Solar Power Satellites Affirmative

8/14/2019 Solar Power Satellites Affirmative

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Solar Power Satellites GeorgiaAffirmative Novice Packet

IndexIndex ............................................................................................................................................................................................ ................1Explanation ......................................................................................................................................................................................... ...... ...21ac ................................................................................................................................................................................................................31ac ................................................................................................................................................................................................................41ac ................................................................................................................................................................................................................5

1ac ................................................................................................................................................................................................................61ac ................................................................................................................................................................................................................71ac ................................................................................................................................................................................................................81ac ................................................................................................................................................................................................................91ac .................................................................................................................................................................................................... ...... ....101ac ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................111ac .................................................................................................................................................................................................... ...... ....121ac .................................................................................................................................................................................................... ...... ....131ac .................................................................................................................................................................................................... ...... ....14Topicality .................................................................................................................................................................................. .................15Inherency cost killing it now ...................................................................................................................................................................16Aerospace leadership declining ........................................................................................................................................................... ...17Aerospace SSP boosts aerospace dominance ..........................................................................................................................................18

Aerospace SSP boosts aerospace dominance ..........................................................................................................................................19Aerospace SSP boosts US competitiveness ............................................................................................................................................20Aerospace key to US heg .................................................................................................................................................................... ....21Aerospace key to Heg ................................................................................................................................................................... ...... ....22China US vulnerable now .......................................................................................................................................................................23China war coming ......................................................................................................................................................................... ...... ....24China space dominance solves ................................................................................................................................................................25China Aerospace prevents war ................................................................................................................................................................26China A2 only attack out of fear .............................................................................................................................................................27Solvency Procurement solves .................................................................................................................................................................28Solvency boosts civilian market .......................................................................................................................................................... ...29Solvency SSP will work ....................................................................................................................................................................... ...30Solvency A2 long time off ................................................................................................................................................................ ...31Solvency A2 cost too high ......................................................................................................................................................................32

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Explanation

I chose this aff because I think it is already going to be super popular given the quality of the evidence and the silliness of theadvantages. First here are the two acronyms you need to know with this aff.SSP = space-based solar powerSPS = solar powered satellites.

They both reference the same thing

The aff has the government offer to buy any solar powered satellite technology that gets invented. This creates an incentive for peopleto go ahead and work on the product since people will always build products if they know the purchase is guaranteed.

The technology is suppose to work like this. They believe they can put satellites into space that will work like solar power here onearth. Only because the atmosphere doesnt get in the way the technology is a ton more efficient and powerful. Then, the satellitesbeam the energy down to earth in the form of a microwave or radiowave type beam [awesome huh?]. This technology is underdevelopment and suppose to be the next great thing. Unfortunately, this technology has been coming for about 20 years now.

The first advantage is US hegemony. The claim is that the US is starting to fall behind in the aerospace OR space developmentindustry. The result is that other countries are beginning to challenge us with better outerspace and satellite technology. Developingthis technology will allow us to catch back up with those countries and maintain our aerospace dominance. The impact is that a world

in which the US is a good leader will prevent global nuclear wars from occurring.

Advantage two is similar but is more specific to China. The argument is that the US and China will inevitably go to war over energyneeds. Inventing solar powered satellites gives us something to work with china over in the coming decades. This is the only way toprevent us from having wars over energy. The aerospace dominance also means china is less likely to start a war with us in the futuresince they know wed just microwave them from outerspace.

If you are interested in talking about crazy technology and dont want to learn about the environment then this aff is for you.Regardless, this aff will be popular amongst the JV and Varsity divisions because it has big advantages.

Special thanks to David Heidt and the 7week juniors lab for doing the research for this particular aff.

-Herndon

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CONTENTION ONE Inherency

Space Solar power has fallen behind other renewable and isnt cost competitiveShiner 8, (Linda, Where the Sun Does Shine: Will space solar power ever be practical? http://www.airspacemag.com/space-

exploration/Sun_Does_Shine.html, Air & Space Magazine, July 01, 2008)

If the government put money into space solar power, would taxpayers get a return on their investment? Molly Macauley, an economistwith Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C. energy and environment think tank, has studied the ability of sunsats to competewith other renewable energy technologies. Its a hard case to make, she says. Advocates of space solar power fail to acknowledge thatechnological change and innovation are happening in other types of renewable energyground-based solar power, concentrated solarpower, wind, geothermal energy. The ability to compete on a cents-per-kilowatt-hour basis is going to get more difficult, not lessdifficult.

AND current technology lacks sufficient fundingNRC 1, (Committee for the Assessment of NASA's Space Solar Power Investment Strategy, Aeronautics and Space EngineeringBoard, National Research Council, Laying the Foundation for Space Solar Power:

An Assessment of NASA's Space Solar Power Investment Strategy National Academies Press 10-30-01)

The current SSP technology program4 is directed at technical areas that have important commercial, civil, and military applicationsfor the nation. A dedicated NASA team, operating with a minimal budget, has defined a potentially valuable programone that willrequire significantly higher funding levels and programmatic stability to attain the aggressive performance, mass, and cost goals thatare required for terrestrial baseload power generation. Nevertheless, significant breakthroughs will be required to achieve the finalgoal of cost-competitive terrestrial baseload power. The ultimate success of the terrestrial power application depends critically ondramatic reductions in the cost of transportation from Earth to GEO. Funding plans developed during SERT are reasonable, at leastduring the 5 years prior to the first flight demonstration in 2006 (see Table ES-1). The committee is concerned, however, that theinvestment strategy may be based on modeling efforts and individual cost, mass, and technology performance goals that may guidemanagement toward poor investment decisions. Modeling efforts should be strengthened and goals subjected to additional peer reviewbefore further investment decisions are made. Furthermore, SERT goals could be accomplished sooner and potentially at less costthrough an aggressive effort by the SERT program to capitalize on technology advances made by organizations outside NASA.

PLAN The United States federal government should adopt a domestic advance purchase

agreement for space solar power.

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http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Sun_Does_Shine.htmlhttp://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Sun_Does_Shine.htmlhttp://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Sun_Does_Shine.htmlhttp://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Sun_Does_Shine.html


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CONTENTION TWO - HARMS

ADVANTAGE ONE - Aerospace

The U.S. is gradually losing its space superiority other countries are gaining on the U.S. aerospace sector in space

despite increased U.S. military investmentsKaufman, 08 (Mark, US Finds Its Getting Crowded Out There:Dominance in Space Slips as Other Nations Step Up Efforts,Washington Post, 7/9, http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/challenges/competitors/2008/0709space.htm)

Although the United States remains dominant in most space-related fields -- and owns half the military satellites currently orbiting Earth -- experts say thenation's superiority is diminishing, and many other nations are expanding their civilian and commercial space capabilities at a farfaster pace. "We spent many tens of billions of dollars during the Apollo era to purchase a commanding lead in space over all nationson Earth," said NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin, who said his agency's budget is down by 20 percent in inflation-adjusted terms since 1992. "We've been living off the fruit of thatpurchase for 40 years and have not . . . chosen to invest at a level that would preserve that commanding lead."In a recent in-depth study of international space competitiveness, the technology consulting firm Futron of Bethesda found that the globalizing of space is unfolding more broadly and quickly than most Americans realize."Systemic and competitive forces threaten U.S. space leadership," company president Joseph Fuller Jr. concluded.

