The New Space War
Can the private sector outcompete nation states in the battle to dominate the next frontier?
There was a time, long before the Europeans, when the China was a seafaring nation. The Chinese had the knowledge and skill to build seaworthy vessels and the courage and seamanship to navigate them on the open oceans. They also had visionary leadership that understood the Chinese empire would secure economic and security benefits from exploring frontier domains.
These efforts peaked under the Emperor Zhu Di and Admiral Zheng He, when, a 100 years before Columbus, Chinese treasure ships, some as long as soccer fields, sailed in fleets of hundreds, manned by thousands, to destinations as far flung as the Yemen and Africa. But after the death of Zhu Di, a new emperor had other priorities and maritime trade was outlawed. Ships rotted in harbors, and knowledge and skill was lost to time. The Chinese state wouldn’t return to the seas for hundreds of years, and even then only after Europeans came to the shores of the Middle Kingdom.
I have always been struck by this story, amazed that a nation could turn its back on so obvious an achievement, failing to exploit the obvious benefits from dominating the oceans. And yet, looking back on American efforts regarding the last frontier of space, didn’t we do the same thing? We are still the only nation to land a man on the moon, and yet in the decades since, American abilities (and interests?) have atrophied.
That is, until recently. The last ten years have seen an explosion of activity in space. But rather than inspiring political leaders wielding the power of state resources leading the charge, it’s visionary entrepreneurs and investors who are unleashing the power of the private sector today.
Earlier this year, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched into space a private lunar lander designed and manufactured by Houston-based Intuitive Machines. When the lander touched down, it was the first time a private company landed on the moon, and it was America’s first return to the moon since 1972.
It didn’t garner much attention outside those of us who are involved in this sector, but I wrote at the time that at some point in the near-future, we will look back and see that as a seminal moment in space industry history, like Netscape was for the Internet. That innovation opened up the potential of the World Wide Web, and an explosion of investment, growth, and commercial activity followed.
Oddly enough, the genesis of my interest in space goes back to the June 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square. A young student at the time, I was glued to the TV, fascinated by the democratic protests that soon turned to horror. I was shocked by the brutal government crackdown upon its own people, something that gnaws at me to this day. That moment, forever etched into my mind, spurred a lifelong professional interest in China. Over the ensuing decades I have studied, written, and lectured about the rise of China and the threat it posed to the West.
A few years ago, with the backdrop of a US-China rivalry that I believed was a new Cold War, I became alarmed at China’s sudden focus on and progress in space. I wrote an article for the PBS NewsHour in 2016 that outlined how China became only the third nation to soft-land a spacecraft on the surface of the moon, and how that had followed its 2014 success in sending a probe around the moon (the first country to do so since the 1970’s.) China, it seemed, was winning the race to space: China’s capacity was growing in leaps and bounds while American efforts seemed lethargic at best...at least in terms of the public sector.
But around the same time that I was growing alarmed, the U.S. commercial space sector exploded. Rather than a competition between nation states, the new space war appears to be a battle between a totalitarian nation state and an innovative private sector. Visionary entrepreneurs and investors are leading the way, and the era of “New Space” had begun.
According to statistics from the U.S. International Trade Commission, by 2022 U.S. space launches had increased by 152 percent, from 31 in 2018 to 78, finally surpassing China (64). And this surge in U.S. launch capacity was driven by the private sector; in fact, one company alone drove most of this increase: SpaceX accounted for 78 percent of all U.S. space launches in 2022, and 33 percent of all global launches.
In fact, Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute writes that U.S. launch capacity is now four times that of the rest of the world, and the U.S. commercial sector launched three times as many satellites as the rest of the world combined. Harrison also cites the U.S. edge in satellites. While China has increased its number of satellites since 2015 by 550% to 848, U.S. satellites have increased by 2100% in the same timeframe, to nearly 7,000. He goes on to note that 94 percent of these U.S. satellites are commercial. The U.S. has clearly regained the advantage, driven by the unleashed ingenuity and innovation of the private sector. To which I can only say…of course.
Why are we surprised? Of course, the free market system (private enterprise, competition, and access to risk capital) would yield better results. Those of us of a certain age will recall a time when this belief was in question, at least for some. The world was split between two systems, laissez-faire capitalism and centrally-planned socialism, each vying to prove its capabilities were superior.
The question, for many, was settled with the collapse of the Soviet Union, when market-driven economic organization crushed central planning in terms of production and innovation. The lesson, I believed, has been learned time and time again as evidence mounts that even the most intractable policy problems — ranging from education to healthcare and housing to climate change - are best addressed through the application of market forces. Competition, surprise surprise, generates incentives to innovate far more efficiently than mandates from bureaucrats.
New Space is also about more than just launching rockets and satellites; it has the power to create entirely new markets, heretofore unimaginable. I’ve written about the creation of new industries, ranging from space manufacturing to space tourism and mining the moon. In fact, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson noted as far back as 2015 that the first trillionaire will likely be the person who is able to exploit the natural resources of asteroids.
We are on the edge of an exciting new age, the prospects of which we cannot fully appreciate. Just as the Internet was the biggest development in human communication since the Gutenberg Press, space is the most important frontier since the Age of Sail opened up the oceans. Economic and security advantages hang in the balance, and just as mastery of the oceans led to the fall and rise of empires, so too will mastery of space lead to new advantages.
China turned its back on exploration because it was a closed society and everything depended on the priorities of the emperor and coterie of bureaucrats who made up his court. The genius of America is that we live in an open society, a churning mix of ideas and innovations. And even though our political class long-ago lost interest in space, the private sector has forced it to the forefront once again, revealed the possibilities, and captivated the nation’s imagination. Unlike the Chinese of centuries ago, America now has the chance to reverse its mistake and return to the mastery of the next frontier, one that offers untold potential to change life on Earth and create possibilities for a multi planetary existence.
VIKRAM MANSHARAMANI is an entrepreneur, consultant, scholar, neighbor, husband, father, volunteer, and professional generalist who thinks in multiple-dimensions and looks beyond the short-term. Self-taught to think around corners and connect original dots, he spends his time speaking with global leaders in business, government, academia, and journalism. LinkedIn has twice listed him as its #1 Top Voice in Money & Finance, and Worth profiled him as one of the 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance. Vikram earned a PhD From MIT, has taught at Yale and Harvard, and is the author of three books, The Making of a Generalist: An Independent Thinker Finds Unconventional Success in an Uncertain World, Think for Yourself: Restoring Common Sense in an Age of Experts and Artificial Intelligence and Boombustology: Spotting Financial Bubbles Before They Burst. Vikram lives in Lincoln, New Hampshire with his wife and two children, where they can usually be found hiking or skiing.
Vikram, I look at Space War a little differently from the standpoint of protecting our satellites. Bob