Cislunar is the Suez Canal of Space

Space Technology and Policy

Good morning,

Last night, President Trump addressed a Joint Session of Congress. Most of what he said was unsurprising.

In his address, he only mentioned space once, and it may have marked an unfortunate reversal of policy from his first term as President.

We are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars, and even far beyond.

As we discussed last week and several weeks further back, we’re all for setting a lofty goal of human space exploration to the Red Planet.

But let us be very clear: that goal CANNOT come at the expense of our ability to build space capabilities in Cislunar space.

Let’s put it into a perhaps more familiar context of the global commons. If Earth is the United States and Mars represents a mercantile colony in India providing untold mineral wealth, then Cislunar space is the Suez Canal, or Gibraltar, or the Panama Canal.

Cislunar space is a strategic chokepoint for in…