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Military interest in the moon is ramping up

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C C Offline
https://www.space.com/military-interest-...unar-space

EXCERPTS: There is growing interest in protecting strategic assets in cislunar space, the realm between Earth and the moon. The U.S. Space Force is not the only entity engaged in reflecting on the topic of how best to extend military presence far from Earth. Other nations such as China are doing so as well.

Parallel to air, land and sea skirmishes between nations here on Earth, is cislunar space, and perhaps the moon itself, an emerging military "high ground" and new territory for conflict? There’s a variance of views, according to experts Space.com talked to.

In part because of the sway of "frontier" analogs in thinking about space, a key fact about choices for Earth space has not been widely grasped, Deudney told Space.com. "Earth space, unlike frontiers, is marked not by 'both/and' opportunities, but by 'either/or' ones. Pursuing the military options will preclude, or make much more difficult, the realization of other paths," he said.

Due to the falling costs of accessing orbital space — long a bottleneck for all space activities (particularly those involving significant infrastructures) — it is increasingly likely that major space initiatives will be pursued, Deudney said.

"Due to the deterioration of terrestrial Great Power relations, the waning of the arms control and disarmament movements, and the decay of the Outer Space Treaty regime," Deudney said, "momentum is gathering for further major militarization and weaponization of space technologies and locales, most notably on Luna [the moon]."

[...] The U.S. military has eyed the moon before. As far back as 1959...

[...] So there's a fair amount of cislunar angst out there. But Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., has a different viewpoint.

"I really don’t think there’s much to this," Harrison advised. Though the U.S. Space Force knows that eventually it will need to be concerned about what’s going on in cislunar space, he said, "we’re not at that point yet."

[...] Harrison said there are some cislunar "threat hypers" out there — and he is not among them. "Cislunar space is a very low priority for the Space Force compared to all the things going on in Earth orbit that it needs to be concerned about," Harrison told Space.com.

In Harrison’s thinking, the most promising lunar resources are for civil and commercial space ventures. "By far, that’s what we’re looking at," Harrison said, pointing to using materials from the moon for propulsion or building structures. "NASA is the lead when it comes to cislunar space. And that’s the way it should be."

Still, in casting a futuristic eye outward, Harrison advised that "where commerce goes, conflict eventually follows." There could be a military role, Harrison said, albeit 20, 30 or maybe even 50 years into the future, of helping to protect trade routes and U.S. interests. "But we’re a long, long way from that happening." (MORE - missing details)
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