Six separate nations and the European Space Agency are now capable of sending sophisticated satellites and spacecraft into orbit -- and more are on the way. New rockets, satellites and spacecraftare being planned to carry Chinese, Russian, European and Indian astronauts to the moon, to turn Israel into a center for launchingminuscule "nanosatellites," and to allow Japan and the Europeans to explore the solar system and beyond with unmanned probes as sophisticated as NASA's.While the United States has been making incremental progress in space, its global rivals have been taking t he giant steps that once defined NASA: Following China's lead, India has announced ambitious plans for a manned space program, and in November theEuropean Union will probably approve a proposal to collaborate on a manned space effort with Russia. Russia will soon launch rockets from a base in South America under an agreement with the European company Arianespace, whose main launch facility is in KourouFrench Guiana. Japan and China both have satellites circling the moon, and India and Russia are also working on lunar orbiters. NASA will launch a lunar reconnaissance mission this year, but many analysts believe the Chinese will be the first to r eturn astronauts tothe moon. The United States is largely out of the business of launching satellites for other nations, something the Russians, Indians, Chinese and Arianespace do regularly. Their clients include Nigeria, Singapore, Brazil, Israel and others. The 17-nation European SpacAgency (ESA) and China are also cooperating on commercial ventures, including a rival to the U.S. space-based Global Positioning System. South Korea, Taiwan and Brazil have plans to quickly develop their space programs and possibly become low-cost satellitelaunchers. South Korea and Brazil are both developing homegrown rocket and satellite-making capacities.This explosion in international space capabilities is recent, largely taking place since the turn of the century. While the origins of Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Israeli and European space efforts go back several decades, their capability to pull off highly technical feats --sending humans into orbit, circling Mars and the moon with unmanned spacecraft, landing on an asteroid and visiting a comet -- are all new developments.A Different Space RaceIn contrast to the Cold War space race between the United States and the former Soviet Union, the global competition today is being driven by national pride, newly earned wealth, a growing cadre of highly educated men and women, and the confidence thatachievements in space will bring substantial soft power as well as military benefits. The planet-wide eagerness to join the space-faring club is palpable.China has sent men into space twice in the past five years and plans another manned mission in October. More than any other country besides the United States, experts say, China has decided that space exploration, and its commercial and military purposes, are asimportant as the seas once were to the Br itish empire and air power was to the United States.The Chinese space program began in the 1970s, but it was not until 2003 that astronaut Yang Liwei was blasted into space in a Shenzhou 5 spacecraft, making China one of only three nations to send men into space. "The Chinese have a carefully thought-out humanspaceflight program that will take them up to parity with the United States and Russia," Gr iffin said. "They're investing to make China a strategic world power second to none -- not so much to become a grand militar y power, but because deals and advantage flow toworld leaders."Meanwhile, other nations are pushing to increase their space budgets. Ministers from the European Space Agency nations will vote in November on a costly plan to begin a human space program. David Southwood, ESA's director for science, said human space travelhas broad support across the continent, and European astronauts who have flown to the space station on U.S. and Russian spacecraft are "extremely popular people" in their home nations. "It seems highly unlikely that Europe as a whole will opt out of putting humansinto space," he said.NASA and the U.S. space effort, meanwhile, have been in something of a slump. The space shuttle is still the most sophisticated space vehicle ever built, and orbiting observatories such as the Hubble space telescope and its in-development successor, the James Webbspace telescope, remain unmatched. But the combination of the 2003 Columbia disaster, the upcoming five-year "gap" when NASA will have no American spacecraft that can reach the space station, and the widely held belief that NASA lacks the funding to accomplishits goals, have together made the U.S. effort appear less than robust.The tone of a recent workshop of space experts brought together by the respected National Research Council was described in a subsequent report as "surprisingly sober, wit h frequent expressions of discouragement, disappointment, and apprehension about the future othe U.S. civil space program."Uncertainty over the fate of President Bush's ambitious "vision" of a manned moon-Mars mission, announced with great fanfare in 2004, is emblematic. The program was approved by Congress, but the administration's refusal to significantly increase spending to build new generation of spacecraft has slowed development while leading to angry complaints that NASA is cannibalizing promising unmanned science missions to pay for the moon-Mars effort.NASA's Griffin has told worried members of Congress that additional funds could move up the delivery date of the new-generation spacecraft from 2015 to 2013. The White House has re jected Senate efforts to provide the money. Although NASA's annual funding of

$17 billion is large by civilian space agency standards, it constitutes less than 0.6 percent of the federal budget and is believed to be less than half of the amount spent on national security space programs. According to the Futron report, a considerably higher percentageof U.S. space funding goes into military hardware and systems than in any other nation.At the same time, t he enthusiasm for space ventures voiced by Europeans and Asians contrasts with America's lukewarm public response to the moon-Mars mission. In its assessment, Futron listed the most significant U.S. space weakness as "limited public interest inspace activity."The cost of manned space exploration, which requires expensive measures to sustain and protect astronauts in the cold emptiness of space, is a particular target. "The manned space program served a purpose during the Apollo times, but it just doesn't anymore," saysRobert Parks, a University of Maryland physics professor who writes about NASA and space. The reason: "Human beings haven't changed much in 160,000 years," he said, "but robots get better by the day."Satellite Launches Fall

The study by Futron, which consults for public clients such as NASA and the Defense Department, as well as the private space industry, also reported that the United States is losing its dominancein orbital launches and satellites built. In 2007, 53 American-built satellites were launched -- about 50 percent of the total. In 1998, 121 new U.S. satellites wentinto orbit.

In two areas, the space prowess of the United States still dominates. Its private space industry earned 75 percent of the worldwidecorporate space revenue, and the U.S. military has as many satellites as all other nations combined.But that, too, is changing. Russia has increased its military space spending considerably since the collapse of the Soviet Union. InMay, Japan's parliament authorized the use of outer space for defense purposes, signaling increased spending on rockets and spysatellites. And China's military is building a wide range of capabilities in space, a commander of U.S. space forces said last month.Last year, China tested its ground-based anti-satellite technology by destroying an orbiting weather satellite -- a feat that left behind acloud of dangerous space debris and considerable ill will.

Ironically, efforts to deny space technology to potential enemies have hampered American cooperation with other nations and havelimited sales of U.S.-made hardware. Concerned about Chinese use of space technology for military purposes, Congress ramped up restrictions on rocket and satellite sales, and placed them under thecumbersome International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). In addition, sales o f potentially "dual use" technology have to be approved the State Department rather than the Commerce Department.The result has been a surge of rocket and satellite production abroad and the creation of foreign-made satellites that use only homegrown components to avoid complex U.S. restrictions under ITAR and the Iran

Nonproliferation Act. That law, passed in 2000, tightened a ban on direct or indirect sales of advanced technology to Iran (especially by Russia). As a result, a number of foreign governments arebuying European satellites and paying the Chinese, Indian and other space programs to launch them. "Some of these companies moved ahead in some areaswhere, I'm sorry to say, we are no longer the world leaders," Griffin said.

Joan Johnson-Freese, a space and national security expert at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, said the United States has been so determined to maintain military spacedominance that it is losing ground in commercial space uses and space exploration. "We're giving up our civilian space leadership,which many of us think will have huge strategic implications," she said.

