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A Look At The Wolf Amendment 15 Years Later
Shenzhou-22 launch
A Long March 2F lifts off late November 24 (US time) carrying an uncrewed Shenzhou-22 spacecraft to the Tiangong space station. (credit: Xinhua)
Revisiting the Wolf Amendment after 15 years
by Jeff Foust
Monday, November 24, 2025
China has been going through what is arguably the biggest crisis in the history of its human spaceflight program in the last few weeks. In early November, the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) called off the planned return of three astronauts on the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft after reporting that inspections showed evidence of micrometeoroid or orbital debris strike on the spacecraft, which had been at the Tiangong space station since late April. The crew returned November 14—but on the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft that had just delivered a new three-person crew to the station at the end of October. Those astronauts remained on Tiangong with the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, which CMSEO said suffered damage to a window.
“In the current situation, identification of areas of agreement and joint initiatives would likely prove useful as lubricants,” Hart said of US-China relations.
The situation prompted online calls for SpaceX to “rescue” the Chinese astronauts with a Dragon spacecraft. There are several reasons why that was unlikely, not the least of which is that Shenzhou and Dragon use different docking mechanisms. Any attempt to develop a technical solution would create technology transfer concerns and require government-to-government coordination, likely between CMSEO and NASA.
And that brings up another obstacle: the Wolf Amendment. The provision, first placed into appropriations bills 15 years ago by then-Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), who chaired the appropriations subcommittee that funded NASA, strictly limits bilateral cooperation between NASA and Chinese organizations. While not an explicit ban, it has had the effect of chilling nearly all potential cooperation between NASA and China.
Modifying, or eliminating, the Wolf Amendment has come up from time to time since then. That includes a recent event at the George Washington University Space Policy Institute that debated the future of the Wolf Amendment, building upon a paper on the topic by The Aerospace Corporation earlier this year. The question for the debate: “Should the Wolf Amendment be repealed?”
Taking the stance that it should be repealed was Dan Hart, a member of the National Academies’ Space Studies Board and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, as well as a longtime space industry executive best known as CEO of now-defunct launch company Virgin Orbit.
He argued that it made little sense for the United States to avoid cooperation with China in space when two countries interact significantly with each other on Earth. “We’re not in isolation here on Earth,” he said.
Space cooperation, he suggested, could be a way for the two countries to pull back from an increasingly acrimonious relationship. “In the current situation, identification of areas of agreement and joint initiatives would likely prove useful as lubricants,” he said, drawing parallels to cooperation between the United States and Soviet Union in space during the Cold War.
The Wolf Amendment “diminishes our ability to leverage NASA and its core space exploration diplomatic mission at a time when we’re navigating a fraught relationship with NASA,” he said. “It potentially deteriorates US prestige and admiration we’ve earned as the global leader of space exploration.”
One example of potential cooperation was the issue with the Shenzhou spacecraft, which he described as “low-hanging fruit” to implement international agreements on the rescue and return of astronauts. “Would it not be a huge humanitarian gesture and a diplomatic gesture” to offer to help China with that problem, Hart said.
NASA has the ability to protect its technology from unauthorized transfer to China as part of any cooperation, he asserted, more so than American companies that do business in China, from Apple to Tesla. “We should probably be more worried about how these other companies that are driving the front of technology are protected.”
“Apollo-Soyuz did not bring about détente,” said Cheng. “Apollo-Soyuz was a product of détente.”
Taking the case that the Wolf Amendment should not be repealed was Dean Cheng, a nonresident senior fellow at the Potomac Institute and formerly a senior research fellow on China at the Heritage Foundation.
He argued that space’s ability to influence foreign policy is overstated, with cooperation a lagging rather than a leading indicator. That was the case during the Cold War: “Apollo-Soyuz did not bring about détente. Apollo-Soyuz was a product of détente.”
Moreover, even if US-Soviet space cooperation helped improve relations, it does not mean the same approach will work with China. “It has a very different view of things like balance-of-power politics,” he said of the Chinese government, as well as on issues like international stability and transparency. “The Soviets are not the Chinese.”
Space cooperation is far down the list of priorities in the relations between the two countries, he concluded. “What we need is to establish a firmer foundation of broader relations,” he said, before considering space cooperation.
He noted the Wolf Amendment only applies to NASA and the National Space Council. Other government agencies can talk to China on space issues, including the U.S. Space Force informing China of potential close approaches of objects to Tiangong.
There is also the question of if China wants to cooperate with the United States in space, and if so, what they hope to achieve. “One of the questions that is not really addressed is, what do we think the Chinese want for cooperation? What do we think they want for that dialogue?”
The Trump wild-card factor
Throughout the last 15 years, the Wolf Amendment has been tweaked, but there has been little in the way of efforts to make major changes to it or repeal it in Congress, both when Republican and Democrats have been in power.
“My assessment is that there is bipartisan support” for the amendment, Cheng concluded. “It’s not that it’s hard, it’s that nobody wants to be seen as repealing it.”
“If it was last year, I would say it is impossible: it’s not going to happen,” Sutter said of any new US-China space cooperation. “This year, I would say it depends on Trump.”
But another speaker at the event suggested a possible way to revise or remove the amendment. “Donald Trump, unlike just about any other major leader I can think of in the United States, does not say China is a threat,” said Robert Sutter, a George Washington University professor who specializes in China relations, said. “They take advantage of us, that’s the argument he makes. He doesn’t say they’re a threat.”
He says Trump is looking for a beneficial economic deal for the United States. “On the Chinese side, they want exchanges,” he argued. “They’re always looking for leverage.”
Sutter said such exchanges could involve cooperation with NASA. “The president is interested in keeping a stable relationship with China as he seeks the bigger deal on the economic side,” he said, and thus could pressure the Republican majorities in Congress to accept any agreement for new cooperation between NASA and China.
“If it was last year, I would say it is impossible: it’s not going to happen,” he said of any new US-China space cooperation. “This year, I would say it depends on Trump. If he thinks it’s a good idea, it would be hard to stop.”
President Trump hasn’t discussed US-China space cooperation, but as on other issues a single statement could be all that’s necessary to reshape the dynamics.
“The level of cooperation we’re going to have depends on what the overall relationship looks like,” said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute and former executive secretary of the National Space Council, in opening remarks at the event. Changing the Wolf Amendment, he concluded, means “the US-China relationship would have to change.”
The recent incident with the damaged Shenzhou spacecraft does not appear to have triggered any change in that relationship. If the US quietly offered any assistance, China does not appear to have accepted it. Instead, it launched the Shenzhou-22 uncrewed spacecraft as this article was being published, sending it to Tiangong to serve as the return spacecraft for the Shenzhou-21 crew there in place of the damaged Shenzhou-20. For now, the two countries continue to go their own ways in space.
Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.
Mapping The Dark Side Of The World
ARGON
An ARGON mapping satellite image of the Gulf of Oman returned in 1964. (credit: Via Harry Stranger)
Mapping the dark side of the world (part 2): supplementing, and supplanting, the ARGON geodetic satellite program
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, November 24, 2025
In February and April 1961, the first two KH-5 ARGON mapping satellite missions were unsuccessful due to reentry malfunctions. The next two missions, in June and July, suffered launch failures. Despite this poor record for ARGON, by December 1961, the United States had conducted ten successful CORONA reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union. In addition to detecting numerous new military facilities within previously “denied territory,” analysts had also begun using CORONA’s photographs to measure the size and relative location of these intelligence targets. This measurement was known as “mensuration” and involved the development of numerous new techniques and equipment for accurate measuring. Even if ARGON was not yet producing mapping data, CORONA could cover some of the requirement (see “Mapping the dark side of the world (part 1): the KH-5 ARGON geodetic satellite,” The Space Review, November 17, 2025).
But even before the first ARGON mission failures, both the Army and the Air Force were considering replacements for ARGON.
This effort, led by people like Chris Mares and John Cane of the newly created National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), and William Mahoney of the Air Force’s Aeronautical Chart and Information Center (ACIC), became more urgent after the Soviets detonated a 58-megaton nuclear device in October 1961. The Soviet test prompted US defense analysts to look closely at American nuclear weapon targeting policy.[1] US defense planners wanted to know the exact distances between nuclear targets in the Soviet Union. This would allow them to determine if a target required more than one bomb to destroy it, or if multiple targets could be destroyed with a single weapon. CORONA reconnaissance photographs could be used to employ American nuclear weapons more economically.
ARGON
Launch of the fifth ARGON mapping mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in May 1962. This was the first successful ARGON mission after four failures. (credit: Peter Hunter)
Unfortunately, CORONA photographic material was not ideally suited to this purpose. Its panoramic geometry, though very precise, did not represent the same amount of ground area at different points on the image.[2] The intelligence analysts had to develop special equipment and techniques to correct for such scale change. The most important of these was the Ashenbrenner printer, an optical device that rectified panoramic imagery into equivalent frame geometry.[3] Once they performed this rectification, the strategic planners could more easily decide where to target their missiles.
ARGON
This ARGON image of Istanbul was returned from the first successful ARGON mission in May 1962. (credit: Via Harry Stranger)
Geodetics and the Bombing Encyclopedia
In addition to mensuration, there was another high priority for reconnaissance satellites: geodetic positioning of targets in a unified world geodetic system (WGS). In more simple terms, this meant precisely locating targets in relation to other known Earth features. American geodesists already had several existing interconnected national geodetic reference systems in their libraries. These relied upon sometimes extremely outdated surveys, and stretched over the continents. The continents in turn were connected over bodies of water such as the Atlantic Ocean and the Bering Strait by astronomic measurement.
However, these geodetic nets were not referenced to a single WGS. Much of the data, particularly for northern and western China, was very sketchy. In the mid-1960s, when NPIC intelligence analyst Dino Brugioni was attempting to help some photo-interpreters locate the site of the Chinese nuclear weapons test facility at Lop Nor, the best he could come up with was a survey that had been done in the 1930s, and an account by Marco Polo, who had travelled through the area.[4] The exact geodetic location of many geographic positions in these areas was known to a distance of no better than 20–30 nautical miles (37–56 kilometers), and no better than 2–3 nautical miles (3.7–5.6 kilometers) for many parts of the Soviet Union. If the United States wanted to send an ICBM over the North Pole and hit one of these places, military planners needed a much better set of WGS target coordinates. The KH-5 ARGON geodetic satellite, and its camera manufactured by the Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company, was supposed to correct this. But after the first four ARGON missions were unsuccessful, there were no additional ARGON cameras ready for launch before the onset of winter. Mapping the Earth’s northern regions is virtually impossible during winter due to snow, cloud cover and other atmospheric effects. The next ARGON launch would not take place until May 1962.
ARGON
Photo-interpreters at Strategic Air Command looking at U-2 and other imagery during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Often while looking at higher resolution reconnaissance images, the interpreters would also consult lower resolution “index” images that showed a larger area, enabling them to determine what areas they were looking at. (credit: NRO)
In the meantime, several CORONA missions flew and successfully returned panoramic imagery to photo-interpreters. This imagery, although it had medium ground resolution (by 1962 standards) and excellent local geometry and was currently being used for mensuration, was not calibrated for geodetic positioning. But it was the only thing available until ARGON could get flying, and because of its availability and the need for the data, Mapping, Charting and Geodesy (MC&G) experts at the Air Force’s Aeronautical Chart and Information Center attempted to do the most with it. Although this type of work is best done from separate mapping cameras, ACIC’s experts had gained experience adapting the U-2 aircraft photography for similar purposes and felt confident that they could do the same with the CORONA images.
ARGON
An ARGON mapping satellite image of San Francisco taken in 1964. Although ARGON was a good mapping camera, it required an entire rocket and spacecraft. By the mid-1960s, the National Reconnaissance Office was considering ways to incorporate the mapping camera into reconnaissance missions to improve efficiency. (credit: Via Harry Stranger)
As CORONA gathered data on new targets within the Soviet Union—and new targets were showing up by the dozens with each mission—the location of the targets had to be fixed by connecting them to the existing geodetic data systems. Once this was done, the target was added to the BE, or Bombing Encyclopedia, used for strategic targeting. The next step, from a MC&G point of view, was to develop charts for the bomber crews that would attack the targets. So, CORONA data was used to map ingress and egress routes to the target. Over time, the photogrammetrists and geodesists developed a better mapping picture of the Soviet Union, while at the same time working towards achieving the ideal reference WGS.
Carrying additional payloads was a typical occurrence for CORONA. “Any spare room in the satellite and we’d squeeze something in,” said one CIA official.
