# Developing National Power in Space  ## Metadata - Author: Brent Ziarnick - Full Title: Developing National Power in Space - Category: #books ## Highlights - Orbital rocket launches are perhaps the most visible and spectacular manifestations of a nation’s space activity and it is no surprise that some consider China overtaking the United States in number of annual space launches indicates taking the lead in space. However, we must remember that the world’s launch leader for many years has not been the United States, but Russia. ([Location 46](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=46)) - Chinese-American space cooperation may or may not be a worthwhile goal, but approaching cooperation in supplication from a perceived position of weakness, as a fear of Chinese space ascendancy would entail, would probably be detrimental to American interests. ([Location 71](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=71)) - Futron’s Space Competitiveness Index is a globally-focused analytic framework that defines, measures, and ranks national competitiveness in the development, implementation, and execution of space activity. By analyzing space-related government, human capital, and economic drivers, the SCI framework assesses the ability of a country to undertake space activity, and evaluates its performance relative to peer nations, as well as the global space arena. ([Location 87](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=87)) - In order to add true value, in space power as in economics, growth by itself pales in relation to positive development, and positive development is achieved through innovation. ([Location 123](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=123)) - A theory in any such field as that of strategy is not itself something real and tangible; it is not something that actually has concrete existence. A theory is simply an idea designed to account for actuality or what the theorist thinks will come to pass as actuality. It is orderly rationalization of real or presumed patterns of events. A basic measure of validity of any theory is how closely the postulates of the theory coincide with reality in any actual situation. ([Location 132](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=132)) - First, the theory must “define the field of study under investigation.” Second, the theory must “categorize—to break the field of study into its constituent parts.”14 Third, and most importantly, the theory must explain its subject. The theory must be able to explain why things happen the way they do. To Winton, “explanation is the soul of theory.” Fourth, the theory must connect the field of study to “other related fields in the universe.” Lastly, theory must anticipate.15 It must reasonably predict future results given a solid understanding of the present facts of an endeavor involving the field of study. ([Location 140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=140)) - Space power theory is still a relatively new field and, as yet, most models offered have been incomplete in a number of ways. ([Location 168](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=168)) - The General Theory intends to be comprehensive across activity. The General Theory intends to understand space power and its development in its totality, and consequently must be applicable across all forms of space activity: commercial, civil, political, and military. ([Location 172](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=172)) - The General Theory intends to be universal across time. This model is not intended to be limited by technology or time frames past, present or future. Just as Mahan’s sea power theory was derived from the Age of Sail but of immediate use in the oil-fueled Pacific War and even today’s nuclear age, the General Theory intends to explain actions throughout the duration of the human space effort. ([Location 178](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=178)) - The General Theory intends to be descriptive. The General Theory posits the elements of space power and how commercial, political, and military space power interact with each other. ([Location 183](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=183)) - The General Theory intends to be prescriptive. The General Theory offers specific advice on what space powers must do to gain, develop, and keep space power. ([Location 187](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=187)) - The General Theory intends to bridge the gap between military realism and enthusiast futurism. Sea and air power have always had military officers who were also enthusiasts for developing their environment. Though sea power’s beginnings are lost in antiquity, we know that air officers were among the first to call for exotic equipment thought of as science fiction in their day—consider Billy Mitchell’s visions of supersonic, high altitude, heavy bombers. ([Location 192](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=192)) - there is no linear progression between the Grammar and Logic deltas (its two main component parts), but a continuous ebb and flow of multiple technologies and doctrines. ([Location 202](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=202)) - As strategist Colin Gray says, “A powerful explanatory tool, which is what good theory should be, need not be capable of explaining everything” in order to be useful.1 ([Location 207](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=207)) - Air power may be defined as the ability to do something in the air.—Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell, Winged Defense2 ([Location 211](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=211)) - “space power is the ability of a nation to exploit the space environment in pursuit of national goals and purposes and includes the entire astronautical capabilities of the nation.” ([Location 226](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=226)) - Lupton heroically identifies three specific truths of space power: that space power is exercised through exploiting the space environment; that the aim of space power is to achieve goals and purposes; and that space power includes the entire list of space capabilities the wielder of space power possesses. ([Location 228](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=228)) - Its elegance is in its simplicity, but its power is in its inclusiveness. ([Location 242](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=242)) - In the General Theory, space power is simply the ability to do something in space. ([Location 244](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=244)) - Put simply, a general theory must be based on a general definition of its subject. Space power is the ability to do something in space. No other modifier is required. ([Location 247](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=247)) - The first form of space power is its raw, basic, or general form: the ability to do something in space. The second form of space power is in its applied form—when the basic space power (ability) of an entity is used by that entity for a specific purpose. ([Location 251](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=251)) - Thus, the General Theory begins with ability without purpose or objective. Applied space power plays a large part in the General Theory, but is subordinate to the basic form of space power in the Logic and Grammar of Space Power. ([Location 258](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=258)) - Clausewitz said, “War may have a grammar of its own, but not its own logic.”9 From this historic quote we will derive a space power corollary: Space power may have a grammar of its own, but not its own logic. ([Location 260](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=260)) - The first space power delta is the space power Grammar Delta, while the second is the space power Logic Delta. Both deltas are three-dimensional, allowing them to be seen from a “bird’s-eye” view from the top as well as a “profile” view from the side. ([Location 267](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=267)) - The Logic of Space Power, modeled in its Logic Delta, is the warrior’s art: space power used to promote the interests of the space power. The Logic of Space Power is concerned with ends and ways, in the ends/ways/means paradigm of strategy. ([Location 269](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=269)) - The Grammar of Space Power, described by its Grammar Delta, is the mason’s art: developing the tools with which to wield and expand space power. The Grammar of Space Power is the realm of means. ([Location 270](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=270)) - the grammar of sea power, which proceeds from the operational level of activity. ([Location 285](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=285)) - The operational level of war is the vital link between the strategic level and tactical level of war that links national policy and strategic goals (strategic level) with the physical activity of individual troops and units on the battlefield (tactical level). ([Location 286](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=286)) - Put broadly, the grammar of sea power links the logic of sea power to individual actions (or units) in producing sea power. ([Location 287](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=287)) - This trident holds the Mahanian elements of sea power (slightly renamed by the authors): commerce, bases, and ships. ([Location 288](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=288)) - Commerce is the foundation for trade, and hence the primary element of the grammar of sea power. ([Location 293](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=293)) - Grammar is how space power is built and conducted by individual units to bring the Logic of Space Power to fruition through access. Grammar builds access through developing tools. It is the mason’s art. Grammar is concerned with building the hardware that allows a space power to operate in space. ([Location 296](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=296)) - Grammar is unique in that it is the only trident that is concerned completely with space activity. It “speaks space,” while logic is concerned primarily with using space for other ends which may not necessarily be primarily concerned with space activity. ([Location 298](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=298)) - Production generates wealth from space and is the backbone of economic space power. ([Location 301](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=301)) - Colonies allow the extension of commerce to farther areas through