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This loss of leadership is destroying the U.S. defense industrial base an investment in space solar power is

necessary to revitalize aerospace research and development, workforce, and infrastructure developmentNSSO, 7 (National Security Space Office, Report to the Director, Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security; Phase 0 ArchitectureFeasibility Study October 10, 2007, http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf)

FINDING: The SBSP Study Group found that SBSP directly addresses the concerns of the Presidential Aerospace Commission which called on the US to become a true spacefaring civilization and to pay closer attention to our aerospace technical and industrial base, ournational jewel which has enhanced our security, wealth, travel, and lifestyle.An SBSP program as outlined in this report is remarkably consonant with the findings of this commission, which stated:

The U nited States must maintain its preeminence in aerospace research and innovation to be the global aerospace leaderin the 21st century. This can only be achieved through proactive government policies and sustained public investments inlongterm research and RDT&E infrastructure that will result in new breakthrough aerospace capabilities . Over thelast several decades, the U.S. aerospace sector has been living off the research investments made primarily for defenseduring the Cold War Government policies and investments in longterm research have not kept pace with the changing world. Our nation doesnot have bold national aerospace technology goals to focus and sustain federal research and related infrastructure investments. The nation needs to

capitalize on these opportunities, and the federal government needs to lead the effort . Specifically, it needs to invest inlongterm enabling research and related RDT&E infrastructure, establish national aerospace technology demonstrationgoals, and create an environment that fosters innovation and provide the incentives necessary to encourage risk

taking and rapid introduction of new products and services .The Aerospace Commission recognized that Global U.S. aerospace leadership can only be achieved throughinvestments in our future, including our industrial base, workforce, long term research and national infrastructure, and thatgovernment must commit to increased and sustained investment and must facilitate private investment in our nationalaerospace sector .The Commission concluded that the nation will have to be a spacefaring nation in order to be the global leader in the 21stcenturythat our freedom, mobility, and quality of life will depend on it, and therefore, recommended that the UnitedStates boldly pioneer new frontiers in aerospace technology, commerce and exploration. They explicitlyrecommended hat the U nited States create a space imperative and that NASA and DoD need to make the investmentsnecessary for developing and supporting future launch capabilities to revitalize U.S. space launch infrastructure, as well as

provide Incentives to Commercial Space. The report called on government and the investment community must become more sensitive tocommercial opportunities and problems in space. Recognizing the new realities of a highly dynamic, competitive and global marketplace, the reportnoted that the federal government is dysfunctional when addressing 21st century issues from a long term, national and global perspective. Itsuggested an increase in public funding for long term research and supporting infrastructure and an acceleration of transition of government researchto the aerospace sector, recognizing that government must assist industry by providing insight into its longterm research programs, and industryneeds to provide to government on its research priorities. It urged the federal government must remove unnecessary barriers to international sales ofdefense products, and implement other initiatives that strengthen transnational partnerships to enhance national security, noting that U.S. nationalsecurity and procurement policies represent some of the most burdensome restrictions affecting U.S. industry competitiveness.

Privatepublic partnerships were also to be encouraged. It also noted thatwithout constant vigilance and investment, vital capabilitiesin our defense industrial base will be lost, and so recommended a fenced amount of research and development budget, and significantlyincrease in the investment in basic aerospace research to increase opportunities to gain experience in the workforce by enabling breakthroughaerospace capabilities through continuous development of new experimental systems with or without a requirement for production. Suchexperimentation was deemed to be essential to sustain the critical skills to conceive, develop, manufacture and maintain advanced systems and

potentially provide expanded capability to the warfighter. A top priority was increased investment in basic aerospace research which fostersan efficient, secure, and safe aerospace transportation system, and suggested the establishment of national technology demonstration goals, which

included reducing the cost and time to space by 50%. It concluded that, America must exploit and explore space to assure nationaland planetary security,economic benefit and scientific discovery. At the same time, the United States must overcomethe obstacles that jeopardize its ability to sustain leadership in space . An SBSP program would be apowerfulexpression of this imperative .

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Aerospace competiveness is the vital internal link to U.S. global hegemonyWalker et al, 02 - Chair of the Commission on the Futureof the United States Aerospace Industry Commissioners (Robert, FinalReport of the Commission on the Futureof the United States Aerospace Industry Commissioners, November,http://www.trade.gov/td/aerospace/aerospacecommission/AeroCommissionFinalReport.pdf)

Defending our nation against its enemies is the first and fundamental commitment of the federal govern-ment.2 This translates intotwo broad missionsDefend America and Project Powerwhen and where needed.In order to defend America and project power, the nation needs the ability to move manpower, materiel, intelligence information andprecision weaponry swiftly to any point around the globe, when needed. This has been, and will continue to be, a mainstay of our national security strategy.The events of September 11, 2001 dramatically demonstrated the extent of our national reliance on aerospace capabilities and related military contribu-tions to homeland security. Combat air patrols swept the skies;satellites supported real-time communica-tions for emergency responders, imagery for recov- ery, and intelligence on terrorist activities; and the security and protection of key government officials was enabled by timely airtransport.

As recent events in Afghanistan and Kosovo show, the power generated by our nations aerospace capa-bilities is anand perhaps theessential ingredient in force projection and expeditionary operations . In both places, at the outset of the crisis, satellites andreconnaissance aircraft, some unmanned, provided critical strategic and tactical intelligence to our national leadership. Space-borneintelligence, com-mand, control and communications assets permitted the rapid targeting of key enemy positions and facil-ities.Airlifters and tankers brought personnel, materiel, and aircraft to critical locations . And aerial bombardment, with precision weapons and cruise missiles, often aidedby the Global Positioning System (GPS) and the Predator unmanned vehicle, destroyed enemy forces. Aircraft carriers and their aircraft also played key roles in both conflicts.

Todays military aerospace capabilities are indeed robust, but at significant risk. They rely on platforms and an industrial base

measured in both human capital and physical facilitiesthat are aging and increasingly inadequate . Consider just a few of theissues: Much of our capability to defend America and project power depends on satellites . Assured reli-able access to space is a criticalenabler of this capa-bility. As recently as 1998, the key to near- and mid-term space access was the Evolved Expendable LaunchVehicle (EELV), a development project of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and the U. S. Air Force. EELV drew primarily on commercial demand to close the business case for two new launchers, with the U.S. governmentessentially buying launches at the margin. In this model, each company partner made significant investments of corporate funds in vehicle development and infrastructure, reducing the overall need for governmentinvestment.

Today, however, worldwide demand for commer-cial satellite launch has dropped essentially to nothingand is not expected to risefor a decade or morewhile the number of available launch platforms worldwide has proliferated . Today, therefore, the businesscase for EELV simply does not close, and reliance on the economics of a com-mercially-driven market is unsustainable . A newstrategy for assured access to space must be found. The U.S. needs unrestricted access to space for civil, commercial, and military applications . Our satellite systems will become increasingly important tomilitary operations as todays information revolution, the so-called revolution in military affairs, continues, while at the same time satellites will become increasingly vulnerable to attack as the century proceeds. Topreserve critical satellite net-works, the nation will almost certainly need the capability to launch replacement satellites quickly after