This was very much an ad-hoc approach to the problem, because the systematic approach to developing mapping systems was not progressing very well. But even before the first ARGON mission failures, both the Army and the Air Force were considering replacements for ARGON. In September 1959, the Army had initiated a feasibility study for an “Army Satellite Mapping System.” In June 1960, it published the report and in January 1961 the Army submitted its plan to Herbert York, the Department of Defense’s Deputy Director of Research and Engineering (DDR&E), who was responsible for approving all new technology development. In April, the DDR&E approved the Army plan but halted the program a month later in response to Air Force proposals to satisfy Army requirements with either its revived 6-inch (15-centimeter) focal length SAMOS E-4 mapping camera, or with CORONA panoramic photography. The first successful ARGON mission occurred in May 1962, and this mission might have prompted the DDR&E to issue Directive No. 74, formalizing the Army’s project. The Army program proceeded on schedule until August 1962, when York stopped all work on the program once again, stating that a “new mapping satellite program [is] not warranted at this time.”[5] It was a frustrating time for the Army mapping community.
ARGON
The Index camera was mounted to the side of the spacecraft that faced downward and is the box at the bottom of this photo. The film supply reel is in the curved case at left. The exposed film ran through a chute, seen to the right, and was then bent over rollers and sent forward to the reentry vehicles. (credit: NRO)
The Index camera
In July of 1960, both Itek and Lockheed, two of the prime contractors for the CORONA reconnaissance satellite program, proposed an upgraded version of the KH-3 CORONA satellite, which itself was still in the development phase. Instead of using one C’’’ (“C Triple Prime”) camera, the system would use two, mounted at an angle to each other. Both cameras would operate while over a target and this would provide two images, at slightly different angles, which could be viewed stereoscopically and provide better height information of the target. The overall value of the imagery to various users would be dramatically enhanced by this new development. The companies made this proposal even before a single CORONA satellite had successfully returned film, but received tentative approval from the CIA to proceed with development. The CIA named the new camera MURAL.
The first MURAL camera, KH-4 CORONA Mission 9031, was launched on February 27, 1962. In addition to the far bigger main camera payload compared to the earlier KH-3 CORONA spacecraft, this mission also included an Index camera.
While the KH-3 was flying in 1961 and 1962, photo-interpreters at NPIC who studied the CORONA photography and MC&G experts at ACIC had suggested adding an Index camera to the spacecraft. Although CORONA imagery was getting steadily better, its inherent errors and the small area it covered made it difficult to connect one image to another and to existing geodetic nets. The location of objects could only be determined to several miles based upon the orbital track, altitude and attitude of the spacecraft, and the precise time that the photograph was taken. This was not accurate enough for ICBM targeting purposes. Furthermore, the photo-interpreter’s job would be made much easier if he had a way of determining what general area of the Earth each individual frame showed and matching the images up to a smaller scale photographic reference system was the way to achieve this.
William C. Mahoney, a CORONA photogrammetrist with ACIC, suggested to the NPIC representatives, Chris Mares and John Cane, that while the MURAL camera was in development, NPIC should approach the CORONA camera’s manufacturer, Itek, about the extra camera. Mares and Cane mentioned it to Ron Ondrejka of Itek, who came back about a month later and said: “You know, I think we can get that camera you want because we’ve found a hole in the CORONA vehicle where we can pack it.”[6]
ARGON
The family of CORONA reconnaissance systems. ARGON and LANYARD used many of CORONA’s equipment. The red circles indicate where Index and Stellar-Index cameras were added to CORONA spacecraft. The Index camera was not a dedicated mapping camera, but it provided some mapping capability. (credit: NRO)
This was a typical occurrence for CORONA. “Any spare room in the satellite and we’d squeeze something in,” said one CIA official.[7] Extra experiments were carried on the Agena “aft rack” and occasionally flown as separate payloads. Small experiments were also sometimes stuffed into the reentry vehicles.
The “hole” the spacecraft designers found was between the Satellite Recovery Vehicle (SRV) and the forward CORONA panoramic camera. It was just big enough to fit a small additional camera. The new camera was named the “Index” camera.
Mahoney had argued for including the Index camera on the CORONA. As he stated “It didn’t have all the bells and whistles that we would’ve liked to have on it, but the KH-4 ‘bird,’ as we called it, was the first bird that was adapted to support MC&G mapping and target location requirements.”[8] It was a way to start getting some of the data they needed fast, even if it wasn’t as good as ARGON was supposed to be.
ARGON
GAMBIT-3 satellites under construction at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York. Although most Index cameras were carried on CORONA satellites, a few were carried on GAMBIT missions. (credit: NRO)
ltek’s engineers chose a commercially available Hasselblad camera to serve as the Index camera. The Index camera had a 1.5-inch (3.8-centimeter) focal length and a ground resolution of 400–500 feet (121–152 meters). It imaged an area approximately 166 miles (267 kilometers) on a side, the same swath width of the panoramic imagery.
The Swedish-manufactured Hasselblad with its German Zeiss optics was a very high quality camera long used by professional photographers. Hasselblad cameras were carried on most American space missions and were used on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts. But in 1961 the Hasselblad was intended for use in a photography studio, taking photographs of fashion models and moodily-lit tubes of toothpaste. It was not designed for use in a weightless vacuum, taking photographs of Earth. In the zero-gravity vacuum of outer space it was possible that lubricants and sealants could evaporate and condense on a cold lens surface, thereby fogging the image. The camera was also not designed to carry the heavy amount of film required for use in space. It therefore required considerable redesign, and Itek established a special team led by project engineer Rick Manent to accomplish this.
The film for the Index camera was supplied by a new film cassette. After each image was taken with the Index camera, two things had to happen: the film had to advance by one frame, and the shutter had to be re-cocked for the next shot. ltek’s original design accomplished both tasks nearly simultaneously and very quickly. But this created a problem: the film sometimes moved so fast that the mechanical device for stopping it did not have enough time to move back into position. As a result, more than one frame would advance through the camera and waste film. Eventually, the mechanism would become damaged and the film would no longer advance at all.[9]
The problem was solved shortly before the first launch in February 1962, but Manent, who was responsible for the Index camera, had to travel to the West Coast to verify the readiness of the camera already awaiting launch. He determined that a few minor corrections should be made. But there was a proble:- once a spacecraft had been designated “flight certified,” no one was officially allowed to make any more changes to the vehicle. So, while two Itek employees (Grant Ross, the Field Service Manager, and Ed Sinram, the Field Service Technician) kept the Lockheed payload engineer occupied, Manent made his minor changes.[10]
Despite these last-minute adjustments, Manent and Ross were nervous about the operation of the Index camera. They phoned Itek management back in Massachusetts for guidance. Management informed them that if the Index camera was either not flown or if it failed, the government was likely to cancel the contract. They also, exercising management’s prerogative to avoid responsibility if possible, informed the men that the decision was entirely up to their on-the-spot judgement. The engineers, faced with this dilemma, decided to have a few drinks in their hotel room and deliberate. The beer did not help them reach a decision and ultimately they decided to toss a coin. It came up heads and the unit flew. It worked perfectly.[11] In operation, it took one image for every seven panoramic exposures, allowing the photo-interpreters to better fit their panoramic imagery together based upon the larger image. It also enabled the MC&G experts to crudely connect the images to the existing geodetic data nets, but still better than nothing.[12]
The engineers decided to have a few drinks in their hotel room and deliberate. The beer did not help them reach a decision and ultimately they decided to toss a coin. It came up heads and the unit flew. It worked perfectly.
A few months later ARGON returned its first image and late in the fall, after another failure, a second successful ARGON mission returned even more film. But Index cameras were flying on every single CORONA mission and did not require their own dedicated satellite and launch vehicle. The Index camera imagery returned from the KH-4 CORONA missions was less than ideal for geodetic work, but it was prolific, and flying it piggyback on another vehicle was more efficient than using an entire rocket and spacecraft for each ARGON mapping mission. While there were only three ARGON missions in 1962, there were 17 CORONA missions.[13]
The MC&G experts’ growing experience with using both the CORONA and Index cameras from 1962 to 1964 was subtly wearing away at the arguments for dedicated mapping missions like ARGON.
ARGON
Launch of the eighth ARGON mission in April 1963. (credit: Peter Hunter)
The Stellar-Index camera
While this struggle over a dedicated successor to ARGON continued, the contractors worked on improving the limited Index camera. As Fairchild engineers had done with ARGON, Itek engineers soon added a Stellar camera to take a simultaneous starfield image with the Index camera. As part of this new design, the operation of the Index camera was also slowed down. It still took Images at the same rate, but the mechanical operation of the different parts was spread out so several functions of the camera took place sequentially instead of simultaneously. This reduced the wear and tear on the camera and increased its reliability.[14]
Early versions of the Index camera had a slight distortion problem caused by the camera’s shutter. The camera used a focal plane shutter which pulled a curtain with a narrow slit across the film. As the exposure slit moved across the film, one part of the film was exposed before the other while the satellite moved over the Earth. Thus, the image was not square, but slightly skewed, like a trapezoid.
ARGON
The Stellar-Index camera on CORONA missions took a photo of a large area of Earth, which enabled photo-interpreters to look at the higher resolution panoramic images and situate them within the overall area. (credit: NRO)
To solve this problem, Itek engineers chose to incorporate a between-the-lens shutter into the Stellar-Index cameras. This shutter was located between the front and rear lens element groups so that the entire film was exposed at the same time. A precision flat glass plate with a reseau grid was also installed at the focal plane. The grid was precisely scribed and measured. By measuring the grid lines on the recovered film, the photo-interpreters could compensate for film distortions induced by temperature changes and film processing.[15]
ARGON
KH-4 CORONA satellites had a single reentry vehicle and KH-4A CORONA satellites had two. They included takeup reels for the reconnaissance film. They also included smaller takeup reels for the film from Index and Stellar-Index films. (credit: NRO)
The new shutter presented a problem. It was manufactured by the Wollensak Optical Company of Rochester, New York, a commercial firm which was not cleared for the high security CORONA program and could not be told that the cameras were going to fly in space. Wollensak chose talcum powder as a shutter blade lubricant. This was not acceptable for space use and Itek engineers suggested the use of whale oil instead. But whale oil cost approximately $11,000 per gallon (3.78 litres) at the time and Wollensak Optical refused to use it. Itek therefore accepted the new shutters with talcum, disassembled them, cleaned and lubricated them with whale oil, and reassembled them. Only a drop of whale oil was used for each shutter. Years later, Frank Madden, who was ltek’s CORONA program manager, wrote: “Somewhere, sitting in ltek’s basement, is a gallon of leftover whale oil.”[16]
The Stellar-Index camera also suffered a problem with static buildup that fogged the more sensitive film used to capture the faint star images. If the problem was not fixed, it would have obliterated the stars.[17] This was solved through a complex trial-and-error process Frank Madden had used to solve similar problems with the CORONA cameras: the film rollers were steamed in a pressure cooker, and then fitted in a camera and tested. If they produced static, they were rejected. If they did not, they were tested again and then accepted. Other minor problems were also solved as they arose.
Only a drop of whale oil was used for each shutter. Years later, Frank Madden, who was ltek’s CORONA program manager, wrote: “Somewhere, sitting in ltek’s basement, is a gallon of leftover whale oil.”
Like ARGON, the precise angular relationship between the Index and Stellar cameras had to be calibrated. This was done at ltek’s Boston manufacturing site in the early morning darkness. Boston is not known for its clear weather, and cloudy days plagued these tests, resulting in several cameras being qualified and shipped simultaneously. After they were shipped to the West Coast and installed in the spacecraft with the panoramic cameras, a group of targets were positioned so that they could be photographed simultaneously by the panoramic and Stellar-Index cameras. This determined the geometric relationship between the cameras and the Agena spacecraft.
The film from the Index and Stellar-Index cameras was taken up on a spool in the Satellite Recovery Vehicle just below the main spools for the panoramic film. When a second SRV was added to make the KH-4A CORONA system, a second Stellar-Index camera was added as well—one for each SRV. This was simpler than trying to re-route the film in flight.
The redesigned camera incorporating the new shutter and other changes was approved on April 1, 1966. It had to launch by the end of July. In that time, the Itek team designed and fabricated the parts, performed various qualification tests, and shipped the flight unit to the West Coast. ltek’s engineers worked overtime, deferred their vacations and were ultimately able to deliver on the contract. By the end of the program, Itek had manufactured a total of 180 Index and Stellar-Index cameras. Nearly all flew on CORONA, although a few were diverted to GAMBIT high-resolution satellite missions.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following people in the preparation of this account, many of whom are sadly now-deceased: Charles Ruzek, Frank Madden, Amrom Katz, William Harris, Dick Buenneke, Bill King, Dino Brugioni, and Charlie Murphy. Thanks as well to Harry Stranger for the ARGON photos.
Endnotes
Krzysztof Dabrowski, Tsar Bomba: Live Testing of Soviet Nuclear Bombs, Helion and Company, 2021.
Author’s note: The United States has rather stubbornly refused to convert to the metric system and all measurements on American reconnaissance programs are in English units of measurement, which I have preserved here. To convert the measures to metric, I am providing the following figures: One statute mile equals 5,280 feet or 1.609 kilometers. One nautical mile equals 6076 feet or 1.852 kilometers. One foot equals twelve inches or 0.3 meters. One inch equals 2.54 centimeters. My apologies for the absurdity of this situation.