improved access. Colonies provide markets, safe harbor for travelers, and expanded opportunities for production. Shipping plies the space lines of communication either as electromagnetic carrier waves or physical space ships to haul space products from their origin to their markets. ([Location 302](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=302)) - While the birds-eye-view of the Grammar Delta identified the elements of space power (production, shipping, and colonies) and what they are intended to produce (access), the profile view instead looks at how the elements develop access ([Location 312](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=312)) - In both the Grammar and Logic Deltas, the birds-eye-view is used for identification of important space power concepts while the profile view is concerned with how space power grammar and logic is developed. ([Location 314](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=314)) - The Grammar Delta begins at the foundation upon which the delta rests. This level is called the foundation and represents the principal conditions (or enablers) of space power. ([Location 316](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=316)) - Identifying elements as characteristics “within a nation that makes it capable of wielding ‘space power,’”13 he names space power’s elements as: facilities, technology, industry, hardware and other products, economy, populace, education, tradition and intellectual climate, geography, and exclusivity of capabilities/knowledge.14 This is indeed a good list of important space power ingredients, but Oberg errs in calling them elements. His error is in making no distinction between the elements and enablers of space power. ([Location 327](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=327)) - Like sea power, space power (in the past, present, or even in the far future) comprises three essential elements: production, shipping, and colonies. These three concepts will always be paramount, and the maturation of space power from present to visionary will only change these elements in their manifestation, not essence. ([Location 348](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=348)) - Production—Space production is the total of goods and services either drawn from or transported through space. ([Location 362](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=362)) - Though digital information does not seem to be production in a classical “goods and services” sense, it is the primary product of today’s space power. ([Location 366](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=366)) - Current examples of shipping are probably the most foreign looking of space power in relation to sea parallels. Most space shipping is conducted not by rockets and transports (though undoubtedly some is), but rather by electromagnetic (EM) radiation in the form of signal waves that transport essential data from a satellite to its ground station on Earth. ([Location 372](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=372)) - Near term examples of future shipping are unmanned “space tugs” that can transport spacecraft from low earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit. ([Location 378](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=378)) - The most common type of space power colony today is the satellite. Satellites are not the product of space power itself, though they keep the sensors and cameras where the production is made in working order. ([Location 384](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=384)) - the Grammar of Space Power is primarily concerned with developing new types of space power elements and combining them in innovative ways to open as many areas of the space realm to exploitation as possible. ([Location 398](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=398)) - Access is the ultimate object of the Grammar Delta. Access is developed through the combination of elements into systems with each system generating a discrete new access to the space environment. ([Location 406](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=406)) - In the space environment, strategic reality is opposite of that in the martime environment. Military power capable of denying access to space is insignificant for any but the most advanced space powers, and that only with prohibitively large expense. ([Location 417](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=417)) - Space ability is the capacity to conduct economic/political/military space operations in a region without significant impediment. ([Location 422](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=422)) - [T]he starting point and foundation is the necessity to secure commerce, by political measures conducive to military, or naval, strength. This order is that of actual relative importance to the nation of the three elements—commercial, political, military.—Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, U.S. Navy18 ([Location 430](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=430)) - These three points of the trident mark the three primary uses of sea power. Commercial sea power provides the nation with wealth and prosperity through trade and production. Political sea power provides the wielder the means to exert control over other nations through diplomacy and granting or restricting access to the sea lanes of communication under its control. Finally, military sea power can both defend the nation and its commerce as well as project power to drive an enemy’s flag from the waters and deny an adversary acess to the sea. ([Location 439](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=439)) - Space power’s ultimate purpose is to generate wealth from space activities, and commerce is the true path to national greatness in space. ([Location 448](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=448)) - Transformers are the ideas and concepts used to translate raw ability to do something in space into concrete applied power. Transformers turn the capacity to operate in space into concrete power from space that can be applied to economic, political, or military use to achieve national objectives. ([Location 468](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=468)) - Because space power is nothing more than the ability to do something in space, increasing the ability to do anything in space is the foremost interest of a maturing space power. ([Location 472](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=472)) - Ability in itself has no purpose or direction—it is the capability the nation has to act in space for any reason. Because it has no inherent purpose or direction, ability requires operational concepts and purposeful action to create applied space power. ([Location 479](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=479)) - Raw space power is the ability to do something in space. Only by using this raw space power in pursuit of some interest (be it national interest in the case of a nation, or corporate interest if the space power agent is a company) is it ever truly useful. ([Location 482](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=482)) - It is in the transformers section that the raw space power turns into applied space power: economic, political, or military power. It is through transformers that this raw power becomes applied power. ([Location 485](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=485)) - Space power, like sea power, is primarily economic power, and thus takes its place as the leading spire of the Logic Delta. ([Location 493](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=493)) - Innovation in space business plans will result in massive growth of wealth from space. ([Location 501](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=501)) - Therefore, business plans are an essential—perhaps the most essential—type of transformer in space power theory. ([Location 510](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=510)) - Political space power is raw space power ability applied to political or diplomatic ends. Political space power can be coercive (such as power from intelligence activities) or it can be, to use Joseph Nye’s term, co-opting and attractive (the so-called soft power approach). ([Location 512](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=512)) - Soft power is “getting others to want the same outcomes you want” and rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others.” ([Location 518](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=518)) - Therefore, the General Theory places soft power concepts as the foremost example of the political space-power transformer. ([Location 525](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=525)) - According to Air Force Major General I.B. Holley, the transformer role in converting ability to operate in a medium to achieving power through action in the medium is doctrine because doctrine is inherently concerned with means. ([Location 528](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=528)) - General Holley explains: Doctrine, as officially promulgated, has two main purposes. First, it provides guidance to decision makers and those who develop plans and policies, offering suggestions about how to proceed in a given situation on the basis of a body of past experience in similar contexts distilled down to concise and readily accessible doctrinal statements. Second, formal doctrines provide common bases of thought and common ways of handling problems, tactical or otherwise, which may arise.27 ([Location 531](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=531)) - Doctrine is a set of military concepts that have proven successful in the past. Doctrine is, then, similar to a proven successful business plan in that it has proven successful in the past and will probably remain successful in the future. ([Location 535](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=535)) - military space doctrine must always be a constant source of study and experimentation by space forces in order to have the best means to exploit their ability to operate in the space environment. ([Location 537](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=537)) - The experimentation, testing, and validating of new concepts such as business plans, soft power applications, and military doctrine is a key avenue in the development of space power. ([Location 539](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=539)) - Applied space power takes the form of economic, political, and military power, the three concrete manifestations of power. ([Location 542](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=542)) - The General Theory