an attack. One of the key enablers for launch on demand is reusable space launch, and yet within the last year all work has been stopped on the X-33 and X-34 reusable launch programs The challenge for the defense industrial base is to have the capability to build the base force struc-ture, support contingency-relatedsurges, provide production capacity that can increase faster than any new emerging global threat can build up its capacity , and provide anappropriate return to shareholders. But the motivation of government and industry are different. This is a prime detrac-tion for wanting to form government-industry partnerships. Industry prioritizes investments towardnear-term, high-return, and high-dollar programs that make for a sound business case for them. Government, on the other hand, wants to prioritize investment to ensure a continuing capa-bility to meet any new threat to thenation. This need is cyclical and difficult for businesses to sus-tain during periods of government inactiv-ity. Based on the cyclic nature of demand, the increasing cost/complexity of new systems, and the slow pace ofdefense modernization, aerospace companies are losing market advantages and the sector is contracting. Twenty-two years ago, todays Big 5 in aerospace were 75 separate companies, as depicted by the historical chart oindustry con-solidation shown in Chapter 7. Tactical combat aircraft have been a key compo-nent of Americas air forces. Today, three tactical aircraft programs continue: the F/A-18E/F (in production), the F/A-22 (in a late stage of test and evaluation), and the F-35Joint Strike Fighter (just moving into system design and development). Because of the recentness of these programs, there are robust design teams in existence. But all of the initial design work on all three programs will bcompleted by 2008. If the nation were to con- clude, as it very well may, that a new manned tactical aircraft needs to be fielded in the middle of this century, where will we find the experienced design teams required todesign and build it, if the design process is in fact gapped for 20 years or more? More than half of the aerospace workforce is over the age of 404, and the average age of aerospace defense workers is over 50.5Inside the Department of Defense (DoD), a large percent of all scientists and engineers willbe retirement eligible by 2005. Given these demographics, there will be an exodus of corporate knowledge in the next decade that will be difficult and costly to rebuild once it is lost. There will be a critical need for newengineers, but little new work to mature their practical skill over the next several decades. Further, enrollment in aerospace engineering programs has dropped by 47 percent in the past nine years6, and the interest andnational skills in mathematics and science are down. Defense spending on cutting-edge work is at best stable, and commercial aircraft programs are struggling and laying workers off. As the DoDs recent Space Researchand Development (R&D) Industrial Base Study7 concluded, [s]ustaining a talented workforce of sufficient size and experience remains a long-term issue and is likely to get worse. In short, the nation needs a plan toattract, train and maintain a skilled, world-class aerospace workforce, but none currently exists. The current U.S. research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) infrastructure has a legacy dating back to either World War II or the expan- sion during the Space Age in the 1960s. It is now suffering significantlyfrom a lack of resources required for modernization. In some cases, our nations capabilities have atrophied and we have lost the lead, as with our outdated wind tunnels, where European facilities are now more modernand efficient. In the current climate, there is inadequate funding to modernize aging government infrastructure or build facilities that would support the development of new transformational capabilities, such as windtunnels needed to design and test new hypersonic vehicles. The aerospace indus-try must have access to appropriate, modern facilities to develop, test and evaluate new systems. Throughout this dynamic and challenging

environ-ment, one message remains clear: a healthy U.S. aerospace industry is more than a hedge against an uncertain future. It is one ofthe primary national instruments through which DoD will develop and obtain the superior technologies and capabilities essential tothe on-going transformation of the armed forces, thus maintaining our position as the worlds preeminent military power .

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http://www.trade.gov/td/aerospace/aerospacecommission/AeroCommissionFinalReport.pdfhttp://www.trade.gov/td/aerospace/aerospacecommission/AeroCommissionFinalReport.pdf


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Declining aerospace leadership directly facilitates the emergence of hostile global rivalsSnead, 07 - Aerospaceengineer and consultant focusing on Near-future space infrastructure development (Mike, How America Canand Why America Must Now Become a True Spacefaring Nation, Spacefaring America Blog, 6/3,http://spacefaringamerica.net/2007/06/03/6--why-the-next-president-should-start-america-on-the-path-to-becoming-a-true-

spacefaring-nation.aspx)

Great power status is achieved through competition between nations. This competition is often based on advancing science andtechnology and applying these advancements to enabling new operational capabilities. A great power that succeeds in thiscompetition adds to its power while a great power that does not compete or does so ineffectively or by choice, becomes comparativelyless powerful. Eventually, it loses the great power status and then must align itself with another great power for protection.As the pace of science and technology advancement has increased, so has the potential for the pace of change of great power status.While the U.S. "invented" powered flight in 1903, a decade later leadership in this area had shifted to Europe. Within a little morethan a decade after the Wright Brothers' first flights, the great powers of Europe were introducing aeronautics into major land warfarethrough the creation of air forces. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, it was forced to rely on French-built aircraft. Twenty yearslater, as the European great powers were on the verge of beginning another major European war, the U.S. found itself in a similarsituation where its choice to diminish national investment in aeronautics during the 1920's and 1930'syou may recall that this wasthe era of General Billy Mitchell and his famous efforts to promote military air powerplaced U.S. air forces at a significant

disadvantage compared to those of Germany and Japan. This was crucial because military air power was quickly emerging as the"game changer" for conventional warfare. Land and sea forces increasingly needed capable air forces to survive and generally neededair superiority to prevail.With the great power advantages of becoming spacefaring expected to be comparable to those derived from becoming air-faring in the1920's and 1930's, a delay by the U.S. in enhancing its great power strengths through expanded national space power may result in areoccurrence of the rapid emergence of new or the rapid growth of current great powers to the point that they are capable of effectivelychallenging the U.S.Many great powersChina, India, and Russiaare already speaking of plans for developing spacefaring capabilities. Yet, today, theU.S. retains a commanding aerospace technological lead over these nations. A strong effort by the U.S. to become a true spacefaringnation, starting in 2009 with the new presidential administration, may yield a generation or longer lead in space, not just throughprudent increases in military strength but also through the other areas of great power competition discussed above. This is anadvantage that the next presidential administration should exercise.

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US leadership solves all other impacts collapse of primacy results in great power warsThayer, 6 (Bradley A., Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, The National Interest,November -December, In Defense of Primacy, lexis)

A remarkable fact about international politics today--in a world where American primacy is clearly and unambiguously on display--is that countries want to align themselves with the United States. Of course, thisis not out of any sense of a ltruism, in most cases, but because doing so allows them to use the power of the United States for their own purposes--their own protection, or to gain greater influence. Of 192 countries, 84 are allied with America--their security is t ied to theUnited States through treaties and other informal arrangements--and they include almost all of the major economic and military powers. That is a ratio of almost 17 to one (85 to five), and a big change from the Cold War when the ratio was about 1.8 to one of states

aligned with the United States versus the Soviet Union. Never before in its history has this country, or any country, had so many allies. U.S. primacy--and the bandwagoning effect--has also given usextensive influence in international politics, allowing the United States to shape the behavior of states and international institutions. Such influence comes in many forms, one of which is America'sability to create coalitions of like-minded states to free Kosovo, stabilize Afghanistan, invade Iraq or t o stop proliferation through the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Do ing so allows the United States to operate withallies outside of the UN, where it can be stymied by opponents. American-led wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq stand in contrast to the UN's inability to save the people of Darfur or even to conduct any military campaign to realize the goals of it s charter. The quiet

effectiveness of the PSI in dismantling Libya's WMD programs and unraveling the A. Q. Khan proliferation network are in sharp relief to the typically toothless attempts by the UN to halt proliferation. You can count with one handcountries opposed to the United States. They are the "Gang of Five": China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela. Of course, countries like India, for example, do not agree with all policy choices made by the United States, suchas toward Iran, but New Delhi is friendly to Washington. Only the "Gang of Five" may be expected to consistently resist the agenda and actions of the United States. China is clearly the most important of these states because it is a ri sing great power. But even

Beijing is intimidated by the United States and refrains from openly challenging U.S. power. China proclaims that it will, if necessary, resort to other mechanisms of challenginthe United States, including asymmetric strategies such as targeting communication and intelligence satellites upon which the United States depends. But China may not be confident those strategies would work, and so it is likely to refrain from testing the United Statesdirectly for the foreseeable future because China's power benefits, as we shall see, from the international order U.S. primacy creates. The other states are far weaker than China. For three of the "Gang of Five" cases--Venezuela, Iran, Cuba--it is an anti-U.S. regime t hat ithe source of the problem; the country itself is not intrinsically anti-American. Indeed, a change of regime in Caracas, Tehran or Havana could very well reorient relations. THROUGHOUT HISTORY, peace and stability have been great benefits of an era where t here

