decades to come, according to an essay written by Boley.

Military space leaders are aware of the need to clearly define their roles.

Those discussions are important and will continue as we evolve what our mission is going to be in this area.

The Space Force envisions that we will need to do some kind of operations up there. The Outer Space Treaty makes it clear that we are not going to have a military base on the moon.

A ‘cislunar footprint’

There is growing support for the military to do more than just watch the moon.

A recent assessment of the space industrial base sponsored by the Defense Innovation Unit mentions cislunar space 115 times.

In the leading academic journal dedicated to the Space Force, officers recommend a number of new military technologies, including a moon supply depot andlogistical spacecraft.

They argued that the USSF should develop a spaceship that can be used for rendezvous and proximity operations.

NASA and commercial space companies are working with the Space Force to study how the military could develop a more sustained presence in space.

As we travel further from the Earth, we need more of these logistics-type capabilities.

That increases the chance of militarizing the moon race for experts such as Boley.

According to the article he co-authored this year, there is nothing inherently wrong with space debris removal and recovery technology.

The paper called on the Biden administration to cancel such programs or reassign them to NASA so as to avoid the potentially destabilizing militarization of cislunar space.

Boley said in an interview that Earth has already been militarized, but we haven't done that yet with lunacisr space. Let's make cislunar space that we shouldn't cross.

The Space Force is preparing for its moon portfolio to grow.

If the Space Force decides this is an operational capability they need and we start to flesh that out, I envision lots of other technology development projects focused on this over the next 10 to 15 years.

The Space Force Warfighting Analysis Center is working with his lab on a study on the additional capabilities that would be needed if the military were to operate on and around the moon.

What can be done from the Earth? He asked what needs to be done from a space asset. How do you know where you are? How do you communicate? How do you navigate? How are you able to operate autonomously up there? What type of sensors do you need? What kind of support do you need?

There are hard problems that need to be solved to make sure we can operate up there.