keeps applied power to three manifestations for aesthetic reasons (a delta has only thee base points) but mostly in order to stay true to Mahan’s original three-pronged description of sea power. Indeed, a strong case can be made that both diplomatic and informational power (the DI in DIME) are simply different mechanisms of political power. ([Location 548](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=548)) - Space power’s foundation is built through the Grammar Delta. Space power’s elements (production, shipping, and colonies) are combined in various ways to produce access to space. Access is again defined as the capacity for an entity wielding space power to place a space power element (of any type) in a specific area of space for some useful purpose (whatever it is). ([Location 555](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=555)) - Note that access does not require or manifest a purpose. Access is merely a statement of potential; it does not need any justification or rationale behind it. Access is also a discrete term. We have access to a specific place with a specific element. ([Location 561](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=561)) - Ability is the pinnacle of the Logic Delta. Whereas in the Grammar Delta we build from the space power elements to access, the Logic Delta begins with ability and flows down through the transformers to translate that space power ability into specific space power abilities that add to economic, military and political power. ([Location 564](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=564)) - Ability is the sum total of all discrete accesses plus the all-important knowledge of how those accesses can be used for benefit and intent to use access for some purpose. ([Location 568](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=568)) - Refer back to the definition of space power: the ability to do something in space. Just because we have access to an area does not mean we have the ability to manipulate the area for our own purposes. ([Location 573](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=573)) - Since ability is really raw ability (access with the intent to use, though no specific intent as yet) because space power in its general form is only raw ability, intent is nothing more than the spark that links access to a desire to use that access for our benefit. ([Location 576](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=576)) - the Grammar Delta (the building blocks of space power) and the Logic Delta (the intent and application apparatus of space power) are linked through the all-important concepts of access and ability. ([Location 580](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=580)) - Access is the capacity to place an element in a specific area in space, and the sum total of discrete accesses available to the space power entity in question plus the intent to use that aggregate access for any purpose is ability. ([Location 582](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=582)) - there are feedback loops between the Grammar and Logic Deltas: grammar builds that which logic finds useful (ability through access), but logic also informs the selection and development of grammar’s space power foundation inputs (specifically, through the transformers). ([Location 585](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=585)) - Therefore, the best way to extend strategic access in space is not to invest in ways to obstruct an enemy’s ability to limit our access to space through military means and obsess over “space as a contested environment” as most military space leaders continue to do in preparation for war, but to invest in technology and attack the greatest current enemy to space access—the space environment itself—by investing in technology to open economic access to more of space for all human endeavor, primarily commercial development. ([Location 597](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=597)) - Note: Fucking memorize this shit - But how do we expand strategic access in peacetime? Through the peaceful strategic offensive. Expanding commerce as far out into space as possible doesn’t just increase wealth, it also expands access and ability to operate, advantages that can be utilized by any applied type of space power: political and military, as well as commercial. ([Location 603](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=603)) - Commercial activity is every bit as strategic in national power as military or diplomatic coercion, and is oftentimes far more palatable to the international community. ([Location 606](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=606)) - Altitude—This is the most basic environmental characteristic of the space environment and easiest to exploit. ([Location 617](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=617)) - The altitude advantage is a weak form of space power because it can be easily replicated by other environments (high altitude airborne vehicles) and requires very little strategic access to space for a nation to exploit it. ([Location 625](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=625)) - Orbital Mechanics—Orbital mechanics, such as the ability of objects to stay in orbit for long periods of time without significant maintenance requirements and the ability to overfly swaths of earth with regularity, is an environmental characteristic more difficult to exploit than altitude, but is still a very basic application of space power. ([Location 627](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=627)) - Achieving orbit is a large leap for strategic access over simple suborbital sounding rockets. However, it is still a relatively minor application when compared to the total possible activity in space. ([Location 635](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=635)) - Solar Energy—The abundance of solar energy in near Earth space is a critical environmental characteristic for space power. With the previous two lesser characteristics, it makes today’s modern constellations possible with solar arrays for providing ready power to satellites. ([Location 638](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=638)) - Therefore, since the three characteristics exploited by modern space power (altitude, orbital mechanics, and solar energy) can be simulated by other environments, there are sometimes calls to retreat from the space power for other opportunities, as recent plans to find alternatives to GPS satellite navigation for the Air Force attest. This provides reasons to believe that space power using these three characteristics may not be sustainable or stable in the long run. ([Location 645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=645)) - Vacuum—Space is near total vacuum. Combined with microgravity (technically an extension of orbital mechanics), space itself offers a unique environment to conduct research and manufacture advanced materials of high purity (exploiting vacuum) and advanced uniform structure (exploiting microgravity). Exploiting vacuum in space for industrial purposes may offer a leap that increases commercial space power by orders of magnitude. ([Location 648](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=648)) - Resources—The space beyond Earth contains many raw materials and resources. The Helium–3 isotope present in small quantities on the Moon and in large quantities in the gaseous outer planets may be the critical component for economic and clean fusion power reactors. ([Location 658](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=658)) - New Worlds—Processing space-based physical resources may be a sophisticated expression of economic activity in space, but they can be exploited through remote mining platforms or outposts with little or no human presence. ([Location 667](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=667)) - Instead of merely gaining earthbound advantage, or adding new resources into the national economy, space under new worlds allows a true extension of the nation’s polity off-planet—or the possibility of creating of an entirely new polity altogether. ([Location 671](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=671)) - isn’t space power development just a form of economic development through space activity? Schumpeter argued that economic development has three salient properties: it comes from within the economic system itself and is not a reaction to outside information, it occurs discontinuously and is not a smooth process, and it brings revolutions which fundamentally change the status quo and result in new equilibrium states. ([Location 681](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=681)) - Schumpeter says “Development … is then defined by the carrying out of new combinations” of productive elements. ([Location 691](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=691)) - Path 1 development is achieved primarily through space-centric research and development (R & D) in various private and governmental labs. Path 1 is space power development through hardware. Higher quality space power elements inherently produce greater access because they are inherently more durable, flexible, and of higher performance. ([Location 707](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=707)) - Path 2 development is the introduction of a new method of production not yet introduced to the industry in question (but not necessarily a new discovery in and of itself) and can exist in a new way of handling a commodity (space power element) that improves access to space. Path 2 is, in economic parlance, space power development through technology, knowledge or innovation spillovers from industries not necessarily related to space power in and of themselves. ([Location 720](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=720)) - The opening of a new market, whether it is new or an established one if the host nation’s manufacture has just achieved access. Because space power is primarily economic (military and diplomatic power can only be maintained as long as money continues to flow), Path 3 development is vastly important to any space power entity. New markets open new avenues to generate wealth using space power. ([Location 746](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=746)) - Encouraging a large, innovating, and risk-taking space business culture mostly free of government interference (except where national security and interests demand limitations on behavior) is perhaps the most important thing a government can do to mature its space power. ([Location 769](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=769)) - Space power must also be considered in terms of the