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State of the Space Industrial Base Report

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“While the United States space industrial base remains on an upward trajectory, the upward trajectory of the People's Republic of China is even steeper, with a significant rate of overtake, requiring urgent action.”

 

So concludes the “The State of the Space Industrial Base 2022 Workshop Report”  the annual interagency and industry review sponsored by the  Space Force, Defense Innovation Unit, and Air Force Research Laboratory.

 

“Specifically, the U.S. lacks a clear and cohesive long-term vision, a grand strategy for space that sustains economic, technological, environmental, social and military (defense) leadership for the next half century and beyond,” the report asserts, noting limited progress on the recommendations of last year’s report.  

 

Included in the report’s 110 pages are illustrations of the state of play and working group suggestions, including a call for “review of ITAR lists, and the removal of technologies available in the international marketplace,” and the treatment of space as a “Priority Export Activity.”  

 

The recommendation is that lists of restricted exports be reviewed and updated on a one-to-three-year cadence to ensure the technology still requires controls. “If a company believes their technology is dual use, or commercially available, a two-page white paper should be adequate to force an expedient export review.” 

The calls for greater subsidies range from the opaque: ”non-dilutive capital, procurement, advance-market commitments, and debt instruments the USG can provide and align them to the taxonomy of challenges,” to the ludicrous: “designate Space as an economic opportunity zone in order to improve the economic prospects for critical space-technologies or infrastructure,” and “a Homestead Act for Space.”  

 

No word yet of an astral expansion of the General Mining Law of 1872 or the Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862.  

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