was a dominant power--Rome, Britain or the United States today. Scholars and statesmen have long recognized the irenic effect of power on the anarchic world of international politics. Everything we think of when we considerthe current international order--free trade, a robust monetary regime, increasing respect for human rights, growing democratization--isdirectly linked to U.S. power. Retrenchment proponents seem to think t hat the current system can be maintained without the current amount of U.S. power behind it. In that they are dead wrong and need to be reminded of one of history'smost significant lessons: Appalling things happen when international orders collapse. The Dark Ages followed Rome's collapse. Hitler succeededthe order established at Versailles. Without U.S. power, the liberal order created by the United States will end just as assuredly. As country andwestern great Ral Donner sang: "You don't know what you've got (until you lose it)." Consequently, it is important to note what those good things are. In addition to ensuring the security of the United States and its allies, American primacy within the international

system causes many positive outcomes for Washington and the world. The first has been a more peaceful world. During the Cold War, U.S. leadership reduced friction among many states that werehistorical antagonists, most notably France and West Germany. Today, American primacy helps keep a number of complicated relationships aligned--between Greece andTurkey, Israel and Egypt, South Korea and Japan, India and Pakistan, Indonesia and Australia. This is not to say it fulfills Woodrow Wilson's vision of ending all war. Wars still occur where Washington's interests are not seriously threatened, such as in Darfur, but aPax Americana does reduce war's likelihood, particularly war's worst form: great power wars. Second, American power gives the UnitedStates the ability to spread democracy and other elements of its ideology of liberalism. Doing so is a source of much good for the countries concerned as well as the United Statesbecause, as John Owen noted on these pages in the Spring 2006 issue, liberal democracies are more likely to align with the United States and be sympathetic to the American worldview.3 So, spreading democracy helps maintain U.S. primacy. In addition, oncestates are governed democratically, the likelihood of any type of conflict is significantly reduced.This is not because democracies do not have clashing interests. Indeed thedo. Rather, it is because they are more open, more transparent and more likely to want to resolve things amicably in concurrence with U.S. leadership. And so, in general, democratic states are good for their c itizens as well as for advancing the interests of the UnitedStates. Critics have faulted the Bush Administration for attempting to spread democracy in the Middle East, labeling such an effort a modern form of tilting at w indmills. It is the obligation of Bush's critics to explain why democracy is good enough for Western states bunot for the rest, and, one gathers from the argument, should not even be attempted. Of course, whether democracy in the Middle East will have a peaceful or stabilizing influence on America's interests in the short run is open to question. Perhaps democratic Arab stateswould be more opposed to Israel, but nonetheless, their people would be better off. The United States has brought democracy to Afghanistan, where 8.5 million Afghans, 40 percent of them women, voted in a critical October 2004 election, even though remnant Talibanforces threatened them. The first free elections were held in Iraq in January 2005. It was the military power of the United States that put Iraq on the path to democracy. Washington fostered democratic governments in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Caucasus. Noweven the Middle East is increasingly democratic. They may not yet look like Western-style democracies, but democratic progress has been made in Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. By all accounts, the march of democracy

has been impressive. Third, along with the growth in the number of democratic states around the world has been the growth of the global economy. With its allies, the United States has labored to create aneconomically liberal worldwide networkcharacterized by free trade and commerce, respect for international property rights, and mobility of capital and labor markets. The economic stability andprosperity that stems from this economic order is a global public good from which all states benefit, particularly the poorest states inthe Third World. The United States created this network not out of altruism but for the benefit and the economic well-being of America. This economic order forces American industries to be competitive, maximizes efficiencies and growth, and benefitsdefense as well because the size of the economy makes the defense burden manageable. Economic spin-offs foster the development of military technology, helping to ensure military prowess. Perhaps the greatest testament to the benefits of the economic network comesfrom Deepak Lal, a former Indian foreign service diplomat and researcher at the World Bank, who started his career confident in the socialist ideology of post-independence India. Abandoning the positions of his youth, Lal now recognizes that the only way to bringrelief to desperately poor countries of the Third World is through the adoption of free market economic policies and globalization, which are facilitated through American primacy.4 As a witness to the failed alternative economic systems, Lal is one of the strongest

academic proponents of American primacy due to the economic prosperity it provides. Fourth and finally,the United States, in seeking primacy, has been willing to use its powernot only to advance its interests but topromote the welfare of people all over the globe. The United States is the earth's leading source of positive externalities for the world. The U.S. military has parti cipated in over fifty operations since the end of the ColdWar--and most of those missions have been humanitarian in nature. Indeed, the U.S. military is the earth's "911 force"--it serves, de facto, as the world's police, the global paramedic and the planet's fire department. Wheneverthere is a natural disaster, earthquake, flood, drought, volcanic eruption, typhoon or tsunami, the United States assists the countries in need. O n the day after Christmas in 2004, a tremendous earthquake and tsunami occurred in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra, killi ngsome 300,000 people. The United States was the first to respond with aid. Washington followed up with a large contribution of aid and deployed the U.S. military to South and Southeast Asia for many months to help with the aftermath of the disaster. About 20,000 U.Ssoldiers, sailors, airmen and marines responded by providing water, food, medical aid, disease treatment and prevention as well as forensic assistance to help identify the bodies of those killed. Only the U.S. military could have accomplished this Herculean effort. No

other force possesses the communications capabilities or global logistical reach of the U.S. military. In fact, UN peacekeeping operations depend on the United States to supply UN forces. American generosity has done more tohelp the United States fight the War on Terror than almost any other measure. Before the tsunami, 80 percent of Indonesian public opinion was opposed to the United States; after it, 80 percenhad a favorable opinion of America. Two years after the disaster, and in poll after poll, Indonesians still have overwhelmingly positive views of the United States. In October 2005, an enormous earthquake struck Kashmir, killing about 74,000 people and leaving threemillion homeless. The U.S. military responded immediately, diverting helicopters fighting the War on Terror in nearby Afghanistan to bring relief as soon as possible. To help those in need, the United States also provided financial aid to Pakistan; and, as one mightexpect from those witnessing the munificence of the United States, it left a lasting impression about America. For the first time since 9/11, polls of Pakistani opinion have found that more people are favorable toward the United States than unfavorable, while support forAl-Qaeda dropped to its lowest level. Whether in Indonesia or Kashmir, the money was well-spent because it helped people in the wake of disasters, but it also had a real impact on the War on Terror. When people in the Muslim world witness the U.S. military

conducting a humanitarian mission, there is a clearly positive impact on Muslim opinion of the United States. As the War on Terror is a war of ideas and opinion as much as military action,for the United States humanitarian missions are the equivalent of a blitzkrieg.THERE IS no other state, group of states or internationalorganization that can provide these global benefits. None even comes close. The United Nations cannot because it is riven with conflicts and major cleavages that divide the international bodytime and again on matters great and tri vial. Thus it lacks the ability to speak with one voice on salient issues and to act as a unified force once a decision is reached. The EU has similar problems. Does anyone expect Russia or China to take up these responsibilities?They may have the desire, but they do not have the capabilities. Let's face it: for the ti me being, American primacy remains humanity's only practical hope of solving the world's ills.