level of command over the space environment itself. When new access is available and ability is expanded, space power is increased. ([Location 837](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=837)) - These two seemingly different definitions of power are connected because both require the capacity to act.32 While power can be relational between two deliberate actors, power can also be relational between an actor and the demands of the physical environment. A can choose to act against B and B can choose to resist or comply (the logic of power), but the capacity for A to reclaim resource B from the environment if A chooses to do so is also (grammar) power, regardless if no other deliberative body chooses to resist A’s action. ([Location 841](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=841)) - In the General Theory, science and knowledge gained from exploration is one of the foundations (or principal conditions) necessary for the construction of space power. ([Location 849](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=849)) - Basic research can only be a piece of a space program that relies on increasing an agent’s space power—be it economic, military, or political applications (in this case, Dr. Lewis is being perhaps too narrow, as basic research may also be sustained by political and military advantage as well as economic). Basic research can only help to build sustainable space power; it is not a goal of space power in itself. ([Location 867](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=867)) - In their four-stage model of the technological process, an advance in basic science is only the culmination of the first phase, the “Intellectual Breakthrough.” Often society must wait—sometimes over 100 years and usually “two generations”—before the science is accepted and understood in order for the breakthrough to advance even into the second stage where a practical invention using that science can be conceived and developed, much less produced and employed. ([Location 881](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=881)) - When dealing with space power, it is critical for policy makers and strategists to confront the visionaries. Space power visionaries come in two different forms: the science fiction writer and the space enthusiast. Each can provide needed guidance and inspiration to the space professional and assist in the development of space power. ([Location 898](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=898)) - The General Theory addresses this interaction by identifying three sub-grammars of space power: the grammar of war, politics, and commerce. The sub-grammar concept allows the Grammar of Space Power to be seen from a particular point of the Logic Delta. These sub-grammars are modeled as a profile view of the Grammar of Space Power with the following modifications: At the top of the delta a line extends vertically to a point above the delta. ([Location 968](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=968)) - The goal of the sub-grammar Grammar of War is upholding the nation’s strategic access through force of arms.38 In our model, the grammar of war consists of the classic production, shipping, and colonies but concentrated into their more martial manifestations: treasure, bases, and naval vessels. ([Location 975](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=975)) - The second sub-grammar in space power is the Grammar of Politics. The goal of this grammar is to extend strategic access through diplomatic and other nonviolent means. ([Location 987](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=987)) - The last, and most important, sub-grammar of space power is the Grammar of Commerce. The Grammar of Commerce is the mechanism with which the commerce of the Logic of Space Power is conducted. ([Location 998](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=998)) - Most, if not all, problems encountered in space policy can be attributed to substituting the Grammar of Space Power (commerce, politics, or war sub-grammars) for the Logic of Space Power. ([Location 1026](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1026)) - The political heresy (political grammar substituted for logic) focuses on building a political element of space power as a goal unto itself. This can take the form of a treaty, an agreement, a project, or even an idea with a goal that is detrimental or indifferent to generating wealth from space. ([Location 1033](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1033)) - Political goals such as “prestige” and “soft power” are transitory political currency and are rarely adequate returns for the resources invested to gain them. Treaties such as the Outer Space Treaty stating that space resources are the “common heritage of mankind” are disastrous to generating wealth from space and inhibit space commerce almost entirely. Nonetheless, misguided space advocates often tout these monstrosities as great victories, dooming mankind to eternal bondage to their home planet by stifling the ability to build sustainable space projects that adhere to the Logic of Space Power. ([Location 1043](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1043)) - The war heresy tends to be that of viewing space power in absolutely fighting terms and to resist space power growth for the risk it has in upsetting the current military balance of power. The paranoia in the late 1990s and early 2000s over so-called dual use space systems in military and defense circles and subsequent attempts to restrict wide classes of technological exports “vital to national security” through legislation are prime examples of this error. ([Location 1049](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1049)) - The commerce heresy appears when devotees of space commerce ignore or deny the proper role of balanced politics and warfare in space power. This heresy has been the least influential to space policy but has an unhealthy influence on the space enthusiast community. The commerce heresy is most observant in the cries against a military presence in space (characterized as “militarization” or “weaponization”) because it may discourage investment in space. ([Location 1060](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1060)) - The Logic of Space Power can only be advanced by its constituent parts: economic, political, and military space power, in their proper role. The heresies created by substituting grammar for logic have held back American space power from its inception. Many of the disappointments can be described as a failure of policy makers to respect the Logic of Space Power. Using the constructs of the Logic and Grammar of Space Power, we can easily examine policies and projects to determine if they will help build wealth from space and advance the cause of American space power. ([Location 1071](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1071)) - The key to space power logic is to perceive the criticality of organization to the success of a nation’s space program. ([Location 1082](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1082)) - Schumpeter’s mechanism of change for every path is the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are defined as anyone in pursuit of new enterprises, which themselves simply are the carrying out of new combinations. ([Location 1089](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1089)) - The entrepreneur is the innovator who allows any type of development to happen. ([Location 1095](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1095)) - As strategist J.F.C. Fuller said, “To establish a new invention is like establishing a new religion—it usually demands the conversion or destruction of an entire priesthood.” ([Location 1142](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1142)) - The healthy interplay of instrumental and ceremonial values in a good organization may best be described by General Sir John Burnett-Stuart’s words to B.H. Liddell Hart shortly after becoming commander of the experimental British armored force in 1926: “It’s no use just handing over to an ordinary Division commander like myself. You must [assign] … as many experts and visionaries as you can; it doesn’t matter how wild their views are if only they have a touch of divine fire. I will supply the common sense of advanced middle age.” ([Location 1155](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1155)) - Government centers still would prefer to build their own equipment or use favored contractors rather than commercial alternatives. ([Location 1218](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1218)) - Essentially, the O’Neillian vision promotes turning space into a human environment. ([Location 1266](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1266)) - the O’Neillian vision sees hundreds, then thousands, of people living, working, loving, and raising families in space—people who think of space as their home, ([Location 1267](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1267)) - Building a real Starfleet will be much more difficult if the champions of space development deny the legitimacy of government space operations entirely. This quirk of the O’Neillian vision leads us to consider a fourth space development vision, one that seeks to find a balance between public and private expertise in space development. ([Location 1284](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1284)) - Today, there has been very little improvement and the cost to orbit is higher today than in the beginning of the Space Age, even accounting for monetary inflation! ([Location 1348](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1348)) - The civil space program is, and has always been, dictated by political interests which have never placed high emphasis on space development. ([Location 1373](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1373)) - This dissonance has been a large factor in why NASA doesn’t have the support of much of the citizenry (who believe they should be focused on space development), and is detested by much of the space advocacy community (whose visions include large-scale human spaceflight). ([Location 1375](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1375)) - Space development in the space advocate sense is not considered a profitable activity for military space personnel. ([Location 1390](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1390)) - Therefore, space development does not seem to be a high priority for either of the two main governmental agencies dedicated to space activities. ([Location 1391](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1391)) - The most important facet of the