Frank Madden, The CORONA Camera System: Itek’s Contribution to World Security, 1996 (self-published monograph), pp.45-46.
Dino Brugioni, telephone interview with Dwayne A. Day, March 2, 1997.
Chronological History of Army Satellite Mapping System, 23 August 1962, NRO Reading Room Files (NRRF) 2/A/0013.
William C. Mahoney, comments at “Piercing the Curtain: CORONA and the Revolution in Intelligence” symposium at the George Washington University, May 24- 25, 1995.
Dino Brugioni telephone interview with Dwayne A. Day, May 14, 1997.
Mahoney, Ibid.
Madden, Ibid., p.44.
Madden, Ibid. 10. Madden, Ibid., pp.44-45.
Letter from Frank Madden to Dwayne A. Day, March 25, 1997.
Not all CORONA missions flew with an Index camera. In some cases no camera was available at the time and the intelligence mission was deemed so vital that it was flown without an Index camera.
Joseph V. Charyk, Memorandum for Assistant Secretary of the Army (R&O), “ARGON Follow-On (A’) Proposal,” December 14, 1962, with attached: “A’ System Characteristics,” NRRF 1/A/0035.
Madden, Ibid., p.45. Because the panoramic images were curved, one square inch at the center of the photograph represented a different ground distance than at the ends of the photograph. Itek manufactured optical rectifiers to enable the use of the panoramic photographs for mapping purposes along with the dedicated Index camera. An optical rectifier was essentially a photographic enlarger that reversed the original process whereby the “flat” Earth was imaged on the cylindrical film surface. In the optical rectifier, the film was held in cylindrical form just like in the camera) and a light behind it projected an Image via a lens onto a flat sheet of photographic paper which represented the flat Earth (the rectifier also compensated for the Earth’s curvature). The result was that the print which was produced removed the distortion inherent in the film process and so one square inch on the print represented the same ground distance no matter where it was measured.
Madden, Ibid., p.46.
Note: Itek became part of Hughes-Danbury Optical Systems.
Letter from Frank Madden to Dwayne A. Day, March 25, 1997.
Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.
Space Warfare
UNOOSA hall
Developing norms of space warfare may require voluntary actions by some leading countries rather than binding treaties. (credit: UN)
Space is the front line and not the final frontier
The United States should prioritize developing proactive norms of space warfare
by Magdalena T. Bogacz
Monday, November 24, 2025
A popular view of space as a sanctuary officially expired at least half a decade ago when countries such as the United States and China designated space as a distinct and unique warfighting domain. Unofficially, the vision of space as having potential to be free from all conflicts was always destined to fail before it could realize. A brief and shallow survey of the history of humanity reveals that war is not something we wage, but rather, war is something we are. Our proneness to competition and conflict mixed with our ambitions to discover, conquer, and overcome, both ourselves and our friends and foes, paints a clear picture: human nature is violent. Or, as Thomas Hobbes put it Leviathan, the condition of man is a condition of “war of everyone against everyone.”
Full-scale space wars are unavoidable. Only by precisely delineating rules of engagement in space and grounding them in a universal ethical theory before actual conflicts arise, will the United States and its allies have the first-mover advantage.
If the “will to power” and desire to exercise authority truly is the main driving force in humans, then any expectation to simply leave behind our fundamental dispositions and characteristics and start anew in the outer space is naive and misguided, at best. At worst, upholding the view of space as a sanctuary can harm all of us. This is because fixating on deterring conflicts in space using cooperation, interdependency, and diplomacy, for the benefit of all humanity, slows down Western space powers, like the United States, from proactively developing laws of space warfare.
Full-scale space wars are unavoidable. Only by precisely delineating rules of engagement in space and grounding them in a universal ethical theory before actual conflicts arise, will the United States and its allies have the first-mover advantage and be able to, if needed, start and win just wars. The time to assume the position of the benevolent hegemon is now. The alternative is the ordering of space led by authoritarian regimes and the United States and its partners playing catch-up.
Increased weaponization of space against current laws of space warfare
The current laws of space warfare draw from at least three sources: general laws of armed conflict that evolved from just war tradition, the Outer Space Treaty, and a few other space treaties, such as the Rescue Agreement, the Liability Convention, the Registration Convention, and the Moon Agreement. In addition, military rules of engagement (ROE) are built upon traditional understanding of justice in war as it applies to land, sea, and air operations.
More recently, the Woomera Manual, which is the product of years of effort by top international humanitarian law experts, was released to serve as the first comprehensive examination of the field of military space operations. However, despite the immense positive impact that the manual, the fact that outer space is a unique spatial and temporal environment with fast evolving actors and technology means the regulations on warfare and the rules for initiating and executing military operations must evolve as well. This is imperative since the last decade made space more congested, contested, and competitive than ever before.
Yet, prescriptive frameworks for when and how to act to prevent grave danger from, to, and though space lag. The assumed approach must be proactive, not excluding preemptive wars because of the magnitude of unwanted second- and third-order effects that hostile space activities can produce on Earth. Arguably, some sophisticated space systems have or will have in the near future potential for serious destructive consequences in space and on Earth.
The idea that space is militarized and it becomes increasingly weaponized is not new. This is evidenced by countless counterspace capabilities being actively used in armed conflicts today, in addition to some of the major powers joining the space club of anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) testing. China last tested its capabilities in 2007, while the United States in 2008. More recently, India tested its ASAT in 2019 and Russia in 2021.
Some impactful agreements require a small number of states to succeed. The new framework for space warfare might be one of those.
Following the Russian show of force in space through its ASAT test, the United States proposed a unilateral moratorium on ASAT testing that prohibits destructive, direct-ascent anti-satellite missile testing. The US moratorium, which can be loosely interpreted as a voluntary self-ban, set a good example that other nations could follow, but there is no reason to believe that its adversaries would do the same. To the contrary, by decreasing self-defensive testing as well as offensive weapons and capabilities development, in whatever form this might be, the United States and its allies might actually make themselves more vulnerable to attacks. As the popular saying goes, strength comes from reps and sets.
Weaponization of space may reach new heights with the current race between the United States and China-Russia coalition to deploy a lunar nuclear reactor by 2030. If China or Russia wins the race, builds such a reactor, and starts enriching uranium for weapons-grade material and potentially posits a state of global emergency, what would the United States or its allies do? One can only wonder.
But there is a better way forward. Since international law is stagnant and current frameworks for prescribing code of conduct in space warfare are either non-existing or simply insufficient to accommodate scenarios like the one mentioned above, it is critical to proactively develop a set of moral rules of engagement, make them public, and be ready to act when danger arises. Some argue the best way forward is through non-binding international agreements.
New framework for space warfare
Non-binding international agreements have many benefits, from allowing each individual state to embrace and promote their divergent interests to flexibility to adjust to the fast-evolving technological context of space conflict. Their downfall is in the name: non-bindingness. But there is a difference between bindingness and membership. A few examples can help illustrate that.
A total of 115 countries are parties to the Outer Space Treaty, with another 22 countries having signed by not yet completed ratification. Of those 115 countries, the Moon Agreement governing peaceful and shared exploration and use of the Moon and other celestial bodies, although legally binding, was signed by fewer than 20 states and none of the major space powers. Similarly, the previously mentioned ASAT test ban pledge offered by the United States fails to deliver on its proposal. Even though the International Court of Justice generally recognizes unilateral statements made in good faith and with the intention of being binding as actually legally binding, three out of four countries that demonstrated successful ASAT testing did not join the pledge. In comparison, Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines released by the United Nations were adopted by all major space powers, although they are “only” voluntary guidelines.
The lesson is the following: some impactful agreements require a small number of states to succeed. The new framework for space warfare might be one of those. As such, it may require a value-driven and influential space superpower, such as the United States, together with the coalition of the willing nations, to usher in a new era of moral conduct in space warfare. Furthermore, the new framework for space warfare should fulfill at least the following criteria: 1) it should be grounded in a universal ethical theory, 2) it must be prescriptive, 3) it should be made public. Satisfying these three criteria is nonnegotiable to ensure any war-related activity is justified, comes with a proper level of authority, and clearly communicates its assumed intent.
Magdalena T. Bogacz is a Professor of Military and Security Studies and a Course Director for Theory and Philosophy of War with the Space Scholars Program at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington, DC. Her most recent research project discusses the grounding of norms and behaviors in space in a universal ethical theory and the just war debate between traditionalists and revisionists with its application to norms of space warfare. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the United States Government, the Department of Defense the United States Air Force or the United States Space Force.
AI Has Made Spacecraft Propulsion More Efficient
NERVA
NASA studied nuclear propulsion in the 1960s in the NERVA program. New efforts to advance that technology could leverage artificial intelligence to improve designs. (credit: NASA)
How AI is making spacecraft propulsion more efficient
by Marcos Fernandez Tous, Preeti Nair, Sai Susmitha Guddanti, and Sreejith Vidhyadharan Nair
Monday, November 24, 2025
The Conversation
Every year, companies and space agencies launch hundreds of rockets into space, and that number is set to grow dramatically with ambitious missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. But these dreams hinge on one critical challenge: propulsion.
To make interplanetary travel faster, safer, and more efficient, scientists need breakthroughs in propulsion technology. Artificial intelligence is one type of technology that has begun to provide some of these necessary breakthroughs.
Reinforcement learning can improve human understanding of deeply complex systems—those that challenge the limits of human intuition.
We’re a team of engineers and graduate students who are studying how AI in general, and a subset of AI called machine learning in particular, can transform spacecraft propulsion. From optimizing nuclear thermal engines to managing complex plasma confinement in fusion systems, AI is reshaping propulsion design and operations. It is quickly becoming an indispensable partner in humankind’s journey to the stars.
Machine learning and reinforcement learning
Machine learning is a branch of AI that identifies patterns in data that it has not explicitly been trained on. It is a vast field with its own branches, with a lot of applications. Each branch emulates intelligence in different ways: by recognizing patterns, parsing and generating language, or learning from experience. This last subset in particular, commonly known as reinforcement learning, teaches machines to perform their tasks by rating their performance, enabling them to continuously improve through experience.
As a simple example, imagine a chess player. The player does not calculate every move but rather recognizes patterns from playing a thousand matches. Reinforcement learning creates similar intuitive expertise in machines and systems, but at a computational speed and scale impossible for humans. It learns through experiences and iterations by observing its environment. These observations allow the machine to correctly interpret each outcome and deploy the best strategies for the system to reach its goal.
Reinforcement learning can improve human understanding of deeply complex systems—those that challenge the limits of human intuition. It can help determine the most efficient trajectory for a spacecraft heading anywhere in space, and it does so by optimizing the propulsion necessary to send the craft there. It can also potentially design better propulsion systems, from selecting the best materials to coming up with configurations that transfer heat between parts in the engine more efficiently.
Reinforcement learning for propulsion systems
In regard to space propulsion, reinforcement learning generally falls into two categories: those that assist during the design phase, when engineers define mission needs and system capabilities, and those that support real-time operation once the spacecraft is in flight.
Among the most exotic and promising propulsion concepts is nuclear propulsion, which harnesses the same forces that power atomic bombs and fuel the Sun: nuclear fission and nuclear fusion.
Fission works by splitting heavy atoms such as uranium or plutonium to release energy, a principle used in most terrestrial nuclear reactors. Fusion, on the other hand, merges lighter atoms such as hydrogen to produce even more energy, though it requires far more extreme conditions to initiate.
Fission is a more mature technology that has been tested in some space propulsion prototypes. It has even been used in space in the form of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, like those that powered the Voyager probes. But fusion remains a tantalizing frontier.
Nuclear thermal propulsion could one day take spacecraft to Mars and beyond at a lower cost than that of simply burning fuel. It would get a craft there faster than electric propulsion, which uses a heated gas made of charged particles called plasma.
Unlike these systems, nuclear propulsion relies on heat generated from atomic reactions. That heat is transferred to a propellant, typically hydrogen, which expands and exits through a nozzle to produce thrust and shoot the craft forward.
So how can reinforcement learning help engineers develop and operate these powerful technologies? Let’s begin with design.
Reinforcement learning’s role in design
Early nuclear thermal propulsion designs from the 1960s, such as those in NASA’s NERVA program, used solid uranium fuel molded into prism-shaped blocks. Since then, engineers have explored alternative configurations, from beds of ceramic pebbles to grooved rings with intricate channels.
Why has there been so much experimentation? Because the more efficiently a reactor can transfer heat from the fuel to the hydrogen, the more thrust it generates.
Reinforcement learning can help manage fuel consumption, a critical task for missions that must adapt on the fly.
This area is where reinforcement learning has proved to be essential. Optimizing the geometry and heat flow between fuel and propellant is a complex problem, involving countless variables, from the material properties to the amount of hydrogen that flows across the reactor at any given moment. Reinforcement learning can analyze these design variations and identify configurations that maximize heat transfer. Imagine it as a smart thermostat but for a rocket engine—one you definitely don’t want to stand too close to, given the extreme temperatures involved.