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ADVANTAGE TWO China

The Chinese are beginning to threaten US space power dominance now this risks a war

Griffin and Lin, 8 - Research Assistant, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University(Christopher Griffin and Joseph Lin, Armed Forces Journal, Chinas Space Ambitions April 8, 2008, http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.27772/pub_detail.asp)

The impetus behind China's drive toward developing military space capabilities lies within the Chinese military's view of futurewarfare, with the U.S. as its most likely adversary. The Chinese military, known as the People's Liberation Army (PLA), has beenobsessed with information-age warfare ever since the U.S. leveraged its space-based C4ISR systems to eradicate Saddam Hussein'smilitary during the 1990-1991 Gulf War. One Chinese military commentator noted with awe afterward: "The United States deployedthree defense communications satellites, established 128 defense satellite communications terminals and built an ultra-high frequencynetwork before the assembling of allied troops."Indeed, the American advantage in the area of military satellites presents the Chinese government with what it recognizes as anasymmetric disadvantage. The U.S. is so dominant in this sphere of military competition that it seems impossible to win a head-to-head competition. Faced with this dilemma, the People's Liberation Army has developed a two-pronged response that invests in bothits own space assets and in anti-satellite capabilities with which to disrupt American space dominance.Even if the PLA believes it cannot compete directly with American space power, the necessity to invest in space assets is by no means

wasted in Beijing. The Chinese military is developing aerospace networks in pursuit of the technological advantages that the U.S. hascome to expect during wartime. A 2004 article printed in the People's Liberation Army Daily stated: "Information dominance cannotbe separated from space dominance. We can say that seizing space dominance is the root for winning the informationalized war."Indeed, the U.S. Defense Department reports that China plans to launch some 17 satellites in 2008 in an ambitious bid to have a fullyindigenous satellite fleet by 2010.But even as China deepens its own reliance on space-based assets in support of military operations, policymakers in Beijing arefixated on the deficit they face in a conflict with the U.S. and the concomitant requirement to challenge American space power. OnePLA analyst recently argued that in modern wars, "seizing space dominance has already become a vital part of seizing informationdominance, from which one can then retain the active position in the war." In a less-subtle argument for the use of offensivecapabilities in space, another PLA officer recently proclaimed that China requires ASAT capabilities for "destroying, damaging andinterfering with the enemy's observation and communications satellites."

AND china has the technology to devastate us nowFrance and Adams, 5 (E.B. France and Richard J, The Chinese Threat to U.S. Superiority, High Frontier Journal, Volume 1, No. 3,Winter 2005, page 19, http://www.spacedebate.org/argument/1141 )

Technology accessible to China today enables attack by ground-segment interdiction, computer network disruption, communicationsjamming, laser blinding, direct ascent ASAT interceptors, space mines, debris rings, and high-altitude nuclear bursts. Interdictingground stations may be the easiest way to disable space systems. Due to their concentration within US and Allied borders, such attackswould likely be highly escalatory. Computer network attack, communication jamming, and laser blinding have the advantage of beingbloodless and potentially deniable, but can be susceptible to countermeasures. Options such as ground-launched missiles, co-orbitalmines, fragmentation rings, and high-altitude nuclear bursts (supercharging the Earth's Van Allen radiation belts) offer the advantageof a hard-kill, but are non-discriminatory. China's satellites, as well as those belonging to third parties, would likely be damaged ordestroyed by residual debris and radiation. While the above-listed methods provide China a number of technologically-available near-term options, further advances may give them the additional benefits of increased range and precision.

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Chinese attack on US satellites leads to massive US nuclear retaliation

Forden, 8An M.I.T. research associate and a former UN weapons inspector and strategic weapons analyst

Congressional Budget Office(Geoffrey, PhD, How China Loses the Coming Space War, 1-10-08, http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/01/inside-the-chin.html#more)

The United States has five satellites in geostationary orbit that detect missile launches using the heat released from their exhaustplumes. These satellites are primarily used to alert US nuclear forces to massive nuclear attacks on the homeland. However, in recentyears, they have played an increasing role in conventional conflicts, such as both Gulf Wars, by cueing tactical missile defenses likethe Patriot missile defense systems that gained fame in their engagements with Saddams SCUD missiles. Because of this new use,China might find it useful to attack them with ASATs. Since there are only five of them, China could destroy the entire constellationbut at the cost of diverting some of the few available deep-space ASATs from other targets. Of course, China would not have to attackall five but could limit its attack to the three that simultaneously view the Taiwan Straits area. If China did decide to destroy theseearly warning satellites, it would greatly reduce the area covered by US missile defenses in Taiwan against SCUD and longer rangemissiles. This is because the area covered by a theater missile defense system is highly dependent on the warning time it has; thegreater the warning time, the more effective the missile defense systems radar is. Thus a Patriot battery, which might ordinarily coverthe capital of Taiwan, could be reduced to just defending the military base it was stationed at. Some analysts believe that China wouldgain a tremendous propaganda coup by having a single missile make it through US defenses and thus might consider this use of itsdeep-space ASATs highly worthwhile even if it could not increase the probability of destroying military targets. On the other hand,China would run a tremendous risk of the US believing it was under a more general nuclear attack if China did destroy these earlywarning satellites. Throughout the history of the Cold War, the US has had a policy of only launching a retaliatory nuclear strike ifan incoming attack is detected by both early warning satellites and radars. Without the space leg of the early warning system, the oddsof the US misinterpreting some missile launch that it detected with radar as a nuclear attack would be greatly increased even if the USdid not view the satellite destruction as a sufficiently threatening attack all by themselves. Such a misinterpretation is not withoutprecedent. In 1995, Russias early warning radars viewed a NASA sounding rocket launch off the coast of Norway and flagged it as apossible Trident missile launch. Many analysts believe that Russia was able to not respond only because it had a constellation offunctioning early warning satellites. Any Chinese attacks on US early warning satellites would risk both intentional and mistakenescalation of the conflict into a nuclear war without a clear military goal.

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U.S. solar satellite power is vital to meeting Chinese energy demand and preventing a war and economic collapseDinnerman, 07 (Taylor, China, the US, and space solar power, 10/22, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/985/1 )

Now that the National Security Space Offices (NSSO) space solar power study has been released and shows that the technology is

well within Americas grasp, a set of decisions have to be made concerning how the US government should proceed. The idea that thegovernment should fund a series of demonstration projects, as the study recommends, is a good place to start. Another aspect shouldbe to study the impact that this technology will have on the political and economic future of the world.The biggest factor in world affairs in the next twenty or so years is the rise of China to true great power status. Leaving aside thepolitical vulnerabilities inherent in any communist regime, the greatest danger to Chinas future prosperity is its huge need for energy,especially electricity. According to an International Energy Agency estimate, demand for electricity in China will grow at an averageannual rate of 4.8% from 2003 and 2025.China is already experiencing shortages. The Yangtze Delta region, which includes Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhijiang and contributes almost 20% of Chinas GDP, faced capacityshortages of four to five gigawatts during peak summer demand in 2003. In spite of a furious effort to develop new power sources, including dam building and new coal-fired power plants, Chinas economic growth isoutstripping its capacity to generate the terawatts needed to keep it going.

While China may turn to widespread use of nuclear power plants, the Communist Party leadership is certainly aware of the role thatglasnost and the Chernobyl disaster played in the downfall of another Communist superpower. Thus, China may be reluctant to relyheavily on nuclear power plants, at least not without strong safety measures, thus making them more expensive and more timeconsuming to build. Wind power and terrestrial solar power will not be able to contribute much to meeting Chinas demand and

certainly not without government subsidies which a relatively poor nation such as China will be reluctant to provide.At some point within the next twenty or thirty years China will face an energy crisis for which it will be almost certainly unprepared.The crisis may come sooner if, due to a combination of internal and external pressures, the Chinese are forced to limit the use of coaland similar fuels. At that point their economic growth would stall and they would face a massive recession.Only a new source of electrical energy will insure that such a nightmare never happens. The global repercussions would be disastrous.In the near term the only new source of electric power that can hope to generate enough clean energy to satisfy Chinas mid- to long-term needs is space based solar power. The capital costs for such systems are gigantic, but when compared with both future power demands and considering the less-than-peaceful alternativescenarios, space solar power looks like a bargain.

For the US this means that in the future, say around 2025, the ability of private US or multinational firms to offer China a reliable supply of beamedelectricity at a competitive price would allow China to continue its economic growth and emergence as part of a peaceful world powerstructure. China would have to build the receiver antennas (rectennas) and connect them to its national grid, but this would be fairly easy for them, especially when compared to what a similar project would take in theUS or Europe when the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) factor adds to the time and expense of almost any new project.Experiments have demonstrated, at least on a small scale, that such receivers are safe and that cows and crops can coexist with them. However, there are persistent doubts and it would be wise to plan for a world in whichrectenna placement on land will be as politically hard as putting up a new wind farm or even a nuclear power plant.