government space program today is that it is segmented into two distinct parts: a civilian “exploration” agency named the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and a military “defense” sector composed of the individual services’ space commands but concentrated in Air Force Space Command (AFSPC). ([Location 1396](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1396)) - President Eisenhower’s decision to create NASA was at least partially attributable to his disdain for some of the more outlandish statements about the future of the military in space made by the military, often Air Force officers, in the early years of the Space Age. ([Location 1408](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1408)) - DuBridge railed against these studies as “wild programs of Buck Rogers stunts and insane pseudo-military expeditions.” Killian by his own admission “ridiculed” the military’s proposals rather than engage them on their merits in a civilized fashion. Killian, being president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called these military proposals “romantic” rather than “scientific” in a blatant use of the logical fallacy known as “appeal to authority.” But how are we to take this? General Boushey was the Air Force’s Astronautics Division commander at the time of his moon base statement. The Project Horizon study was completed by von Braun’s own Army Ballistic Missile Agency, which eventually formed the core of the Marshall Space Flight Center, which took man to the Moon in Apollo! These military space pioneers didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, and the future Apollo engineers certainly knew Newtonian mechanics. ([Location 1424](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1424)) - Instead of enslaving the entire space program to the needs of “science” as the scientists wanted (surprise, surprise), the Army believed that its program could achieve national advantage along the national power spectrum known today as DIME (diplomatic, informational, military, and economic power). ([Location 1450](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1450)) - But in reality, the Army just envisioned the moon as a new frontier, and its Horizon base would serve the same purpose as its western forts during the U.S. expansion to the Pacific: protect settlers, miners, and the country from harm of the elements and hostile forces. In Project Horizon, the U.S. Army anticipated the O’Neillian/Grahamian vision of space development. ([Location 1452](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1452)) - What is known is that the American space effort has not succeeded in opening robust space power development among all lines of power—economic, political, military—in ways most space enthusiasts have envisioned. ([Location 1466](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1466)) - When an American thinks “exploration,” he most likely thinks of Lewis and Clark. What is less well-known is that what we know as the “Lewis and Clark” expedition was named by President Thomas Jefferson the Army’s “Corps of Discovery” expedition that was led by military captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and this expedition was only the first of many military exploration expeditions. ([Location 1475](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1475)) - But one must pause and consider why both the military character of the exploration of the western United States and almost the entirety of the greatest modern sea exploration endeavor in history is completely forgotten or ignored today. I find it hard not to believe that this is partially (if not wholly due) to a modern preoccupation with dismissing the positive qualities of the military and desire to eliminate the institution by misguided utopian idealists, but it’s up to the reader to decide. ([Location 1505](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1505)) - History indicates that Eisenhower’s odd distrust of military motives (and equally damaging over-regard for civilian scientist motivations) robbed the Air Force of its own great contribution to American exploration. ([Location 1510](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1510)) - Currently, NASA is the agent for U.S. space exploration. This is counter to traditional American approaches to exploring and exploiting new territory. It is also counter to common sense. NASA is a research and technology organization. It has little incentive to develop, open, and protect new areas for commercial exploitation. ([Location 1513](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1513)) - NACA [the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics, the military-friendly precursor to NASA] should never have been disturbed. Creating NASA was an unnecessary creating of an organization…. [The government] simply took the military, put them over in NASA and started the manned space flight program. They would’ve done much better had they allowed the military to carry out the operational type of flying. ([Location 1536](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1536)) - Contra to President Eisenhower’s “Space for Peace” platform, the Air Force believed that military activity in space could and should be considered peaceful. Air Force activity in space was no different than the peaceful activities of the U.S. Navy on the high seas—assuring access to the oceans of all parties engaged in peaceful activity. ([Location 1549](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1549)) - Historically, we have tended to overestimate what we could do on a short-term basis and to grossly underestimate what we could do on a long-term basis.30 ([Location 1566](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1566)) - There is simply no way to know what value a mature space operational capability could be so early in the Space Age, and the most honest and truthful answers the military could give is to say they needed to experiment in space before they could be certain, but they sense the advantages could be spectacular! The unknown is the way it is because it is unknown. ([Location 1577](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1577)) - Today, there is still no widely accepted consensus on a theory for space operations, known as space power theory. Why should we believe this scientist is correct when it is obvious he knows nothing of the importance of military strategic research? Therefore, in part because we listened to scientists ignorant of military operations, we spend a great deal of money in space without having an overriding strategy of what is best to accomplish in space. ([Location 1591](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1591)) - But where Mercury truly was little more than “spam in a can,” the Dyna-Soar was a very advanced and capable craft that could have had many different uses both military and scientific. Perhaps only a space power expert could have seen the difference (I believe any normal citizen could have seen a massive difference and would have been far more impressed with the Dyna-Soar), but a hostile scientist could be dismissive enough to say “wasteful overlap” with a straight face. ([Location 1606](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1606)) - Eisenhower’s insistence on only performing traditional Earth military operations in space was a severe blow to military theoretical basic R&D in space power thinking. Essentially, Eisenhower prevented military minds from being supported in thinking about how to approach space for national strategic benefit. No wonder that during the Eisenhower administration “[space] technology [had] far outpaced any coherent doctrine on how to employ space systems effectively.” ([Location 1614](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1614)) - This flaw was due to the fact that the particulars of the Air Force’s strategic culture are completely incompatible with space power and interpreting space power through an Air Force lens in the age of nuclear bombardment and Strategic Air Command doomed contemporary military ruminations of space power to look to civilians like the rantings of bloodthirsty and psychopathic lunatics, even though Air Force statements were actually just standard Air Force thoughts applied to space. ([Location 1639](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1639)) - Eminent science fiction author and space visionary Sir Arthur C. Clarke called the Orion project “one of the most awesome ‘might have beens’ of the space age.” Orion was envisioned as a manned spacecraft propelled by the shock waves from miniature hydrogen bombs. ([Location 1692](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1692)) - The American people must understand that the military does not equal violence and senseless death. NASA is not “good” because it is civilian and the military space program or an independent military space service is “bad” because it is military. ([Location 1783](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1783)) - The simple fact is that short-sighted civilian scientists in the 1950s led us on the path of the narrow Saganite vision of space development which has so retarded the space development expected in the modern imagination. The military alternative was clearly an O’Neillian/Grahamian type of space expansion through parallel development in civilian science and economic expansion and military missions. ([Location 1786](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1786)) - By wrongly ignoring the military’s traditional role in exploration and expansion, dismissing the military’s consideration of larger factors in space development than simply “science” as the prattling of ignorant children, and being irrationally convinced of the objectivity of scientists, the Eisenhower administration set the United States on a devastatingly inefficient and straitjacketed course in space that could not develop space even with the astronomical amounts of money that would be allotted to space activities in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. ([Location 1789](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1789)) - the most critical developmental responsibilities are Path 2 (new ways to handle space power elements) and Path 5 (new methods of organization) at the transformer level of space power logic. ([Location 1799](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1799)) - Because developing space power grammar is a broad responsibility shared among government and private interests, the best military space organization is the one that can develop the best transformers through military space theory, strategy, and doctrine at the strategic and tactical