Reinforcement learning and fusion technology
Reinforcement learning also plays a key role in developing nuclear fusion technology. Large-scale experiments such as the JT-60SA tokamak in Japan are pushing the boundaries of fusion energy, but their massive size makes them impractical for spaceflight. That’s why researchers are exploring compact designs such as polywells. These exotic devices look like hollow cubes, about a few inches across, and they confine plasma in magnetic fields to create the conditions necessary for fusion.
Controlling magnetic fields within a polywell is no small feat. The magnetic fields must be strong enough to keep hydrogen atoms bouncing around until they fuse, a process that demands immense energy to start but can become self-sustaining once underway. Overcoming this challenge is necessary for scaling this technology for nuclear thermal propulsion.
Reinforcement learning and energy generation
However, reinforcement learning’s role doesn’t end with design. It can help manage fuel consumption, a critical task for missions that must adapt on the fly. In today’s space industry, there’s growing interest in spacecraft that can serve different roles depending on the mission’s needs and how they adapt to priority changes through time.
Military applications, for instance, must respond rapidly to shifting geopolitical scenarios. An example of a technology adapted to fast changes is Lockheed Martin’s LM400 satellite, which has varied capabilities such as missile warning or remote sensing.
But this flexibility introduces uncertainty. How much fuel will a mission require? And when will it need it? Reinforcement learning can help with these calculations.
From bicycles to rockets, learning through experience—whether human or machine—is shaping the future of space exploration. As scientists push the boundaries of propulsion and intelligence, AI is playing a growing role in space travel. It may help scientists explore within and beyond our solar system and open the gates for new discoveries.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Marcos Fernandez Tous is an Assistant Professor of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota. Preeti Nair is a master’s student in Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota. Sai Susmitha Guddanti is a PhD student in Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota. Sreejith Vidhyadharan Nair is a Research Assistant Professor of Aviation at the University of North Dakota.
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The Launch Of The Argon Mapping Satellite
ARGON
Launch of the first ARGON mapping satellite in February 1961. (credit: Peter Hunter)
Mapping the dark side of the world (part 1): The KH-5 ARGON geodetic satellite
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, November 17, 2025
Maps are in many ways the most basic of intelligence documents. They are powerful tools necessary for commanding an army. At the very least they tell a commander where the military objective is located and the best means of reaching it. Detailed maps can enhance an army's power many times, by allowing it to use the terrain itself as a weapon or a defense.
What makes a good reconnaissance camera is not what makes a good mapping camera
But acquiring detailed maps of hostile terrain is a major challenge. For American military leaders during the early years of the Cold War, much of the Soviet Union was as uncharted as the dark side of the Moon. The United States had to rely on Soviet maps, many of which were either incomplete or deliberately inaccurate. The locations of mountains, rivers, lakes, and even whole cities were either unknown or highly doubtful. Without this knowledge, military operations were at risk. Indeed, without accurate maps of Soviet territory, ICBMs were very limited in their utility, except for blowing up large targets like cities.
Satellites offered a solution to this problem from the very beginning. Long before there was such a thing as civilian remote sensing, the United States military developed the means to map this dark territory, and did so behind its own cloak of secrecy.
ARGON
Cover of a 1946 report that outlined the possible missions and technologies for a satellite. Mapping from space was one of the early missions of interest to the US military. (credit: RAND Corporation)
Early proposals
The US Air Force began studying the possible uses of a satellite for military purposes in 1946. At a time when space was no more than a Flash Gordon fantasy, a pioneering report by an Air Force contractor, the RAND Corporation, outlined the technologies and equipment necessary to place a satellite in orbit and the possible missions such a satellite could achieve. At this early stage, there was no clear ordering of priorities; the missions a satellite could perform were virtually limitless. A satellite could conduct bomb damage assessment: essentially looking for craters of nuclear weapons dropped on an enemy.[1] It could also be used for meteorology and communications. Finally, it could be used as a weapon, such as an orbital bombardment system. Despite this potential, the costs of developing a rocket to place a satellite in orbit were immense. The Air Force satellite remained a paper study for years.
By the early 1950s, Air Force officers such as then-Colonel Bernard Schriever, and policy and technology analysts at the RAND Corporation, soon turned their attention to the use of a satellite for reconnaissance and meteorology, focusing primarily on the benefits of the former. This grew out of an overall increasing interest in the values of strategic reconnaissance and aerial cartography. In 1951, the Director of Intelligence for the US Air Force stated that one of the intelligence requirements of any military reconnaissance satellite was to “Produce a photographic quality for the revision of aeronautical charts and maps.”[2] However, despite this requirement, no work was performed on this subject in a subsequent RAND report.
ARGON
Illustrations from the 1946 RAND report on a satellite. Although V-2 rockets had flown ballistic trajectories during World War II, RAND demonstrated that a more powerful rocket could put satellites in orbit. (credit: RAND Corporation)
In December 1953, the Air Force formally approved a preliminary satellite development program called MX-2226. By 1954, RAND produced a landmark report known as Project Feed Back. It was the first comprehensive study of the feasibility of a reconnaissance satellite, as well as the means of placing any satellite in orbit. Feed Back also specifically noted that satellites could be used for mapping purposes, but once again did not address the subject in depth. In 1956, Feed Back led to eventual approval of a full satellite development program given the designation Weapon System 117L, the Advanced Reconnaissance System. There were other mapping proposals as well, including one for the use of a Viking sounding rocket to map Antarctica, but the WS- 117L program was the only military satellite with formal approval. Unfortunately, the civilian Air Force leadership lacked the interest that the uniformed leadership had in the Advanced Reconnaissance System and it was severely underfunded in both 1956 and 1957.
At a basic level, the difference between a “reconnaissance” satellite and a “mapping” satellite is primarily a matter of scale. In theory, virtually any reconnaissance satellite is also a mapping satellite, since it can be used to plot terrain features. But cameras must obey a basic rule of optics: the higher the resolution of a reconnaissance camera, the narrower its field of view, and thus the less territory that can be photographed. For mapping purposes, resolution is not extremely important and it reduces the area that can be mapped.
However, there is a far more important criteria than scale which determines the difference between a mapping and reconnaissance camera. Amrom Katz was one of the fathers of the American reconnaissance satellite program. Katz outlined the distinct difference between a reconnaissance camera and a mapping camera when he stated in a secret Air Force report that “detail at a point is not nearly as important as maintaining and preserving the relationship between points…”[3] Katz noted: “Mapping photography is designed to give information about the character of the terrain; reconnaissance/intelligence photography is designed to give information about characters on the terrain.”[4] Thus, what makes a good reconnaissance camera is not what makes a good mapping camera. Resolution can be sacrificed for area coverage and for precision calibration. Because of these factors, separate reconnaissance and mapping cameras are usually developed for this purpose.
ARGON
The SAMOS E-1 camera took photos on film, developed the film in orbit, scanned the film, and transmitted the images to the ground. But E-1 was not suitable for mapping purposes. It did not cover enough territory and, in the words of one RAND physicist, its images were “rubbery.” (credit: NRO)
From Feed Back to SAMOS
The authors of the 1954 Feed Back report proposed a television-based camera system with approximately 70–200 feet (21–61 meters) resolution and covering a swath width of 374 statute miles (602 kilometers) orbiting at an altitude of 300 nautical miles (555 kilometers).[5] This was not ideal for mapping purposes, but still had some utility. The cartographic uses of the proposed system were not explicitly discussed by the report's authors, but Feed Back convinced top Air Force officials that a reconnaissance satellite was both desirable and achievable.
The SAMOS program managers naively believed that no one could make an acronym from its letters. Over seven decades of space programs have demonstrated that engineers can make an acronym out of any arrangement of letters
In early 1955, the Air Force formally outlined the intelligence requirements for such a project, but it was not until summer 1956 that the Air Force proposed a contract for development of a reconnaissance satellite. The WS-117L program initially operated at Wright Air Development Center in Dayton, Ohio, but soon moved to Los Angeles. It was a small program, terribly underfunded by the Pentagon.
Everything changed after Sputnik. Satellite reconnaissance moved from the realm of fantasy to become the centerpiece of a revitalized American military space program. The program soon received the money and attention in the White House that its proponents had so desperately sought. A quicker, cheaper reconnaissance satellite, code-named CORONA, was spun off from the main program and placed under control of the CIA.
In 1958, the Air Force split WS-117L into three distinct programs: the MIDAS missile detection satellite, the Discoverer engineering development satellite (a cover story for the CORONA reconnaissance satellite), and the SENTRY reconnaissance satellite. By late 1958, the Air Force renamed SENTRY as SAMOS. SAMOS, which was not always spelled in all-caps, was not an acronym, but had been selected for two reasons: first, it was the mythical home of King Midas, and second, the program managers naively believed that no one could make an acronym from its letters. Over seven decades of space programs have demonstrated that engineers can make an acronym out of any arrangement of letters.
The WS-117L program managers abandoned the television approach very early on due to poor performance. SAMOS’s primary emphasis was on the development of a film-readout satellite for reconnaissance; the satellite would take a picture, develop the film in orbit, and then scan the film electronically for transmission to Earth. Eventually, program managers chose to develop two SAMOS spacecraft types, each based upon a different camera. These cameras were designated E-1 and E-2. The E-1 was to have a resolution of 100 feet (30 meters) and a swath width of 87 nautical miles (161 kilometers). The E-2 was to have a resolution of 20 feet (6 meters( and a swath width of 14.5 nautical miles (26.9 kilometers), demonstrating the tradeoff between resolution and area coverage.[6] But neither camera was designed for mapping purposes, and neither covered enough area to be very useful.
The visionary scientists at the RAND Corporation did not cease their advocacy of new and better satellite systems. They argued for a dedicated mapping camera as early as May 1958, in a report developed by Amrom Katz called “Notes on Potential Military Space Systems.”[7] Apparently as a result of this report, SAMOS program managers soon added two more camera systems to the SAMOS project. These were known as E-3 and E-4. E-3 was a different approach to developing the imagery on orbit and never progressed very far. E-4 was a dedicated mapping camera, and its mission was commonly referred to as geodesy, although during these early years mapping, charting, and geodesy were often lumped together in discussion.[8]
The SAMOS E-4 program involved the Air Force’s Ballistic Missile Division (which oversaw the WS-117L program), the Wright Air Development Center’s Aerial Reconnaissance Laboratory, Rome Air Development Center, and Lockheed Missile System Division. WS-117L program managers began defining and designing a camera useful for geodetic work.[9] But by May 1959, the program was ordered canceled, although it really ended up in limbo for several months.
Around this time, the US Army and the Advanced Research Projects Agency began work on a project apparently known as APOLLO. They then gave two contracts to the General Electric Corporation known as projects SALAAM and VEDAS. These were studies of mapping satellites using reentry vehicles. General Electric at that time was responsible for the reentry vehicle for the CORONA spacecraft. The VEDAS program became the primary geodetic satellite program around mid-1959. The name APOLLO was apparently not used after this time, and SALAAM, which was often used interchangeably with VEDAS, was used infrequently. (SAMOS E-4 will be discussed in the third article of this series.)
Enraged pioneer
Amrom Katz was a physicist and optical specialist at the RAND Corporation. He was also a character. In July 1946, he was stationed at Bikini Atoll in preparation for photographing the first atomic bomb test there. Like everybody else on the tiny island, he was bored. Katz also had access to the regular resupply flight to the island and put in a secret special order—for some horseshoes and horse manure protected in dry ice. After the shipment arrived, one night he and an accomplice walked across the island stamping horseshoe prints into the sand and occasionally leaving some droppings. In the morning, the other residents of the island wondered where a horse had come from, and where it had gone.
Over the next several years, Katz found himself excluded from most of the overt Air Force WS-117L and SAMOS programs as well. But from his view at RAND, his understanding of the bureaucratic politics surrounding the program was probably quite accurate.
In addition to his sense of humor, Katz had a lot of exasperation with Air Force bureaucracy that came through many of the memos he wrote about Air Force subjects. Beginning in 1956 Katz became one of the primary advocates within RAND for using satellites for reconnaissance purposes. Katz advocated the idea of a recoverable satellite and he is properly considered one of the fathers of this idea. The Air Force adopted this proposal in late 1957, designating it “Program IIA.” Program IIA was formally cancelled in early 1958, with much protest from Katz. What Katz did not know was that his proposal had been adopted, but that the program was made highly covert and he was excluded from it (although two and a half years later Katz would be briefed on the system).[10] Katz’s loud protestations about the cancellation of the recoverable satellite program helped convince people that it really was canceled.
