Remote sensing from space provides critical data for many commercial space applications. Due to global market demand, it has undergone tremendous growth since the early 1990s. The purpose of this thesis is to assess how the commercialization of space imagery, since the end of the Cold War, has led to increased intelligence gathering by adversaries, and created a new series of threats against United States overseas and domestic targets. The research performed involves an analysis of the proliferation history of space imaging for growing civilian use, and the threats created by its widely available dissemination and accessibility. The analysis results, together with the findings from a review of commercial programs, initiatives, and remote sensing policy, will be used to develop trends that formulate recommendations in this thesis. Specifically, in order to further develop and protect commercial space imaging capability in the future, remote sensing policy makers, systems engineers, and industry analysts must be aware of the implications to United States National Security.

This is the 42nd volume in the Occasional Paper series of the U.S. Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). This volume presents two important papers on United States military space. The first paper, "What is Spacepower and Does It Constitute a Revolution in Military Affairs?", examines the concept of "spacepower" as it is emerging within the U.S. military and business sectors to establish the basis for military space roles and implications. It also posits military-commercial sector linkages as the best near-term road map for future development. As commercial activities expand the importance of United States space, and as technological advances enable military missions, Hays sees expanded military roles, including space weaponization, on the horizon. He concludes that military space has already had a significant impact on the American way of war. That trend will only continue as the promise of a true space-led revolution in military affairs awaits eventual space weaponization. Given an increasingly important U.S. commercial and military presence in space, the second paper, "Space-Related Arms Control and Regulation to 2015: Precedents and Prospects," presents a detailed analysis of existing regulations and controls that constrain and shape military space use and development. It also presents a comprehensive examination of current and future issues that will define likely arenas of international efforts to further control military space. The United States must be very aware of the possible consequences for its overall commercial and military space efforts in addressing these issues. Finally, the paper suggests areas where some current regulatory emphasis could benefit the United States, indicating areas for current policy emphasis. Together, the two papers provide a timely and important examination of the current state and the likely future of United States military space.

Space security is a complex assemblage of societal risks and benefits that result from space-based capabilities and is currently in a period of transformation as innovative processes are rapidly changing the underlying assumptions about stability in the space domain. New space-based technologies are emerging at an accelerating rate, and both established and emerging states are actively and openly pursuing weapons to negate other states' space capabilities. Many states have set up dedicated military space units in order to preemptively counter such threats. In addition, a number of major private companies with a transnational presence are also investing heavily in extraterrestrially-based technology. The Oxford Handbook of Space Security focuses on the interaction between space technology and international and national security processes from an international relations (IR) theory perspective. Saadia M. Pekkanen and P.J. Blount have gathered a group of key scholars who bring a range of analytical and theoretical IR perspectives to assessing space security. The volume theorizes the development and governance of space security and analyzes the specific pressure points currently challenging that regime. Further, it builds an analytically-eclectic understanding of space security, infused with the theory and practice of IR and advances analysis of key states and regions as well as specific capabilities. Space security is currently in a period of great transition as new technologies are emerging and states openly pursue counterspace capabilities. Bringing together scholarship from a group of leading experts, this volume explains how these contemporary changes will affect future security in, from, and through space. Applying lessons from international relations theory and practice and drawing from a range of social science subfields, the Handbook is a definitive work for scholars who study the topic of space security.

The technical, scientific, policy, and institutional environment for conducting Earth science research has been changing rapidly over the past few decades. Changes in the technical environment are due both to the advent of new types and sources of remote sensing data, which have higher spatial and spectral resolution, and to the development of vastly expanded capabilities in data access, visualization, spatial data integration, and data management. The scientific environment is changing because of the strong emphasis on global change research, both nationally and internationally, and the evolving data requirements for that research. And the policy and institutional environment for the production of Earth observation data is changing with the diversification of both remote sensing data and the institutions that produce the data. In this report, the Space Studies Board's Steering Committee on Space Applications and Commercialization explores the implications of this changing environment, examining the opportunities and challenges it presents.