levels. ([Location 1802](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1802)) - The strategic culture of the service is every bit as important as its weapons or operations at any one time. ([Location 1819](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1819)) - Institutional economists deny determinism in organizational development and that change has no predetermined direction, an assumption the General Theory of Space Power readily accepts. Therefore, society has the ability to apply discretion—to direct change toward predetermined goals.55 Holley says that space organizational development to date has been towards evolving mission support roles (due to creating a support service Air Force Space Command) rather than a combat role (by denying space the Strategic Air Command combat model). Because there is no determinism in development, organizational choice is up to society to determine based upon the goals society wants from its military space organization. ([Location 1892](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1892)) - The work of perfecting doctrine is complex; it calls for the willing and informed cooperation of many participants. Indeed, it calls for the exercise of substantial initiatives by participants in all the operating echelons. It cannot be left exclusively to a handful of specialists in a staff section. ([Location 1910](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1910)) - True space power is built in the Grammar Delta. Logic Delta operations develop a nation’s skill at translating new technology into instruments of power, but activity at the Grammar Delta builds the tools that serve as the foundations of space power. ([Location 1959](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1959)) - Space power is limited today primarily due to technological reasons—we simply do not have the requisite level of technology required to fully exploit the continuum of advantages the space environment offers. ([Location 1964](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1964)) - The Intellectual Breakthrough phase begins the Technological Process. In this phase, scientists (Possony and Pournelle call these people “men of genius”) make discoveries and propose theories which fundamentally overturn accepted scientific understanding. ([Location 1982](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1982)) - Possony and Pournelle note that intellectual breakthroughs only lay the foundation for future applications. The Intellectual Breakthrough phase does not increase any capabilities and is merely the necessary precondition for a new capability. ([Location 1988](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1988)) - Firstly, intellectual breakthroughs occur unpredictably and cannot be anticipated in advance. ([Location 1990](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1990)) - Secondly, it normally takes a great deal of time for the implications of a new scientific breakthrough to become fully appreciated (the authors’ opinion is two generations’ time) and the breakthrough is potentially able to proceed to the next phase. ([Location 1992](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1992)) - The second phase of technological development, the Invention Breakthrough phase, ends the basic science phase begins this application process. This second step in the Technological Process is devoted to translating the new understanding of basic science developed in the Intellectual Breakthrough phase into a device with some useful purpose. ([Location 1999](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=1999)) - The Invention Phase can be considered as the “applied science” phase. It may also take many years to complete, though it is generally completed far faster than the Intellectual Breakthrough phase. ([Location 2004](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2004)) - The third step of the Technological Process takes place outside of the purview of the scientist (step 1) and the applied scientist or design engineer (Phase 2) and into the hands of the technical manager. In this Management Breakthrough phase, managers from industry or the military recognize that an invention from Phase 2 has potential importance and value, and decide to allocate resources to translate the invention or demonstration into a materially useful product. ([Location 2007](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2007)) - It is in the Management Breakthrough phase that space power “art” through visions of space power (explored in Chapter 2) can substantively alter space power development. ([Location 2021](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2021)) - The fourth, and last, phase of the Technological Process is the Engineering Breakthrough. In this last phase, the “invention chosen by management is developed as a system and produced in quantity.” ([Location 2025](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2025)) - Technological innovation, Schumpeter’s new combinations, cannot be counted to arrive on a regular schedule. Indeed, many innovations come in groups. The classic example is the steam engine. Although the steam engine in itself was a single innovative application of thermodynamics and mechanics to develop a new type of engine, the resulting economic impact of the technology (steam engine) and innovations resulting from the technology was nearly incalculable. ([Location 2047](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2047)) - Space power revolutions will likely take place from one of two major avenues of technology: having the main thrust of current space power exploitation climbing the hierarchy of space power environmental characteristics (for instance, from our current “orbital mechanics” phase to “solar energy” through the construction of large-scale solar power satellites for Earthbound power consumption), or developing a technology that expands access by an order of magnitude (i.e., opening the Moon to mass travel from low Earth orbit, Mars, inner solar system, entire solar system, interstellar flight). ([Location 2066](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2066)) - Another key insight into space power development is to identify a very dangerous fallacy arising from the nature that space activity has with high technology—the fetishization of technology itself over its utility for space power purposes. ([Location 2072](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2072)) - There is a fundamental difference between technological sophistication and economic utility, even though both developing the technological sophistication and determining which technological processes will provide the highest profit are both vitally important. ([Location 2074](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2074)) - The economic best and the technologically perfect need not, yet very often do, diverge, not only because of ignorance and indolence but because methods which are technologically inferior may still best fit the given economic conditions. ([Location 2107](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2107)) - NASA has been criticized in the past for building “space Ferrari” rockets where “space Chevy” rockets would do. The obsession with technological elegance over economic reality is well showcased by NASA’s decision to cancel the technologically inelegant but flying DC-X and DC-XA experimental rocket in favor of the bleeding edge X-33 single-stage-to-orbit rocket which required significant advances in engines, cryogenics, and materials in order to work. ([Location 2111](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2111)) - Influence Technology is technology that can be used in space to generate power (influence) from space. ([Location 2124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2124)) - Access Technology is that technology which permits progressively larger sections of space to be open to exploitation. ([Location 2127](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2127)) - Access Technology’s only use is to enable Influence Technology to accomplish its mission. ([Location 2130](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2130)) - It is somewhat paradoxical, then, that in space power development Access Technology is generally more important than Influence Technology. ([Location 2130](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2130)) - Exploitation is relatively easy. Access is hard. ([Location 2134](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2134)) - “Technological warfare, which connects science with strategies, operational art, and tactics, endeavors to make rival armed forces uncompetitive, preferably obsolete.9 ([Location 2149](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2149)) - Possony, Pournelle, and Kane, in their second edition of The Strategy of Technology, offer a broader and, perhaps, more correct view by defining technological war as the direct and purposeful application of the national technological base and of specific advances generated by that base to attain strategic and tactical objectives. ([Location 2151](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2151)) - A technological strategy would involve the setting of national goals and objectives by political leaders; it would be integrated with other aspects of our national strategy, both military and nonmilitary (Initiative, Objective, and Unity of Command); it would include a broad plan for conducting the Technological War that provided for surprising the enemy, pursuing our advantage (Pursuit), guarding against being surprised (Security), allocating resources effectively (Economy of Force), setting milestones and building the technological base (Objective), and so forth.11 ([Location 2164](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2164)) - Perhaps the most extensive exploration of S-curves is Richard N. Foster’s book Innovation: The Attacker’s Advantage. In it, he succinctly explains the S-curve and its shape: The S-curve is a graph of the relationship between the effort put into improving a product or process and the results one gets back for that investment. ([Location 2186](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2186)) - In technological conflict pursuit is facilitated by the circumstances surrounding the breakthrough. Rather than causing losses, the technological success increases the power of the side making the advance, and success often heightens morale. The breakthrough can reduce the amount of uncertainty about the enemy’s technology position. These circumstances point out clearly that significant technical advances must be exploited. The concept of pursuit has a valid role in technological