Over the next several years, Katz found himself excluded from most of the overt Air Force WS-117L and SAMOS programs as well. He therefore was not aware of the intimate details of the SAMOS program in 1959. But from his view at RAND, his understanding of the bureaucratic politics surrounding the program was probably quite accurate. As he stated: “Occasionally, at perigee, and briefly, we have something to do with the program. Most of the time we dwell near apogee - far from the program, and lonely. From this position, many of the details are hard to see, but the perspective is terrific.”[11]
Some aspects of the state of the SAMOS E-4 program during the first half of 1959 and Katz’s knowledge of it remain unknown. According to Katz, after the SAMOS program was started, the WS-117L program office attempted to prove that the existing approach to reconnaissance they were developing was also ideal for mapping purposes. As Katz stated: “From their Olympian heights of psychological insecurity, they let contracts through their agents at RADC [Rome Air Development Center] to prove that the 117L system as conceived could indeed produce maps. Their position was simply this: the 117L system was still not loved by everyone, and extravagant claims had to be made. Certainly the claim that 117L couldn't do everything had to be fought and opposed, as a subversive heresy. Not at all surprising in view of the terms of the contract, and the interests of the contractors, two contractors did produce reports purporting to demonstrate that maps could be made from 117L photography. All it would take, it appears, is (a) very good luck, (b) a prodigious amount of precise data, including orbital positions and (c) a tremendous amount of computation and mathematics. Of these three ingredients, the only one whose availability could be counted on is the last.”[12]
Because of these inauspicious beginnings, Katz argued, the seeds of failure for SAMOS E-4 were already sown: “The simple fact of the matter is that the rubbery narrow angle photography produced by 117L is simply not the right way to make maps.” In addition, those involved in the decisions about SAMOS E-4 in spring 1959 could not agree on the proper orbit for the satellite. Katz and RAND argued that the satellite should fly in a very high orbit—1,000 nautical miles (1,850 kilometers)—to maximize mapping coverage. But the WS-117L program office preferred to fly the satellite in a 300-nautical-mile orbit, the same as its other planned reconnaissance satellites. Katz felt that this was stubbornness on the part of the leaders of the program office. He was also frustrated at the lack of support for his position from the other involved parties: the Air Force's Aeronautical Chart and Information Center (ACIC), the Wright Air Development Center (WADC, home of the Aerial Reconnaissance Laboratory), the Rome Air Development Center (RADC), Ballistic Missiles Division (BMD), and Lockheed. As he stated with his usual irreverent flair:
“ACIC's position must have gone something like this: look, we’re glad to be in this act – we’re glad that anyone wants to work on our problems - and after all, 300 miles is a hell of a lot better than the five, six or seven miles of airplane altitudes, and further, the difference between three hundred and a thousand miles is small compared to the basic fact of satellite mapping, so let’s not argue – let’s not rock the boat. WADC’s position was somewhat similar: we’re damn glad to get brought into the satellite business after starving for so many years and being frozen out, let’s not argue with our bosses at BMD, let’s get on with the job. Lockheed’s position is pretty obvious: they’re all for any mapping satellite because this means more contract, more satellites, more production, etc.”
Katz knew about the SAMOS E-4’s cancellation, but was almost certainly unaware of the Army’s SALAAM/VEDAS program. From Katz's point of view, the whole SAMOS E-4 had been nothing but a mess. As he summed up: “Well, here’s another good idea which had a rough infancy, a miserable childhood, and, after winning social acceptance, got cut down in its prime. We know the old saw ‘You can't win ’em all.’ OK, but why lose the good ones?”
ARGON
The ARGON program was started in 1959 to use a film camera and a recoverable capsule developed for the CORONA reconnaissance program for mapping purposes. The ARGON camera took photos of large areas of the Earth that had high-fidelity, meaning that the distance between any two points on an image were consistent. (credit: NRO)
ARGON
What Katz did not realize was that he had not lost the argument. By spring of 1959, the SAMOS E-4 program had effectively come to a halt. Just like his earlier arguments that had led to the film-return satellite, Katz had been right once again: the Air Force approach was unworkable, and another program was begun in great secrecy.
The full details of the SAMOS E-4 program during early to mid 1959 are unknown. Also unknown.is why the sponsorship of a geodetic satellite shifted from the Air Force’s Aeronautical Chart and Information Center to another organization. The US Army Map Service (AMS) was responsible for all American military mapping outside of the continental United States. It had an excellent relationship with the CIA and was actively using U-2 photography for mapping purposes. One of its major projects was making photomaps from U-2 images for use in Tibet, where the CIA and the Army were running a large covert operation.[13]
The US Army Corps of Engineers had also sponsored work at the Willow Run Laboratories of the University of Michigan. This work was labelled Project MICHIGAN and in 1957–1958, both the Project MICHIGAN staff and the WS-117L contractors had collaborated, evaluating the use of satellites for mapmaking.[14]
By summer 1959, the geodetic satellite program which was sponsored by both the US Army and the Advanced Research Projects Agency and was known as VEDAS, faced a problem. The satellite would use the same film return technique as CORONA but was not nearly as highly classified. It therefore jeopardized the Discoverer cover story for CORONA. DoD and CIA officials agreed to cancel VEDAS and recreate it under another name, ARGON. This program would use the same security and contractors then involved in CORONA. It would be entirely covert.
ARGON
ARGON was one of a family of camera systems that used the reentry vehicle and other systems of the CORONA reconnaissance program. (credit: NRO)
ARGON Begins
ARGON began in August 1959, at a time when a handful of CORONA research and development and operational test flights had already taken place. Army Colonel Charles Ruzek was placed in charge of the ARGON program in September 1959, which he initially managed from Washington, DC, as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Ruzek reported to Nick Golovin in the Advanced Research Projects Agency, then later to Bruce Billings in the Department of Defense’s office of the Deputy Director of Research and Engineering (DDR&E). Ruzek had considerable background in geodesy, having served in and commanded several Army Engineer Topographic Battalions. He had also been the Executive Officer of the Army Mapping Service.[15] He was briefed about the CORONA program by a CIA officer and also told about the U-2 overflight program. Ruzek considered ARGON to be a challenge. “We were breaking new ground,” he said.[16]
Although the program was formally managed by an Army officer, ARGON was placed within the security framework of the CORONA program. ARGON utilized the same spacecraft upper stage as CORONA—the Agena—and also the same basic structure and reentry systems. The integration of all the systems was done at the covert Lockheed Advanced Projects facility at East Palo Alto, California. The main difference between CORONA and ARGON was the camera.
Mahon’s urgency represented a little-recognized fact of the missile age: ICBMs were only as accurate as the targeting and geodetic data provided to them.
The CORONA camera then being produced was known as the “C” camera and was based upon a concept developed by the Itek Corporation of Boston, Massachusetts, which also manufactured the lenses. Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company (FCIC) at Syosset, Long Island, New York carried out the actual design and production of the CORONA camera as a subcontractor to Itek. The Army selected FCIC to produce the ARGON camera as well, with the Perkin-Elmer Corporation supplying the lenses.[17]
Unlike the panoramic CORONA camera, the ARGON camera was a single-frame design. It had a three-inch (7.5-centimeter) focal length and exposed a single frame that was 4.5 inches (11.4 centimeters) on a side (the film was five inches, or 13 centimeters, wide). As the shutter opened, a tiny amount of nitrogen was released behind the film. The combination of vacuum on one side and slight pressure on the other ensured that the film sat flush against the film platen containing a reseau grid located at the focal plane of the camera.[18] Film would leave the supply cassette which was above the camera, travel through the camera, and then continue forward into the take-up cassette inside the Satellite Recovery Vehicle (SRV). The SRV would jettison its heat shield after reentry and a film-return “bucket” containing the take-up cassette would float toward the ocean on a parachute, and would be snatched out of the air by a C-119 recovery aircraft.
ARGON was also equipped with a second camera for taking star images. This was referred to as the Stellar camera (usually capitalized in documents) and it was vital to the mapping mission. To accurately locate ARGON’s images on the Earth, the geodesists needed to obtain precise data on the location and orientation of the spacecraft (i.e. exactly where the camera was pointing). The Stellar camera provided this information by taking an image of the starfield at the same moment that the mapping camera photographed the ground. The Stellar camera had a three-inch focal length and a two-inch (five-centimeter) diameter circular format. It also recorded a binary time readout from an on-board clock. It was angled 10 degrees above the horizon.[19]
Because the Stellar camera provided information on the orientation of the mapping camera, its precise angular relationship to the mapping camera had to be accurately measured. FCIC’s engineers calibrated the cameras by taking the equipment to a precisely known astronomical observation site (either the Lowell or Palomar observatories) and taking simultaneous photographs of the stars with the Stellar and terrain cameras. This allowed them to calculate the angular relationship between the camera axes.[20] A cartographer could incorporate all the relevant data from the orbital track and Stellar and terrain cameras, and obtain precise mapping coordinates (i.e. latitude and longitude).
The early Discoverer/CORONA missions, which began in February 1959, all used the Agena A upper stage.[21] To reach a higher orbit, ARGON required the more powerful Agena B upper stage then in development. This higher orbit was better suited for the geodetic mission, but was still significantly below the orbit recommended by Katz and others at RAND in the late 1950s. But CORONA was the pioneering program, and it had to fly before ARGON would follow it into orbit
An urgent mission
Throughout 1959 and 1960, CORONA suffered a dozen failures before finally achieving its first success on August 18, 1960. On this same date, Colonel James E. Mahon of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (which consisted of the uniformed leaders of the four military services) wrote a top-secret memo to the Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance (COMOR).
COMOR was an interagency committee responsible for selecting the targets for American reconnaissance missions. By extension, it was also responsible for determining the schedule of launches. Mahon’s memo stated:
“The national requirements for reconnaissance and geodesy are both critical and it is difficult to assign relative priorities, i.e. reconnaissance is urgently needed to assess the threat of the USSR, and the geodetic locations must be acquired to ensure effectiveness of weapons systems in being, or soon to be deployed, as well as to maintain an effective deterrent posture.”
“It is proposed that the COMOR recommend to the CORONA and ARGON operators that, if it is technically feasible, at the earliest possible date a CORONA shot with the C’ (“C Prime”) camera and Agena B engine be utilized to obtain reconnaissance of the whole of Russia… to be followed as soon as possible by the ARGON camera with Agena B engine to fulfil geodesy requirements. While it is recognized that the implementation of this recommendation would alter the schedule established for these programs, the COMOR view is that the urgency of both national strategic targets (the objective of CORONA) and the geodesy requirements (ARGON) are of such urgency as to warrant the change in schedule if compatible with sound technical communications.”
Mahon’s urgency represented a little-recognized fact of the missile age: ICBMs were only as accurate as the targeting and geodetic data provided to them. Without accurate information on both the shape of the Earth and the precise location of the target on the Earth, the missile was shooting blind. Even if its guidance system worked perfectly, it might hit far from the actual target location.
By the late 1950s, military geodesists knew the accuracy of most targets within the Soviet Union to only two to three miles. This inaccuracy was added to the guidance system inaccuracy of the Atlas, Titan, and Minuteman missiles then under development. Without the data provided by satellites, ICBMs were practically useless weapons against military targets, although they could still be used to target large cities. ICBM accuracy soon increased rapidly, driving a requirement for better geodetic data.
ARGON
An ARGON mapping satellite image of Long Island, New York. Although these images could be enlarged to reveal details like cities and bridges, they were primarily used to create maps. (credit: Harry Stranger)
ARGON flies
The Air Force launched the first ARGON mission atop a Thor Agena B rocket on February 17, 1961. Officially and publicly known as Discoverer XX (“Discoverer 20”), it had a secret name known to only a few, CORONA Mission 9014A—A for ARGON. Like all early CORONA flights, it flew under the cover of the Discoverer program. Discoverer was nothing more than a clever deception to hide the CORONA program.
ARGON demonstrated the need for accurate satellite tracking and led to the development of a computer program to determine accurate orbital ephemeris data.
Mission 9014A successfully reached orbit and its camera operated as planned. On February 21, the Satellite Recovery Vehicle disconnected from the spacecraft, but due to an on-board malfunction, the SRV ejected half an orbit away from the recovery area northwest of Hawaii. It reentered over the Indian Ocean, far from recovery forces. Assuming that the reentry sequence operated successfully and the parachute deployed as planned at 60,000 feet (18,300 meters), the film-return “bucket” containing the film would have floated in the ocean for approximately 24 hours before filling with water and sinking. The first ARGON mission had failed.
The second ARGON mission, 9016A, was launched on April 8, 1961. On April 10, it too ended in failure when the deorbit retrorockets fired in the wrong direction and boosted the SRV into a higher orbit. The SRV stayed in orbit for a year before eventually reentering. Two more attempts, on June 8 and July 21, also ended in failure. The first was due to an Agena malfunction and the second to a Thor rocket failure.
