“Interesting and provocative. . . . Recommended for anyone interested in space policy and national security affairs.” —Choice The United States has long exploited Earth’s orbits to enhance security, generate wealth, and solidify its position as a world leader. America’s ambivalence toward military activities in space, however, has the potential to undermine our future security. Some perceive space as a place to defend and fight for America’s vital interests. Others?whose voices are frequently dominant and manifested in public rhetoric, funded defense programs, international diplomacy, and treaty commitments?look upon space as a preserve not to be despoiled by earthly strife. After forty years of discussion, the debate over America’s role in space rages on. In light of the steady increase in international satellite activity for commercial and military purposes, America’s vacillation on this issue could begin to pose a real threat to our national security. Steven Lambakis argues that this policy dysfunction will eventually manifest itself in diminished international political leverage, the forfeiture of technological advances, and the squandering of valuable financial resources. Lambakis reviews key political, military, and business developments in space over the past four decades. Emphasizing that we should not take our unobstructed and unlimited access to space for granted, he identifies potential space threats and policy flaws and proposes steps to meet national security demands for the twenty-first century. “Provides a wealth of details on a wide range of factors that contribute to space power.” —Air & Space Power Journal “Will trigger public debate, generate controversy and add creatively to the policy debate.” —John D. Stempel, author of Common Sense and Foreign Policy

This book explains on what basis a nation can claim the status of space power, what are the criteria differentiating a space power from “lesser” space actors, and how their spacepower can be empirically measured and assessed. To this end, it sets forth a comprehensive multidisciplinary framework to enable a dynamic comparison of space actors and of the pathways that lead them in and out of the space powers’ club. Drawing upon a critical review of the existing literature, it conceptualises spacepower as a form of state power based on the complex interplay between the two defining dimensions of stateness, namely the well-studied dimension of capacity and the often neglected yet exceedingly important dimension of autonomy. The book demonstrates that only actors possessing high levels of both autonomy and capacity qualify as space powers. Different levels of either capacity or autonomy produce other types of space actors, including skilled spacefarers, self-reliant spacefarers, primed spacefarers, and emerging space actors. This innovative conceptual framework is complemented by an in-depth comparative assessment that collects and processes a large amount of hard-to-find data on the most active global space actors and aggregates multiple indicators into a compound, non-hierarchical index of space power visualised in the form of a matrix.

In March 2005, the NASA History Division and the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum brought together a distinguished group of scholars to consider the state of the discipline of space history. This volume is a collection of essays based on those deliberations. The meeting took place at a time of extraordinary transformation for NASA, stemming from the new Vision of Space Exploration announced by President George W. Bush in January 204: to go to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. This Vision, in turn, stemmed from a deep reevaluation of NASA?s goals in the wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident and the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. The new goals were seen as initiating a "New Age of Exploration" and were placed in the context of the importance of exploration and discovery to the American experiences. (Amazon).

This book provides an in-depth investigation of the concept of space power and devises a novel conceptual framework for empirically measuring and comparing different typologies of space actors on the basis of clearly defined criteria. In turn, the book identifies a comprehensive set of conditions required to achieve and maintain the status of space power and explores the main political, security, and socio-economic stakes involved. Building on this basis, the book conducts a comparative assessment of the major space actors, the underlying aim of which is to examine Europe’s relative position in the space arena and put into perspective its proclaimed goal to assert itself as a space power, with all of the means and resources this would entail. Given its scope, the book represents a valuable and versatile tool to support European decision-making and offers key insights for executives, space professionals and scholars alike.

This edited volume analyses a number of controversial policies and strategies relating to Space activities, and to place these in a broader theoretical perspective. The book reveals the relationship between activities in Outer Space and terrestrial international relations.