conflict. ([Location 2208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2208)) - Success in attack results from the availability of superior strength, including of course both physical and moral…. The attacker is purchasing advantages that may become valuable at the peace table, but he must pay for them on the spot with his fighting forces. If the superior strength of the attack—which diminishes day by day—leads to peace, the object will have been attained. ([Location 2223](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2223)) - Victory in technological war, according to Possony et al., “is achieved when a participant has a technological lead so far advanced that his opponent cannot overcome it until after the leader has converted his technology into decisive weapons systems.” ([Location 2290](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2290)) - Lastly, even the ultimate outcome of a war is not always to be regarded as final. The defeated state often considers the outcome merely as a transitory evil, for which a remedy may still be found in political conditions at some later date. ([Location 2304](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2304)) - Technological strategy, like strategy itself, never ends but is a continuous struggle for advantage. ([Location 2306](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2306)) - Thousands of wrong turns running in all directions tempt his perception; and if the range, confusion and complexity of the issues are not enough to overwhelm him, the dangers and responsibilities may. ([Location 2321](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2321)) - Technology by itself is sterile. To be militarily useful the new technology must provide new or better solution to a military problem. ([Location 2331](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2331)) - At the beginning of a campaign, the aggressor’s performance increase to cost ratio will be much higher than the conservator’s (called the attacker’s advantage by Foster). At T2, the conservator’s ratio will become equal to and then greater than the aggressor’s and the aggressor will enter the zone where he is in danger of reaching the campaign’s culmination point. When the aggressor’s and the conservator’s relative power from the technology has reached parity again, T3 has arrived and the campaign is over. ([Location 2381](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2381)) - State capitalism is a new form of the classic mercantilist economic philosophy which eschews free markets and focuses on national accumulation of land, commodities, and gold which the mercantilist believes is wealth. ([Location 2399](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2399)) - Economist Ian Fletcher believes, rather, that the essence of mercantilism is a soft form of nonideological economic nationalism that believes “a nation’s economy should basically be run for the benefit of its people.” ([Location 2407](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2407)) - Admiral Shufeldt offers four ways in which the merchant service and the Navy both strengthen the other. ([Location 2417](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2417)) - Firstly, Admiral Shufeldt argues that merchant ships can quickly become military ships if required, provided the merchant ships have certain speed and fighting qualities the military can use. ([Location 2418](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2418)) - Secondly, and perhaps more importantly than the first, merchant sailors can quickly become military sailors. ([Location 2419](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2419)) - In the pursuit of new channels the trader seeks not only the unfrequented paths upon the oceans, but the unfrequented ports of the world. He needs the constant protection of the flag and gun. ([Location 2431](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2431)) - Rapid astronaut rescue and recovery, delivery of emergency supplies, and protection from solar storms as well as predations from foreign interests will be services a nation’s military space power agents can provide to its economic space power brethren. ([Location 2437](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2437)) - A merchant service that could mine the Moon for rare materials and flank potential adversaries in a resource war through economic space power could provide an unparalleled reserve to military space forces in a national emergency. A military service that could provide a steady supply of trained personnel to the merchant space service, and provide protection and support to commercial efforts, would earn the undying devotion and support of the commercial sector. ([Location 2462](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2462)) - Shufeldt’s arguments are what economists refer to as industrial policy: prescriptions for government action to encourage the development of specific industries of particular interest to a nation; in Shufeldt’s case the American merchant ocean shipping industry. ([Location 2484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2484)) - Under the Gomory/Baumol trade theory, classical mercantilist strategy is given a sound theoretical base. As Gomory and Baumol explain, in a world where multiple trade outcomes are possible, the very best trade outcome for one nation will likely be bad for another.45 It turns out that trade is war, or at least, a nation’s economy can be managed to benefit the nation’s people more than free trade would allow. ([Location 2505](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2505)) - Industries can be supported for two reasons: their necessity for national security reasons and their ability to generate relatively greater wealth (through increased numbers and compensation for jobs or abnormal industry profits) for the nation. ([Location 2519](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2519)) - Here it is important to realize a critical observation. On a national strategic level it is the national industry—not an individual firm—that is important. In other words, it is the U.S. steel industry, not U.S. Steel, that is the legitimate focus of national attention. Therefore, government subsidy should not fall into the oft-mentioned indictment against industry subsidy of “picking winners.” ([Location 2523](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2523)) - As Fletcher says, protecting a nation’s industry from foreign predation while encouraging a strong domestic rivalry is probably an even better innovative environment than even unrestricted free trade, as Japan’s internationally protected but internally vicious electronics industry attests. ([Location 2537](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2537)) - But a 30 percent tariff quite likely would cause the relocation of high-tech manufacturing like semiconductors. This is key, as these industries are precisely the ones we should want to relocate. They have the scale economies that cause retainability, high returns, high wages, and all the other effects of good industries. Therefore a flat tariff would, in fact, be strategic. ([Location 2545](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2545)) - This strategic tariff would undoubtedly influence and protect the American space industry. In the space industry, certain sub-industries like traditional orbital space lift may come back to the United States as domestic satellite providers use U.S. launch vehicles rather than Russian, Chinese, or Indian launch services. ([Location 2549](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2549)) - Two ways to improve the domestic merchant space service will be offered for consideration. First, the creation of tax legislation that will declare a tax holiday on profits derived from merchant space activity for a fixed number of years would spur private investment and not unduly favor one domestic space firm over another. ([Location 2555](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2555)) - The so-called Zero-G, Zero Tax bill passed by the House of Representatives in 2000 and narrowly defeated in the Senate would have foregone federal taxes on all profits made in off-planet economic activity (excluding existing communications and remote sensing satellites) for 20 years is a model for such a generic subsidy to the American merchant space service without unduly preferring one firm over another. ([Location 2557](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2557)) - A second attractive subsidy has already been successfully used to generate innovation in the merchant space service: the prize. ([Location 2560](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2560)) - Former Atomic Energy Commission policy expert James Dewar believes that the nuclear rocket is the future of American space power because it is “the bigger hammer.” He describes his vision of a new nuclear space program in his book The Nuclear Rocket. The nuclear hammer is bigger than the chemical rocket because the nuclear rocket is not limited by heat and weight like its chemically driven cousin, but has potential limited only by man’s engineering state of knowledge at any particular time. ([Location 2573](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2573)) - Current engineering practice for space mission design is to use the systems engineering process. The first step in the systems engineering process is to define the mission—the problem you wish to solve. ([Location 2691](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2691)) - Systems engineering tends to produce equipment that can only perform very narrow missions and which has a hard time being used for new purposes in new ways. ([Location 2706](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2706)) - Capability-based development identifies a technology that promises significant advantages over current methods and focuses on developing that new technology with the goal of securing new skills and capacity to accomplish things that weren’t possible with current technology. Development consists not only of developing a workable engine, but to build an entire support infrastructure and industry aimed and supporting and advancing the technology itself. Much as trains need railroad tracks, automobiles need roads, and telephones need poles (or cell towers), all new technology needs supporting infrastructure to be viable.70 Capability-based development is a systematic approach where progress is incremental and market-driven—not simply obsessed with a “single shot” mission. ([Location 2766](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2766)) - She could travel over 300,000 nautical miles