Despite the urgency stressed by Colonel Mahon in his memo to COMOR, after these early disappointing results, ARGON did not fly again for nearly ten months. The pressure diminished at least in part because by mid-1961 CORONA had shown the Soviet ICBM threat to be virtually non-existent (although the matter was not definitively settled until late 1961). Urgency had also probably diminished due to a better understanding of the limits of accuracy of American ICBMs. By early 1962, Colonel Charles Ruzek had transferred to El Segundo, California, and the Air Force Office of Special Projects, where he ran ARGON and was the Deputy Director for Geodesy. He looked on the early ARGON failures as proof of Murphy's Law. The problems were fixable, it would just take brain power.[22] Unlike CORONA reconnaissance satellites, which flew year-round, ARGON only flew during the summer months, so Ruzek had a long time to wait before he would get the chance to fly again.
ARGON
ARGON
In August 1963, ARGON overflew Florida and photographed Cape Canaveral, including the missile and rocket launch sites there. This may be the first U.S. satellite image of the launch facilities. (credit: Harry Stranger)
The fifth mission, 9034A, launched on May 15, 1962, was a complete success and was recovered four days later. By this time the newly created National Reconnaissance Office, which was ostensibly in charge of American reconnaissance satellites, applied a new designation system to the reconnaissance satellites. Each camera system was· given a KEYHOLE designation followed by a number. Early CORONA missions were thus designated KH-1, 2, 3, and 4, and ARGON was designated KH-5.
Operationally, the ARGON satellites flew in a slightly higher orbit than their CORONA counterparts. Also, unlike CORONA, which turned its camera on only while over a target, the ARGON cameras operated continuously throughout a flight because each image covered a greater amount of territory and used less film.[23] Because of this, much of the imagery was cloud-covered and not usable.[24] Estimates for the percentage of cloud cover in early CORONA missions were about 50–60% and ARGON imagery would have been similar. This greatly improved by the end of the CORONA program in 1972, when only about 27–30% of the imagery was obscured by clouds.
The ARGON camera provided a resolution of approximately 450 feet (137 meters). Beginning in April 1963, the satellites utilized the more powerful Agena D upper stage and in October they used the even more powerful Thrust Augmented Thor (TAT) with its three solid rocket motors providing extra thrust. ARGON, like CORONA, soon began operating on a regular basis.
After the successful May 1962 mission, another mission in September ended in failure but was followed by another success in October. An April 1963 mission again ended in failure, but was followed by successful missions in August and October of 1963. These missions flew in approximately 95-degree polar orbits, with perigees of around 157 nautical miles (291 kilometers) and apogees around 351 nautical miles (650 kilometers). Program managers suspended ARGON launches during the winter months (although CORONA missions continued), and resumed them with two launches in June and August of 1964. The two 1964 missions went into highly retrograde 115-degree orbits. These last two flights carried the Starflash optical beacon, which was part of an unclassified geodetic mission.
ARGON Ends
A total of 12 ARGON missions were launched from February 1961 until August 1964. Six of these were successful. ARGON demonstrated the need for accurate satellite tracking and led to the development of a computer program to determine accurate orbital ephemeris data.[25] However, ARGON was not the first American space photographic system to be used for mapping the Earth. That system will be discussed in the next part of this series.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following people in the preparation of this account Charles Ruzek, Frank Madden, Amrom Katz, William Harris, Dick Buenneke, Bill King, Dino Brugioni, and Charlie Murphy.
Endnotes
Albert Wheelon, “CORONA: The First Reconnaissance Satellites,” Physics Today, February 1997.
Major General C.P. Cabell, Director of Intelligence, USAF, to Colonel B.A. Schriever, Assistant for Evaluation, Air Research and Development Command, March 17, 1951.
A.H. Katz, “More on the Mapping Satellite: Some Recent History for the Record, October 1, 1959,” D(L)-7169, February 8, 1960.
Amrom H. Katz, “Airborne Photography,” Photogrammetric Engineering, Vol. XIV, No. 4, December 1948, pp. 484-590.
J.E. Upp and R.M. Salter, "Project Feed Back Summary Report,'' AF 33(038)- 6413, The RAND Corporation, March 1954, p, 18, 95. Author’s note: The United States has rather stubbornly refused to convert to the metric system and all measurements on American reconnaissance programs are in English units of measurement, which I have prserved here. To convert the measures to metric, I am providing the following figures: One statute mile equals 5,280 feet or 1.609 kilometers. One nautical mile equals 6076 feet or 1.852 kilometers. One foot equals twelve inches or .3 meters. One inch equals 2.54 centimeters. My apologies for the absurdity of this situation.
“SAMOS Special Satellite Reconnaissance System,” United States Air Force, n.d., Office of the Staff Secretary: Records of Paul T. Carroll, Andrew J. Goodpaster, L. Arthur Minnich and Christopher H. Russell, 1952-61, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 15, “Intelligence Matters (14) [March-May 1960],” Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
Apparently no copies of this report, RAND Memorandum-2179, exist. It is mentioned in another RAND report A.H. Katz, “More on the Mapping Satellite: Some Recent History for the Record 1 October, 1959,” O(L)-7169, The RAND Corporation, February 8, 1960.
Bill King interview with Dwayne A. Day, March 28, 1996.
“Geodesy” is defined as the study of the shape and size of the Earth's surface. It is the most demanding of the mapping sciences and is required for most advanced military missions, particularly ICBM targeting.
Letter from William R. Harris to Dwayne A. Day, May 5, 1997.
A.H. Katz, “More on the Mapping Satellite.”
lbid.
Dino Brugioni telephone interview with Dwayne A. Day, May 14, 1997.
Letter from William R. Harris, to Dwayne A. Day, May 5, 1997.
Letter from Charles Ruzek, to Dwayne A. Day, April 18, 1996, p.1.
lbid.
Frank J. Madden, The CORONA Camera System: ltek’s Contribution to World Security, (self-published monograph) October 1996, p. 20.
Bill King, interview with Dwayne A. Day, 28 March 1996.
Letter from Charles Ruzek to Dwayne A. Day, January 21, 1997, p. 2. The DISIC camera used on the KH-4B CORONA satellite was reported to be “virtually identical” to the earlier ARGON camera, according to those who worked on the later program. DISIC actually had two Stellar cameras.
Letter from Charles Ruzek to Dwayne A. Day, January 21, 1997, p. 2.
The first three launches did not include a camera, but were still part of the CORONA program.
Letter from Charles Ruzek to Dwayne A. Day, April 18, 1997.
Charlie Murphy, interview with Dwayne A. Day, December 5, 1996.
Dino Brugioni, interview with Dwayne A. Day, November 6, 1996, and Charlie Murphy, interview with Dwayne A. Day, December 5, 1996.
Letter from Charles Ruzek to Dwayne A. Day, January 21, 1997.
Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.
DARPA And The Moon
Lunar base
For the Moon, DARPA’s strengths are not in developing infrastructure but instead architectures for interoperability. (credit: ESA/P. Carril)
DARPA’s real lunar opportunity: Build the operating system, not the outpost
by Michael B. Stennicke
Monday, November 17, 2025
When DARPA announced new programs on lunar logistics and autonomy, most headlines focused on spacecraft and hardware. Yet the real frontier the agency can shape is architectural, not mechanical.
The organization that once seeded the Internet can now do something comparable for the Moon by defining the protocols that will allow autonomous systems to coordinate, account, and trade without continuous human supervision.
A third industrial world
Lunar operations cannot rely on terrestrial command structures. Latency, radiation, and cost make constant oversight impossible. Once equipment is on the surface, it must detect, decide, and repair on its own. That is not strategic independence; it is merely a longer supply chain.
DARPA’s comparative advantage has never been building hardware; it is building architectures that let hardware cooperate.
Mining companies understand extraction and capital scale; launch firms understand access. The missing domain—the one that will determine who truly controls production—is the machine domain: fleets of autonomous miners, smelters, and fabricators operating on local inputs and governed by software rather than sovereignty.
Why DARPA is the catalyst
DARPA’s comparative advantage has never been building hardware; it is building architectures that let hardware cooperate. Just as ARPANET connected isolated computers into a resilient network, DARPA could now prototype an Interplanetary Industrial Protocol (IIP) linking lunar assets into a single economic fabric.
The agency’s mandate should not be to construct another base. It should be to define an open Lunar Operating System: frameworks governing how autonomous units communicate, meter resources, and self-govern in a zero-trust environment. This would ensure interoperability before national or corporate silos harden.
From hardware race to system design
A lunar operating system would rest on three technical pillars:
Autonomy: self-healing, learning control systems able to re-plan tasks and recover from faults without waiting for Earth.
Recursion: manufacturing processes that reuse local material to fabricate spares and expand capacity, enabling exponential growth instead of linear scaling.
Protocolized governance: cryptographically verifiable ledgers metering every joule and kilogram of output, allowing transparent trade, insurance, and audit among machines.
Together these create industrial deterrence by design: Resilience through architecture rather than defense through force. A network that repairs and rebalances itself cannot easily be coerced or cornered.
Strategic payoff
For the United States and its allies, seeding this architecture would be a strategic multiplier. It embeds openness and accountability—the hallmarks of the free-market order—into the industrial DNA of space before authoritarian models take root.
Instead of racing to claim regolith, the US could define the standards by which regolith is processed and exchanged. That approach leverages DARPA’s strengths: interoperability, pre-commercial R&D, and risk tolerance. A Phase 0 program might build simulation environments, data schemas, and security models; later performers could deploy prototype nodes on the lunar surface under Artemis or Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) missions. The deliverable would not be a single installation but a reference model any operator can adopt.
Avoiding a new Cold War in space
If the first Space Race was about presence, the next is about persistence. Hardware can be copied; architectures shape economies. Defining the operating system of lunar industry is how the United States can ensure long-term access and stability without weaponizing the frontier.
DARPA’s legacy is not rockets or weapons, but instead systems that outlast them. From GPS to ARPANET, its greatest contributions turned experiments into global infrastructure. The Moon offers the same opportunity on a larger stage.
The race will not be won by who lands first or digs deepest, but by who writes the rules the machines follow. That is the architecture DARPA should fund: an operating system for civilization beyond Earth.
Michael B. Stennicke is founder of Vitruvian Space Systems and author of the Industrial Economics of Civilization Expansion (IECE) series. The views expressed are his own.
America Needs An Astroelectricity Transition Policy
SBSP
Space-based solar power, or “astroelectricity,” may be the only renewable power option to meet American energy needs in the coming decades. (credit: ESA/Andreas Treuer)
America needs a National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy
by Mike Snead
Monday, November 17, 2025
This article builds on my previous article here, “Astroelectricity: America’s national energy security imperative”. In this article, I explain why the Trump Administration—specifically, the National Space(faring) Council under the leadership of Vice President JD Vance—should formulate a National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy to guide America in undertaking an orderly transition to space solar power-supplied astroelectricity. I also propose a presidential executive order that would task the National Space(faring) Council to prepare such a policy for presidential approval.
Addressing America’s hidden energy security crisis
When was the last time that a prominent national leader discussing energy mentioned that 80% of the energy Americans use comes from fossil carbon fuels while emphasizing that these were non-sustainable and questioning how long these would remain plentiful and affordable? Having been intently focused on America’s energy security for most of the last two decades, I cannot recall a single instance. Instead, the often-intense public rhetoric focuses on climate change, global warming, and the price of gasoline. This lack of forthrightness by our national leaders has deeply buried any public concerns about the consequences of the inevitability that America’s production of these vital fuels will peak and then begin to decline. Unless America aggressively undertakes an orderly transition to sustainable energy, America will economically falter, permanently. With history as a clear guide, warfare will follow just as happened when America first became oil insecure in the early 1970s.
Unless America aggressively undertakes an orderly transition to sustainable energy, America will economically falter, permanently.
I applaud President Trump prioritizing returning America to being energy secure as part of his administration’s “Make America Great Again” agenda. Yet, being built on a foundation of diminishing fossil carbon fuel resources, for MAGA to persist, America must become permanently energy secure using only sustainable energy. For this to happen, the starting point is to formalize a presidential policy firmly establishing how and by when America will undertake an orderly transition to practicable sustainable energy.
America’s remaining technically recoverable oil and natural gas resources
How much oil and natural gas remains in America’s “national gas tank”
The following maps illustrate where coal, oil, and natural gas can be found in the contiguous US. These fossil carbon fuel deposits were created hundreds of millions of years ago when the climate favored robust plant growth. By good fortune, America was established on a continent rich in these fuels that at the time of its founding were inconsequential for an agrarian economy but were vital for America’s transition, then unforeseen, over the next two centuries into an industrial powerhouse and global Great Power.
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Figure 1: The upper map shows the locations of coal resources in the US. The different colors represent different qualities of coal in terms of pure carbon content. Generally, this indicates different, often overlapping, deeply buried geological formations. The lower map shows where oil and gas wells have been drilled in and around the US. Many of these wells were exploration wells.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) was established in 1879 to identify and locate natural resources, such as fossil carbon fuels, to enable the federal government to understand where and to what extent economically vital natural resources could be used. Periodically, the USGS publishes its estimate of the extent of the remaining in situ resources that are deemed “technically recoverable.” This means the amount that can be brought to market, regardless of cost, using available technological means and within permitted recovery parameters (e.g., legal restrictions.) For federal energy security planning purposes, this USGS estimate is the best available.