China, like its neighbors Japan and Korea, has a land shortage problem. This may seem odd when one looks at a map, but the highly

productive industrial regions of China are confined to a limited coastal area. These areas also overlap with some of the nations mostfertile agricultural lands. Conflicts caused by hard choices between land use for factories and housing and for food production are nowcommon.Building the rectennas at sea would help alleviate some of these disputes. China and its neighbors could compete to see who could build the most robust and cost-effective sea-based rectennas. They would also be able toexport these large systems: a system that can survive the t yphoons in the South China Sea can also handle the monsoons of the Bay of Bengal or the hu rricanes of the Caribbean.In spite of the major advances that China has made in developing its own space technology, it will be many years before the y can realistically contemplate building the off-Earth elements of a solar power satellite, let alone alunar-based system. Even if NASA administrator Mike Griffin is right and they do manage to land on the Moon before the US gets back there in 2020, building a permanent base and a solar panel manufacturing facility upthere is beyond what can reasonably be anticipated.If the US were to invest in space-based solar power it would not be alone. The Japanese have spent considerable sums over the years on this technology and other nations will seek the same advantages described in the NSSOstudy. Americas space policy makers should, at this stage, not be looking for international partners, but instead should opt for a high level of international transparency. Information about planned demonstration projects,particularly ones on the ISS, should be public and easily accessible. Experts and leaders from NASA and from the Energy and Commerce departments should brief all of the major spacefaring nations, including China.Our worlds civilization is going to need all the energy it can get, especially in about fifty years when China, India, and other rising powers find their popu lations demanding lifestyles comparable to those they now see theWest enjoying. Clean solar power from space is the most p romising of large-scale alternatives. Other sources such as nuclear, wind, or terrestrial solar will be useful, but they are limited by both physics and politics. Only

space solar power can be delivered in amounts large enough to satisfy the needs of these nations. As a matter of US national security it is imperative that this country be ableto fulfill that worldwide demand. Avoiding a large-scale future war over energy is in everyones interest.

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CONTENTION THREE solvency

DOD purchasing is the number one incentive for SSP developmentNSSO, 7 (National Security Space Office, Report to the Director, Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security

Phase 0 Architecture Feasibility Study October 10, 2007, http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf)

FINDING: The SBSP Study Group found that industry has stated that the #1 driver and requirement for generatingindustry interest and investment in developing the initial operational SBSP systems is acquiring an anchor tenantcustomer, or customers, that are willing to sign contracts for highvalue SBSP services . Industry is particularlyinterested in the possibility that the DoD might be willing to pay for SBSP services delivered to the warfighter in forward basesin amounts of 550 MWe continuous, at a price of $1 or more per kilowatthour.oRecommendation: The SBSP Study Group recommends that the DoD should immediately conduct a requirements analysis of underlyinglongterm DoD demand for secure, reliable, and mobile energy delivery to the warfighter, what the DoD might be willing to pay for a SBSP service

delivered to the warfighter and under what terms and conditions, and evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of various approaches to signing

up as an anchor tenant customer of a commercially delivered service, such as the NextView acquisition approach pioneered by the National

GeoSpatialimaging Agency.

FINDING: The SBSP Study Group found that even with the DoD as an anchor tenant customer at a price of $12 per kilowatt hour for 550megawatts continuous power for the warfighter, when considering the risks of implementing a new unproven space technology and other major

business risks, the business case for SBSP still does not appear to close in 2007 with current capabilities (primarily launch costs).This study did not have the resources to adequately assess the economic viability of SBSP given current or projected capabilities, and this must be partof any future agenda to further develop this concept. Past investigations of the SBSP concept have indicated that the costs are dominated by costs ofinstallation, which depend on the cost of launch (dollars per kilogram) and assembly and on how light the components can be made (kilograms perkilowatt). Existing launch infrastructure cannot close the business case, and any assessment made based upon new launch vehicles and formats arespeculative. Greater clarity and resolution is required to set proper targets for technology development and private capital engagement. Ideally SBSPwould want to be costcompetitive with other baseload suppliers in developing markets which cannot afford to spend a huge portion of their GDP onenergy (4c/kWh), and these requirements are extremely stringent, but other niche export markets may provide more relaxed criteria (35c/kWh), andsome customers, such as DoD, appear to be spending more than $1/kWh in forward deployed locations. It would be helpful to develop a series ofcurves which examine technology targets for various markets, in addition to the sensitivities and opportunities for development. Some work by theEuropean Space Agency (ESA) has suggested that in an applestoapples comparison, SBSP may already be competitive with largescaleterrestrial solar baseload power.A great range of opinions were expressed during the study regarding the nearterm profitability. It is instructive to note that that there are Americancompanies that have or are actively marketed SBSP at home and abroad, while another group feels the technology is sufficiently mature to create adedicated publicprivate partnership based upon the COMSAT model and has authored draft legislation to that effect. The business case is much more likely to close in the near future if the U.S. Government agrees to:

o Sign up as an anchor tenant customer, ando Make appropriate technology investment and riskreduction efforts by the U.S. Government, ando Provide appropriate financial incentives to the SBSP industry that are similar to the significant incentives that Federal and State Governments are

providing for private industry investments in other clean and renewable power sources. The business case may close in the near future with appropriate technology investment and riskreduction efforts by the U.S. Government, and withappropriate financial incentives to industry. Federal and State Governments are providing significant financial incentives for private industryinvestments in other clean and renewable power sources.

oRecommendation: The SBSP Study Group recommends thatin order to reduce risk and to promote development ofSBSP, the U.S. Government should increase and accelerate its investments in the development and demonstration of key

component, subsystem, and system level technologies that will be required for the creation of operational and

scalable SBSP systems.

Finding: The SBSP Study Group found that a small amount of entry capital by the US Government is likely to catalyzesubstantially more investment by the private sector.

This opinion was expressed many times over from energy and aerospace companies alike. Indeed, there is anecdotal evidence that even theactivity of this interim study has already provoked significant activity by at least three major aerospace companies.

Should the United States put some dollars in for a study or demonstration, it is likely to catalyze significant amounts ofinternal research and development. Study leaders likewise heard that the DoD could have a catalytic role by sponsoring prizes or signaling its willingness to become the anchor customer for the product .

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Its not enough to just boost aerospace leadership - SSP is the vital internal link between aerospace technological

innovation and tangible benefits to the military that allow battlefield dominanceRamos 2k US Air Force Major, Thesis submitted for the AIR COMMAND AND STAFF COLL MAXWELL Air Force Base (Kim,Solar Power Constellations: Implications for the United States Air Force, April,http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA394928)

Solar power satellites may affect terrestrial Air Force operations. One terrestrial application for solar power satellites, or thetechnologies associated with them, involves unmanned aerial vehicles. Unmanned aerial vehicles are used during contingencies tosupplement satellite and piloted (manned) aerial reconnaissance coverage. The unmanned aerial vehicle may be powered by awireless power transmission, which would increase its endurance. In another area, one of the core competencies of the Air Force isagile combat support, which involves reducing the footprint of deployed forces. The use of solar power satellites to supply the power at deployed locations would reducethe logistics tail by eliminating generators and the support equipment and supplies associated with them. The third area concerns public law. Public law requires the Department of Defense to develop and encouragealternative sources of energy for installations. As an alternative to electricity generated from fossil fuels, solar power satellites fit the bill admirably. Terrestrially, solar power satellites or the technology associated with themenable long duration unmanned aerial vehicles, which receive power through wireless power transmissions, allow for logistical improvements, and assist the Air Force in complying with public law.Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Unmanned aerial vehicles help achieve information superiority. Both joint and Air Force service visions define informationsuperiority as vital. Joint Vision 2010 calls information superiority a technological innovation to enable dominant maneuver, precisionengagement, focused logistics, and full-dimensional protection. It defines information superiority as the capability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow ofinformation while exploiting or denying an adversarys ability to do the same.3

Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force expresses the Air Forces vision for the future and defines its core competencies. One of the Air Force Core Competencies it

describes is information superiority. It goes on to endorse the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to explore their potential uses over a full range of combat missions 4 to achieve informationsuperiority.Supported by the highest levels of the Department of Defense, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to achieve information superiority in regional conflicts isincreasing. High altitude and long endurance vehicles are in development for monitoring the atmosphere, environmental impactstudies, and more important to the Air Force, for communications relays, surveillance, and missile defense .5 Other military uses for such vehicles arereconnaissance, targeting, target designation, and battle damage assessment.6

One of the requirements for these vehicles is that they must have long endurance,7 which currently is not possible . Using a microwave beam forpowered flight and to power on-board instrumentation increases the endurance of the vehicle. Theoretically, by powering the craft with a beam it would possess unlimitedendurance.8 The power transmitted to the unmanned vehicle could come from a solar power satellite in space or from a ground station. These vehicles would be part of a war fighting commander-in-chiefs arsenal.Unmanned aerial vehicles with various detection modules would serve as near earth satellites for regional coverage of events. This isespecially important in areas where satellites are not available for coverage, the revisit time of a satellite is too long, or due to limitedassets, sharing of satellite time takes place.LogisticsIn addition to information superiority, one of the emerging operational concepts expressed in Joint Vision 2010 is focused logistics.Focused logistics will be the fusion of information, logistics, and transportation technologies to provide rapid crises response, to track and shift assets even while enroute, and to deliver tailored logistics packages andsustainment directly at the strategic, and tactical level of operations.9

It goes on to say, that focused logistics will accomplish lightened deployment loads and a smaller logistics footprint.10In addition toJoint Vision 2010, Air Force doctrine also describes logistics as an importantpart of agile combat support, one of its corecompetencies. One of the objectives of agile combat support is to reduce the overall footprint of forward-deployed supportelements.11 Power relay satellites, a stepping stone to full solar power satellites, could supply power to deployed locations and bepart of focused logistics and agile combat support. Part of the deployment planning process would be identifying the nearest power relay satellite, the coordinates for the reflecting dish, andthe amount of power required by the site. The next step, after demonstrating sites powered by a relay satellite, would be employing solar power satellites instead of relaying electricity across the globe.

Using power beamed from a relay station or a solar power satellite could eliminate the power generating part of a deployment andreduce airlift. Incorporating the rectenna or the receiving part of the beam into camouflage netting or into tent tarps creates no additional infrastructure. For example, a typical joint task force communications unitfor a bare base deployment requires the generators in Table 1 to supply power for the communications equipment and site. According to the Computer Aided Load Manifest software, used by logistics planners, to bring thegenerators into theater requires one C-17 or two C-141s.A Kenney Battlelab initiative on replacing aerospace ground equipment recommended alternative sources of power for airfield operations. In the report, it states power producing equipment is repeatedly singled-out throughafter action reports as the number one airlift intensive requirement for Air Expeditionary Force deployment.12 The report recommends adopting fuel cell technology to solve the problem, however, solar power satellitesor power relay satellites are also viable options.

In addition to reducing airlift, using power from a satellite would reduce the fuel required for generators, minimize hazardousemissions and waste, reduce heat signatures, and eliminate a plethora of support equipment, war readiness spares kits, tools, andspillage clean up kits.13

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Military procurement jumpstarts the civilian market for SPSThe Space Review 7, (Taylor Dinerman, Solar power satellites and space radarhttp://integrator.hanscom.af.mil/2007/July/07262007/07262007-16.htm, July 16, 2007) // CCH

The first steps in such a program would be to begin work on an experiment to prove that power transmission in space via laser ispossible. Already lasers are being used for communications in civil and military applications; taking this one step beyond to encompass power should be within thestate of the art. At the same time the US Defense Department and NASA could begin joint work on a new generation of high-capacity power systems for futurespacecraft. The power management and thermal control needs of a spacecraft that will carry a human crew to Mars may not be all that different from those of an SPS oran SR satellite.The bulk of the development work on the radars themselves can be left until later in the program. Meanwhile, the US could profitably study less ambitious space radar

programs such as Canadas Radarsat. Launching one or two modest technology development satellites over the next five or ten years would be a helpful way to set thestage for a new SR program. In the long term, say, by around 2010, the GMTI radar could be replaced and supplemented by an Air Moving Target Indicator (AMTI),which would need even more power.Instead of using a single large antenna or multiple smaller ones on the same spacecraft, a future stealthy SR could use radars on multiple satellites. Formation flying isnow commonplace and coordinating multiple beams from two or three satellites in different orbits should not be that hard. The biggest problem will be to prove toCongress that the technology is ready for prime time.Almost all of Americas major military space programs are too far along to effectively incorporate the lessons of Chinas ASAT test. SR, due to repeated budget cuts, isthe great exception. Other satellite programs that could be modified to incorporate the needs of the new space warfare requirements include the T-SAT TransformationalCommunications project and the possibly the NROs problem-plagued Future Imagery Architecture (FIA).

The stealthiness and robustness of all these programs, or their successors, would benefit from being able to draw electricity from a set

of SPSs in GEO. The solar power satellites themselves would not necessarily have to be owned by the US government. They could bebuilt privately based on a contract that promises that the Defense Department would buy a given amount of power at a predeterminedprice. This would be similar to the power by the hour contracts that are sometimes signed with jet engine manufacturers or the privately-financed initiative that theBritish RAF has established with a consortium for a new squadron of Airbus refueling tanker aircraft.

In GEO an SPS is a large and conspicuous target. A realistic new space architecture would have to find ways to give both active and passiveprotection to such valuable assets. At the same time, these measures must not detract from the commercial profitability of the operation . The Civil ReserveAir Fleet system is a possible model; airlines buy some planes that are modified for possible military use in an emergency and thegovernment compensates them for the extra weight they carry while in normal commercial use.Space solar power is, in the long run, inevitable. The Earths economy is going to need so much extra power over the next few decadesthat every new system that can be shown to be viable will be developed. If the US were to develop space solar power for militaryapplications it would give the US civilian industry a big head start. As long as the military requirements are legitimate, there is noreason why this cannot be made into a win-win outcome.

Military procurement reduces financial risk to the commerical industryNSSO, 7 (National Security Space Office, Report to the Director, Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security; Phase 0 ArchitectureFeasibility Study October 10, 2007, http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf)

Incentives would help. These could include loan guarantees, availability of balloon loans (whereinterest payments are deferred until the SBSP system is operational), transferable tax credits,subsidies similar to those already in existence for other alternative energy sources, energypre purchase agreements,and/or tax holidays on the sale of the power.The commercial sector needs to see profit potential within a reasonable time frame.Electric utilities understand the need for large amounts of capital for infrastructure development.This can be acceptable as long as the payback is large and for an extended period. The paybackperiod and rate of returns must be attractive after the amortization of the infrastructure costs.Public/private partnerships are a possibility but may not be needed. As strictly commercial SBSP

corporations develop the confidence in the technologies and in the business case, they would prefer to proceed without government intervention orpartnership. Having the government as aguaranteed customer for the power would reduce the risk for a commercial SBSP enterprise andcould help with the availability and terms of financings .

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