on one load of uranium fuel, eliminating the need for millions of gallons of diesel fuel to travel across the ocean. ([Location 2844](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2844)) - The word “cutter” originates from the British Royal Navy. Their definition of cutter was a small warship of 8–12 cannons in a time where Ships of the Line (recall the Star Trek calendar of the same name) often had 70 or more cannons. ([Location 2880](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2880)) - To be sure, we must always start from the satisfaction of wants, since they are the end of all production, and the given economic situation at any time must be understood from this aspect. Yet innovations in the economic system do not as a rule take place in such a way that first new wants arise spontaneously in consumers and then the productive apparatus swings round through their pressure. We do not deny the presence of this nexus. It is, however, the producer who as a rule initiates economic change, and consumers are educated by him if necessary; they are, as it were, taught to want new things, or things which differ in some respect or other from those which they have been in the habit of using. ([Location 2918](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2918)) - Space power development, a subset of economic development applied to space activity, is also primarily driven by the producer, not consumer. This fact has many ramifications for space power developers—especially in military circles. ([Location 2923](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2923)) - This small discussion suggests that “supporting the warfighter” by giving him exactly (and only) what he wants may be counterproductive to military space innovation. Letting the JFC dictate development terms may harm him by not allowing others to “properly teach him to want new things.” In order to foster a culture of real innovation, perhaps it is time to reintroduce the services (with their land, air, sea, and amphibious “producer” focuses) to requirements decision making so that environmental “innovation for innovation’s sake” can again seek truly valuable innovation in military force development. ([Location 2964](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2964)) - Organizational knowledge built on an understanding of environment and mission enlarged by study and experience forms the foundation of tactics. From this basis, an understanding of national interests, a sense of the history of conflict, a grasp of the capabilities of potential enemies, and an appreciation of technology all drive tactical opportunities. These in turn establish the designs for development of technologies and future acquisitions. Equipment developed makes possible improved, advanced, or different tactical possibilities. These new tactics in turn allow changes to strategy. Such changes may or may not then be reflected in policy. ([Location 2978](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2978)) - In order to better understand how to stimulate innovation in space power, we must look to see how the U.S. Navy orchestrated the greatest transformation in military history to win the greatest sea war in human history. ([Location 2990](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=2990)) - The General Board could then be used as the forum for accepting new ideas (transformers and combinations, as defined by the General Theory of Space Power) and incorporating innovation into the Navy as a whole at the strategic level. ([Location 3082](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3082)) - Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz said in 1965, “The enemy of our games [at the Naval War College] was always—Japan—and the courses were so thorough that after the start of World War II—nothing that happened in the Pacific was strange or unexpected. Each student was required to plan logistic support for an advance across the Pacific—and we were well prepared for the fantastic logistic efforts required to support the operations of the war. The need for mobile replenishment at sea was foreseen—and practiced by me in 1937.” ([Location 3093](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3093)) - When the push for naval reform came, steel-hulled battleship children of Dreadnought, submarines, and torpedo destroyers that fought World War I were mere concepts with no real world experience upon which to build. ([Location 3191](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3191)) - This interesting lesson seems to indicate that in times of rapid technological expansion but limited funding, budgets might better be spent on operational development and training rather than matériel acquisition, for although new weapons might be made quickly obsolete, innovation in tactics, doctrine, and operational understanding has a shelf life that provides a far greater return. Perhaps in today’s equally constrained fiscal environment, and the threat of rapid space technological development (such as commercial human space travel, propulsion physics, and exploration programs), the limited money available to develop the space forces should be spent primarily on concept development and technological experimentation rather than fielding large forces for readiness purposes. This may be a subtle, but critical, lesson the fleet problem can provide. ([Location 3391](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3391)) - “It required nearly twenty years of fleet problems to develop the organization, tactics, and technologies that enabled the Navy to win World War II.”33 Innovation did not happen overnight. ([Location 3398](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3398)) - Just as the General Theory of Space Power states that the military arm is only one point of the Logic Delta, sea power does not consist only of warships and the institutional development of the Navy. The navalists had long been aware of the important connection between a nation’s navy and her merchant marine. ([Location 3416](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3416)) - A fleet’s power was estimated to erode by 10 percent for each thousand miles it cruised from its base. ([Location 3439](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3439)) - Thus there were two main concerns: mitigating the wearing of the fleet from long distance travel and requiring almost an order of magnitude larger merchant marine than Japan just to support equal strength in the war zone. ([Location 3448](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3448)) - They designed modular advanced base units for assembly by special construction battalions (Seabees). Halsey called the bulldozer one of the three decisive weapons of the war. The floating service depot was perfected. ([Location 3456](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3456)) - A U.S. Navy unaccompanied by mobile bases could probably not have defeated the Japanese at sea once they adopted a defensive posture. ([Location 3459](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3459)) - Roosevelt signed the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, abolishing the Shipping Board Bureau and creating an independent agency, the U.S. Maritime Commission (MarComm). MarComm was authorized to regulate American ocean commerce, supervise freight and terminal facilities, and administer government funds for the construction and operation of commercial vessels. Any American company that was three-quarters owned by American citizens could apply for financial assistance in having new ships built in American yards. ([Location 3468](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3468)) - Subsidized freighters were required to have fully American crews, passenger ships 90 percent American. (Filipino and European stewards held greater appeal for paying passengers.) ([Location 3475](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3475)) - substantial portion” of the nation’s shipping needs instead of “the greater ([Location 3516](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3516)) - When operating at their peak rate of production, America’s shipyards were capable of reproducing the entire world’s prewar commercial tonnage in less than three years. ([Location 3529](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3529)) - The sheer magnitude of the merchant marine buildup for World War II is one of the most amazing industrial feats in military history, far eclipsing the buildup of warships during that time. ([Location 3530](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3530)) - This massive buildup required many things before the war started in order to succeed: the funding, the organizational structure of MarComm, and the navalist belief that the United States would need a truly world-class merchant marine in order to fight Japan. Also needed were businesses able and willing to operate the merchant fleet. Even though the merchant marine was necessary to the defense of the nation, they were not manned or operated by naval personnel. ([Location 3533](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3533)) - What should be extraordinarily clear is that the experiences of the naval planners of the 1920s and ’30s are extremely relevant to today’s space power strategists. Using the Mahanian space power model described here, space strategists may be able to advance their art considerably. ([Location 3719](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3719)) - Economist Joseph Schumpeter identified five different paths of economic development, which can also be used to describe environmental power development. The first, introduction of a new element (a production, shipping, or colony element) essentially is development through the introduction of a new piece of hardware. The second path, introduction of a new method of production or handling of an element, essentially deals with using existing elements in new ways. Path 3 development is the opening of a new market, defined in the General Theory of Space Power as combining elements into a new level of access. Path 4 development is a straightforward conquest of a new source of supply, access to a new cache of strategic materials that changes the zero-sum status quo. The last path to development, Path 5, is the reorganization of an industry or organization that stimulates new logic and grammar ideas with which to further fuel power development. ([Location 3739](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3739)) - Scenarios are not meant to prepare for a future—they are meant to prepare for any future. ([Location 3891](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00S1SO5KO&location=3891))