As of January 1, 2020, the USGS estimated that the US had nearly 896 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) of “technically recoverable” crude oil and natural gas. The estimated values are shown in the following table.
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Figure 2: Table showing the remaining US technically recoverable crude oil and dry natural gas resources as of January 1, 2020.
The total amounts for oil and natural gas are the sum of two values. The first is the “proved reserves” in clearly identified oil and gas fields with solid estimates of how much oil and gas can be recovered. These values come from the oil companies controlling the producing fields where they have used test wells, as well as producing wells, to estimate how much oil and natural gas will likely be recovered with high confidence—hence the name “proved”. These estimates are used to establish a valuation of the resources under their control and negotiate future delivery contracts.
Essentially, America’s gas tank would be empty around the year 2100!
As the name implies, the “unproved resources” are simply the best guesses by the USGS of how much additional oil and natural gas would be expected to be produced nationally, beyond the proved resources, based on geological similarity and proximity to proven fields. Of the 896 billion BOE total, 85% is unproved resources. Thus, while there is high confidence in 15% of the total, the majority of what underpins America’s current “on paper” energy security is just a USGS best guess.
The timeline for America’s needed transition to sustainable energy
As shown in the above figure, the US consumed 12 billion BOE of oil and natural gas in 2019. These two fuels supply about 70 percent of the total energy Americans now use. Thus, continued robust oil and natural gas, at affordable prices, is clearly vital to America’s energy security.
America’s economy was quite robust in 2019, prior to the start of the economic disruption beginning in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the further economic sluggishness that persisted since 2020 until very recently, the combined 12 billion BOE is a good planning estimate for how much oil and natural gas America’s economy needs annually, as a minimum, to remain prosperous.
Imagine that the entirety of the nearly 900 billion BOE of US oil and natural gas resources has been located and identified as proved reserves. This is what remains in the “national gas tank,” so to speak, to keep America energy secure and prosperous. At the annual drawdown rate of 12 billion BOE, the nearly 900 billion BOE would be exhausted in only about 75 years. Essentially, America’s gas tank would be empty around the year 2100!
While this is a crude way of estimating how long US domestic oil and natural gas resources will last—given that 85% of the total has yet to be proven—it is the best “formal” federal estimate available to establish a planning timeline for America’s unavoidable transition to sustainable energy. Therefore, around the end of this century, and likely earlier with substantial net exports of American oil and natural gas or increased energy demand from AI and/or population growth, the general use of fossil oil and natural gas will end in America. Since most children alive today—the inheritors of our energy security planning wisdom—will live to see that happen, we have a clear moral obligation to make this transition happen successfully.
Finally, it is important to recognize that the need to begin an orderly transition to sustainable energy is far sooner than 2100. In the decades ahead—no one now knows exactly when—the domestic production of oil and natural gas will peak and begin to decline below domestic needs just as first happened in the 1970s. Without new sustainable replacement energy sources coming online by that time, America will again become energy insecure and need to import oil and natural gas. To avoid a return to the dangers of energy insecurity, America urgently needs a formal sustainable energy transition policy.
Astroelectricity is America’s only practicable primary future source of sustainable energy
Narrowing America’s options to one—astroelectricity
My preceding article summarized the results of my recently released “Assessment of US sustainable energy needs and transition options”. In that assessment, I began by narrowing the potentially scalable transition options to four: wind power, ground solar power, nuclear fission power, and space solar power (SSP)-supplied astroelectricity.
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Figure 3: Three of the four scalable options for supplying America with sustainable energy are not practicable options for America to pursue.
As discussed in my previous article, no combination of wind power and/or ground solar power provides a practicable solution. Wind power alone or in combination with ground solar power would require coast-to-coast wind farms while ground solar power alone or in combination with wind power would require a massive takeover of agricultural land to build the solar farms. Further, their unpredictable intermittency also prevents these options from being practicable solutions, “able to be put in practice successfully.”
Until there is a demonstrated breakthrough in a new form of clean terrestrial energy generation, this leaves astroelectricity as America’s only practicable path to become and remain permanently energy secure.
The nuclear fission power solution—once again the favored choice of the US Department of Energy—is also an unwise solution as a general energy option to replace fossil carbon fuels. This is due to issues that include the need for massive fissile fuel breeding; real concerns about enabling nuclear weapon proliferation; limited plant siting locations due to natural hazards (e.g., earthquakes, floods); very real threats of terrorist, electromagnetic pulse (EMP), and hacking attacks; the lack of approved permanent nuclear waste storage; and, the impracticability of handling a steadily increasing number of decommissioned, highly-radioactive reactors.
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Figure 4: Baseline five-gigawatt (GW) space solar power concept showing the SSP platform in geostationary Earth orbit transmitting power via radio waves to the ground astroelectric plant containing the receiving antennas (rectenna) that convert the transmitted power into useful baseload electrical power.
Until there is a demonstrated breakthrough in a new form of clean terrestrial energy generation (e.g., practicable nuclear fusion power), this leaves developing SSP-supplied astroelectricity as America’s only practicable path to become and remain permanently energy secure. Thus, a presidential National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy is needed now.
The scale of astroelectricity needed to remain energy secure
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Figure 5: Wind and ground solar photovoltaic farms. (Commercial image, used as permitted.)
A key part of my assessment was estimating the scale of what it will take for America to “go clean.” While needing to know this is obviously required to map out an orderly transition, rarely, if ever, has the magnitude of needed new sustainable energy generation capacity been mentioned in public. Instead, political posturing and usually inaccurate reporting have profoundly misled the American public to believe that a random smattering of wind and ground solar farms will make America’s transition to clean energy practicable and quick.
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Figure 6: History of US energy use from 1850 to 2023 with projection to 2100 incorporating an orderly transition to primarily astroelectricity.
The chart above shows America’s historical use of energy, by source, as a percentage of the total energy used as well as a future involving an orderly transition to using only non-fossil carbon fuels by 2100. For this sustainable energy transition planning discussion, the initial phase-in of the primary electrical power supplied by the astroelectric plants notionally begins in 2045, presumably around when domestic oil and natural gas production would peak. From 2045 onward, an increasing supply of clean primary electrical power from the astroelectric plants would make up for reductions in oil and natural gas supplies. (Of course, hydroelectricity, geothermal electricity, and some biomass would likely still be used. However, because these are limited in scalable generation capacity compared to the total need, they are ignored in this top-level discussion.)
The table below shows what I estimate to be the total primary continuous electrical power that America would have needed to have already transitioned entirely in 2019 to sustainable energy. America would have needed 5,424 gigawatts of continuous (GWc) baseload electrical power. Putting the magnitude of America’s needed new clean energy infrastructure into perspective, it is equal to the generating capacity of 2,712 two-gigawatt Hoover Dams operating continuously. (For comparison, America now has around 80 GWc of nuclear fission power and less than 30 GWc of hydroelectric power.)
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Figure 7: Amount of equivalent continuous electrical power (GWc) and the equivalent number of Hoover Dams operating continuously that America would have needed in 2019 to have already transitioned to sustainable energy.
I assume that SSP platforms will supply 80% of the needed 5,424 GWc. This significantly minimizes the land area within the contiguous US that must be used. However, this will require that around 900 five-gigawatt SSP platforms be built in geostationary Earth orbit by 2100. From 2045 to 2100, an average of around 16 of the SSP platforms must become operational each year for America to remain energy secure. Given the immensity of this undertaking, certainly this is an energy security crisis warranting presidential action beginning with a well-developed National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy,
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Figure 8: Comparison of the total land area needed for using only ground solar farms and using just the astroelectric plants to meet the total sustainable energy need of 5,424 GWc of primary electrical power.
Summarizing my concerns in a message to the president
Prior to the publication of my previous article, I sent the following to President Trump with copies to Vice President Vance and the Secretary of Energy, the Honorable Chris Wright:
Dear Mr. President,
As a Professional Engineer (PE) with a deep commitment to America’s energy security, I urge your administration to develop and implement a National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy that will keep America permanently energy secure and energy independent once America’s use of fossil carbon fuels ends.
Your January 20, 2025, Executive Order, “Declaring a National Energy Emergency”, was a needed first step to restore America’s energy security by increasing the domestic supply of energy. However, the underlying threat to America’s energy security remains: the fact that 80 percent of the energy we use still comes from non-sustainable fossil carbon fuels with oil and natural gas accounting for about 70 percent of the total we use. According to January 1, 2020, Government estimates, the US only has about a 75-year technically recoverable supply of these two fuels at the 2019 consumption rate. Hence, without a successful transition to sustainable energy—for which no plan now exists!—America will inevitably, once again, become dangerously energy insecure. It is vital that the Federal Government decisively act to prevent this from happening.
Since 2008, I have extensively studied America’s energy needs and the sustainable energy options America could use to replace fossil carbon fuels with clean electricity and clean carbon fuels. To permanently become sustainable energy secure, while keeping America economically prosperous and at peace, the US would need a new primary sustainable electrical energy supply equivalent to roughly 2,500 Hoover Dams operating continuously.
At this scale needed to replace fossil fuels, my research shows that NO terrestrial sustainable energy sources (including wind power, ground solar power, and nuclear fission power) are practicable replacements. This leaves only space solar power (SSP)-supplied astroelectricity as the primary means for America to become permanently energy secure.
To supply astroelectricity, the US needs nearly 900 Manhattan Island-size solar energy collection platforms in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO). Each of these will transmit 5 gigawatts (GW) of collected solar power via radio waves to its ground astroelectric plant. This astroelectricity will then be used by local utilities to dispatch power to their customers and used to synthesize clean carbon fuels (e.g., gasoline and synthetic methane) and industrial feedstocks (e.g., plastics) from captured CO2 and clean hydrogen to fully replace fossil carbon fuels. With this approach, the transition to sustainable energy will be seamless and orderly. Also, these clean carbon fuels will NOT add any net CO2 to the atmosphere.
It is imperative that the initial GEO SSP systems and ground astroelectric plants be constructed and operating before fracked oil and natural gas production peaks in the coming decades. Achieving this will require establishing a substantial new American human spacefaring enterprise stretching throughout the central solar system to construct and operate those systems. For this transition to be successful, the development of SSP must be prioritized as a national energy security imperative, serving as the cornerstone of a now needed National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy.
My proposed presidential executive order
To build the needed astroelectricity-based clean energy infrastructure and be ready to begin successful initial operations when domestic supplies of oil and natural gas begin to decline, decisive presidential action is needed now. America needs a wartime-equivalent spacefaring industrialization plan to create the substantial American commercial human spacefaring industrial enterprise that will build and operate the nearly 900 SSP systems needed. In parallel, America needs a terrestrial sustainable energy development plan that will build the equally substantial terrestrial sustainable energy infrastructure to convert the transmitted astroelectricity into robust supplies of clean dispatchable electricity, fuels, and industrial feedstocks keeping America’s economy “well fed” and Americans prosperous and energy secure throughout the transition and beyond.
Preceding these plans is the need for a presidential National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy identifying the specific objectives to be accomplished; delegating these to the implementing federal government departments, agencies, and non-governmental organizations; and, communicating these efforts to Congress as proposed legislative changes and authorized expenditures. Triggering the creation of this policy would be a detailed presidential executive order, such as the one I propose in the following:
EXECUTIVE ORDER DECLARING A NATIONAL SUSTAINABLE ENERGY SECURITY EMERGENCY AND DIRECTING THE CREATION OF A NATIONAL ASTROELECTRICITY ENERGY SECURITY TRANSITION POLICY TO INITIATE AND GUIDE AMERICA’S TRANSITION TO SUSTAINABLE ENERGY
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose and Findings.
A. The energy security of the United States is critically threatened by an inadequate long-term sustainable energy supply. Despite the current abundance of domestic oil and natural gas, America's long-term energy security is uncertain because current attempts to replace fossil carbon fuels with sustainable energy are failing. Fossil carbon fuels are non-renewable, and it is only a matter of time before domestic supplies of oil and natural gas—vital to America’s economy—begin to become scarce, risking a return to America’s energy security-driven geopolitical turmoil that beleaguered America for much of the last half-century.
B. America must immediately begin to plan an orderly transition to practicable sources of abundant, all-year reliable sustainable energy. The complexity of America's energy use requires a substantially new sustainable energy infrastructure that supplies baseload and dispatchable electrical power, sustainable carbon fuels, and sustainable carbon-based industrial feedstocks. To prevent economic disruption and foster public acceptance, this transition must be seamless and non-burdensome to the end users of energy and energy-related products.
C. Current scalable terrestrial sustainable energy options are insufficient to enable America to permanently become energy secure with abundant sustainable energy. To replace fossil carbon fuels, the United States needs over 5,400 gigawatts (GW) of baseload primary electrical power generation capacity to supply needed dispatchable electrical power and synthesize sustainable fuels and industrial feedstocks. For perspective, this is equivalent to over 2,700 2-GW Hoover Dams operating continuously. The scope of the needed new American sustainable energy infrastructure is the first element justifying designating this as a national emergency.
D. Terrestrial intermittent sources, such as wind and ground solar power, are impracticable at the scale required. A coast-to-coast forest of immense wind turbines would still be insufficient to meet US energy needs. Ground solar photovoltaic farms alone would require dedicating over one million square kilometers (about 14% of the contiguous US) to solar farms. Further, neither can supply the baseload primary power needed throughout the year for a reliably functioning national energy infrastructure.
E. Nuclear fission power faces substantial scale-up hurdles. A substantial expansion sufficient to replace fossil carbon fuels raises scale-up concerns regarding fissile fuel breeding, waste disposal, and the necessity to build and decommission thousands of reactors. While the limited use of nuclear fission power could be continued as part of assuring energy redundancy during emergencies, its use shall be consistent with demonstrated nuclear power plant safety assurances, local environmental protection, protections against nuclear weapon proliferation, protections from natural and other security threats to the nuclear plants and American public, Congressional approval of permanent acceptable nuclear waste disposal capabilities and nuclear plant decommissioning regulations, and adequate sources of fissile fuels not enabling nuclear weapon proliferation.
F. The development of practicable commercial nuclear fusion power generation will continue with a goal of achieving a baseload electrical power generation capability to replace existing nuclear fission power plants and augment astroelectric plants. However, considerations noted earlier regarding safety, threats, nuclear weapon proliferation, waste disposal, et cetera, shall be fully addressed in these development efforts for nuclear fusion power to become a true sustainable energy source.
G. Research into nuclear fission power and nuclear fusion power for off-world use, including advanced space propulsion, will continue.
H. Space Solar Power (SSP)-supplied astroelectricity will be presumed to become America’s primary source of baseload power feeding America’s clean energy infrastructure. Only SSP-supplied astroelectricity now provides America with an orderly path to transition this century to the abundant sustainable energy needed to replace fossil carbon fuels. Extensive studies undertaken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the US Department of Energy, and industry in the late 1970s and early 1980s found that SSP is technologically feasible. On this basis, with good confidence and exploiting nearly a half-century of further aerospace technological advances, the United States can initiate the development of SSP-related extraterrestrial and terrestrial capabilities leading to the construction of prototype SSP systems as the first step to the operational deployment of SSP.
I. Despite now having immense remaining in situ technically recoverable fossil carbon fuels, for planning purposes, a complete transition from these vital but non-sustainable energy sources to primarily astroelectricity will be assumed to be needed by 2100.
J. To prevent America again becoming energy insecure, the initial supply of sustainable electrical power from the astroelectric plants must be available no later than when domestic production of oil and natural gas begins to decline in the coming decades. The clear national energy security need to avoid becoming energy insecure again is a second element justifying undertaking this transition as a national emergency.
K. To pursue the development of SSP, America must quickly and fully transition from the current era of limited human space exploration to that of a robust commercial human spacefaring nation operating routinely and safely throughout the central solar system. It is anticipated that thousands of Americans will be working off-world in the coming decades to bring SSP online. Of course, human space exploration (e.g., exploring Mars), led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), will continue, but this shall be an adjunct to the priority of commercializing America’s human spacefaring enterprise to develop SSP.
Section 2. Definitions and guidance.
A. The term “space solar power” (SSP) means sunlight converted into useful electrical power in space and transmitted via electromagnetic (EM) radiation (radio waves or lasers) to ground receiving stations or to other locations in space for use as a power source.
B. The term “SSP platform” means orbiting systems used to convert sunlight into useful electrical power and transmit this power to the ground receiving stations or to other locations in space for use as a power source.
C. The term “astroelectricity” is the name of the electrical power supplied by the SSP-transmitted EM radiation after having been converted into alternating or direct current electrical power.
D. The term ‘‘sustainable (clean) energy infrastructure’’ means the fully integrated system required to replace fossil carbon fuels with sustainable (clean) electrical power, fuels, and industrial feedstocks.
E. The term ‘‘astroelectric plant’’ means a ground receiving station (rectenna farm) used primarily to collect SSP-transmitted EM radiation, convert it into usable astroelectricity, and supply this to the nation’s power grid.
F. The term ‘‘energy supply’’ means the production, transportation, refining, and generation of electricity, fuels, and energy produced industrial feedstocks.
G. The term “spaceworthiness” defines a condition of acceptable operational safety of human space flight systems consistent with and comparable to airworthiness. Spaceworthiness shall be essential for all government and commercial human extraterrestrial transportation systems (e.g., spaceplanes and spaceships) and accommodations (e.g., space stations and space habitats) used by crew, passengers, workers, and guests.
H. The term “spaceworthiness certification” will be an independent means to establish spaceworthiness consistent with and comparable to that undertaken by commercial and military airworthiness certification. Spaceworthiness certification shall be required for all transatmospheric and exoplanetary systems and accommodations used by governmental personnel, commercial operators and crew, and the public, and where the safety of the non-involved public is at a non-remote risk. The imposition of spaceworthiness certification recognizes that for America to successfully become a true human spacefaring nation, the Government’s ethical “duty to care” obligation to ensure the safety of Americans must be met. Military and commercial airworthiness certification protocols have clearly demonstrated that this is the best available means of achieving and maintaining acceptable operational safety and correcting deficiencies that do occur. Logically, the extension and expansion of the airworthiness certification protocols into all aspects of America’s emerging human spacefaring enterprise is warranted. Consequently, federal military and commercial spaceworthiness certification shall replace all other human safety assurance methods and approvals and shall be used for future planning purposes other than those uniquely used only by NASA astronauts.
I. The term “astrologistics” refers to logistics undertaken to transport, deploy, house, sustain, maintain, and provide emergency services to enable Americans to undertake commercial and non-NASA governmental human operations in outer space.
Section 3. Presumptions.
A. For planning purposes, the presumption is that SSP-supplied astroelectricity will provide 80 percent of the total dispatched electrical power and synthetic fuels and industrial feedstocks needed by the US by 2100. The remaining 20 percent by 2100 will come from existing hydroelectric and geothermal-electric sources, biomass energy systems, nuclear fission power plants rebuilt using new modular reactors, and ground solar photovoltaic farms integrated into the rectenna arrays of the astroelectric plants.
B. For planning purposes, 900 5-GW SSP platforms and ground receiving stations (astroelectric plants) within the contiguous US will be needed by 2100.
C. By the year 2100, it will be assumed that existing wind farms, ground solar farms, and nuclear fission power plants not being updated will have been decommissioned due to age.
D. The use of passive solar energy and building roof-top solar power systems will be assumed to be incorporated into new national building codes focused on reducing per person energy use consistent with the objective of a seamless and non-burdensome national transition to sustainable energy.
Section 4. National Spacefaring Council tasking.
A. Under the direction of the Vice President, the National Space Council—hereby redesignated as the National Spacefaring Council—shall prepare a draft National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy for presidential approval. This policy shall identify and address all aspects of America’s transition to using SSP-supplied astroelectricity as the primary source of sustainable energy.
B. The National Spacefaring Council will coordinate its efforts with the National Security Council to ensure that all requirements related to America’s national security are fully addressed during, and subsequent to, America’s transition to sustainable energy.
C. Following presidential approval, the National Spacefaring Council will coordinate the preparation of proposed legislation authorizing, regulating, and funding efforts of the Federal Government and interstate (interplanetary) commerce required to implement the federal responsibilities and taskings identified by the policy.
Section 5. National Astroelectricity Energy Security Transition Policy development.
A. Due to the importance of energy use throughout America’s economy, the policy will be comprehensive in nature, essentially becoming an “all of America” roadmap for America’s sustainable energy transition.
B. The policy shall specifically incorporate the term “astroelectricity” in its name to retain its focus on utilizing SSP-supplied astroelectricity as the primary means for America to undertake an orderly transition to practicable sustainable energy.
C. The policy will be divided into an extraterrestrial segment, a terrestrial segment, a foreign affairs segment, and an interface segment. (1) The extraterrestrial segment shall address all national needs—governmental and commercial—related to human and robotic spacefaring operations enabling and supporting the off-planet commercial SSP industry. The extraterrestrial segment shall plan the formation of the American commercial and governmental spacefaring operations required to research, develop, resource explore, extract needed extraterrestrial resources, manufacture, construct, deploy, operate, maintain, defend, and protect America’s SSP energy supply. Annexes to the extraterrestrial segment shall:
(a) Identify the responsibilities of the Department of War to protect and defend its own and other governmental and commercial human spacefaring operations throughout the central solar system.
(b) Identify the responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security for the operation of a “Space Guard” to undertake law enforcement and other Coast Guard-like responsibilities off-planet consistent with protecting America’s vital interests.
(c) Identify the responsibilities of the Departments of Commerce, Transportation, and War to establish a national astrologistical infrastructure to enable routine, robust, and operationally safe governmental and commercial human spacefaring operations throughout the central solar system.
(d) Include a coordinated strategy by the Departments of Transportation and War to establish military and commercial spaceworthiness certification.
(2) The terrestrial segment shall address all national needs—governmental and commercial—for developing, deploying, and operating the ground portion of the new sustainable energy infrastructure. This will include the astroelectric plants to receive and deliver the imported astroelectricity, the electrical power transmission infrastructure to deliver clean electrical power, and the synthetic fuels and industrial feedstock plants that will use this clean electrical power to supply carbon dioxide (CO2)-neutral carbon fuels and industrial feedstocks. Annexes to the terrestrial segment shall:
(a) Identify specific responsibilities of federal departments and agencies for planning and implementing the terrestrial segment.
(b) Include an idealized optimistic representation/visualization of what a 22nd century America, powered completely by sustainable energy, could look like to familiarize Americans with the full benefits of “going clean”.
(c) Include an economic analysis assessing the cost-effectiveness of reducing America’s current per person energy use by one-half by rebuilding most of America using new technology-enabled 22nd century energy efficiency technologies. The analysis should assess the benefits to be realized by replacing most non-historic 19th and 20th century housing, businesses, schools, and transportation infrastructure to improve America’s overall standard of living while also maintaining an individual’s lifestyle choices (e.g., urban, suburban, and rural).
(3) The foreign affairs segment shall address extending the clean energy security benefits of using SSP to America’s allies and other non-adversarial nations who wish to join with America in transitioning to SSP-supplied astroelectricity. An important facet of this effort is to enable the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals requiring clean and plentiful energy to be achieved worldwide, thereby fostering global peace, prosperity, and joint security.
(4) The interface segment shall identify, coordinate, and track the three separate segments to ensure a wholly coordinated/integrated effort. A product of the interface segment shall be a national report card tracking progress and reporting challenges remaining for America to “go clean” by the year 2100. An annex to the interface segment shall identify a roadmap for maximizing the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) to enable and minimize the cost of America transitioning to sustainable energy.
Conclusion
A century ago, the farsighted pioneering Russian space scientist and philosopher, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, wrote “Sixteen Stages of Space Exploration”. He wrote: “Mankind will not forever remain on Earth but, in the pursuit of light and space, will first timidly emerge from the bounds of the atmosphere and then advance until he has conquered the whole of circumsolar space.”
It is imperative that the initial GEO SSP systems and ground astroelectric plants be constructed and operating before fracked oil and natural gas production peaks in the coming decades.
We have now progressed through the first ten stages. Stage 11 is “Using sunlight to power human habitats, propel spacecraft, grow food, and meet humanity’s growing need for sustainable energy” per the modernized version of his writing. With the “Age of Fossil Fuels” ending, the time to undertake Stage 11 has arrived.
Returning America to being energy secure has proven to be a critical step in President Trump’s goal to “Make America Great Again” while also advancing world peace. Developing astroelectricity to make America permanently energy secure will “seal the deal” Trump made with the American people to ensure that America remains free, prosperous, and at peace.
James Michael (Mike) Snead is an aerospace Professional Engineer (PE) in the United States, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a past chairman of the AIAA’s Space Logistics Technical Committee. He is the founder and president of the Spacefaring Institute LLC which is focused on space solar power-generated astroelectricity and the astrologistics infrastructure necessary to enable the spacefaring industrial revolution that will build space solar power energy systems. Mike Snead has been involved in space development since the mid-1980s when he supported the US Air Force Transatmospheric Vehicle (TAV) studies, the National Aerospace Plane program, and the Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) project. In 2007, after retiring from civilian employment with the Air Force, he focused on the need for (and politics associated with) undertaking space solar power. Beginning in the late 1980s, he has published numerous papers and articles on various aspects of manned spaceflight, astrologistics, and America’s and the world’s needed transition to sustainable energy. His technical papers are located at ResearchGate and https://mikesnead.com. His blog is at: https://spacefaringamerica.com. His eBook, Astroelectricity, can be downloaded for free here. He can be contacted through LinkedIn or at spacefaringinstitute@gmail.com.
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