Post-WWII Space Race Begins

The early speculative study of space travel was international in focus. In 1904, a Russian named Tsiolkovsky published a detailed look at the mathematical requirements to propel a rocket into space. From there, U.S. rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard was the first to propose that rockets could travel to the moon using liquid fuels (instead of more basic solid-fuel or gunpowder rockets, used as early as the 13th century). His work was funded by the Smithsonian Institute, Charles Lindbergh, and later the Guggenheim Fund. Though largely ridiculed in the United States for his ideas, German scientists and mathematicians took notice. Though earlier studies focused on the plausibility of space exploration, the first rockets to be built were in Germany during the early 1930s by a rocket club trying to experiment with actualizing these early conceptions. By the mid-1930s, the German military began a facility for space research on the Baltic Sea. They developed the original ballistic missile (the V2 or “Vengeance Weapon 2”), considered the prototype for the first space rocket. Toward the end of WWII, just a few months before Germany surrendered to the Allied forces in Europe, many of the scientists working on the Nazi rocket program surrendered to the United States, believing they would be able to levy their expertise for clemency. Their plan worked, and the plans and knowledge of the V2 that they brought to the U.S. were instrumental in the U.S. space program. The Soviet Union established a military facility devoted to rocket research as early as 1921. By 1933, two aeronautical engineers, Valentin Glushko and Sergey Korolyov, launched the first Soviet liquid-fuel rocket. Though the Soviets visited Germany’s rocket facility after WWII, they did not benefit from the immigration of German scientists as the U.S. did.

Satellites for Spying

Though the technology had been pursued for decades, the first rockets were intended to be used as something other than weapons. Instead, both the Soviet Union and U.S. rocket programs focused on launching satellites into space with sophisticated cameras attached that could be used to spy on one another. Interestingly, this effort was chosen as a means to be in adherence to international law. By 1944, two treaties (the Paris Convention of 1919 Relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation and the Chicago Convention on International Aviation) prohibited states from entering the airspace over a state’s territory (from the ground to about 3.4 miles above the earth’s surface) without permission.2 As a result, both the U.S. and the USSR sought spying capabilities outside the airspace of the other in the area known as aerospace, or the outermost layer of the earth’s surface and outer space.

In October 1957, the USSR launched the first aerospace satellite, Sputnik (Russian for “satellite”), via a ballistic missile.3 The U.S. military doubted that the USSR had the technological prowess to launch a satellite (as the ballistic missile testing had been kept secret until August of that same year). It looks like they needed those satellites for spying, after all. In 1957 and 1958, the Soviets launched two larger satellites into space, Sputniks one and two. The second satellite had a dog named Laika on board so the Soviets could show they could launch life into space. The dog, sadly, did not make it. That said, in 1960, Sputnik 5 took two dogs into space. Both have survived. One year after the orbit of Sputnik 2 (the first one with the dog) in 1957, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 1348 recognizing the “common interest of mankind in outer space” and that space should be “used for peaceful purposes only” to avoid “the extension of present national rivalries into [space].” 

Initially, Eisenhower dismissed the Soviets’ success, calling the satellite “one small ball in the air.” In actuality, he welcomed the presence of the satellite as precedence for establishing the U.S. presence in space. U.S. public opinion, however, saw that science fiction was becoming a reality, and it was the Soviets who were making this happen. As one historical record describes, the American public had a “crisis of confidence” as it viewed the exploration into space as part of “America’s destiny.” Instead, one scholar writes that “the American response to the accomplishment of the Soviet Union was comparable to the reaction I could remember to Lindbergh's landing in France, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death.”

The result of this public reaction was that the Eisenhower administration devoted considerable funding and attention to scientific research. By the beginning of 1958, the U.S. (with the help of Dr. Wernher Von Braun, one of the key German emigres) launched its first satellite. To ensure the satellite was completed as soon as possible, Eisenhower ordered the army, navy, and air force to compete for the project (NASA was created in July 1958). During the first attempt at a launch, Braun’s team used one of their ballistic launcher prototypes to get their satellite to space in January 1958.

The National Air & Space Agency (NASA) was publicly established by Eisenhower months after launching the first U.S. satellite in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. The president’s first inclination was to have all U.S. space efforts managed by the Department of Defense, including those of a civilian character. However, He was convinced that it made more sense to create a separate civilian space agency to carry out an open program of scientific activities and engage in international cooperation. Meanwhile, a second organization, the National Reconnaissance Organization (NRO), was created to use the same technological advancements to spy on the Soviet Union. Though this program was created in 1958 as well, the details of this program did not become public knowledge until 1992. The Corona program produced spy satellites that would originally take pictures - with rolls of film having to be dropped, recovered by plane, and then manually developed - and eventually used radar and electronic signaling to gather intelligence.

Drafting Outer Space Law

With the space race taking off (pun intended) in the late 1950s and early 1960s, western powers became concerned about the possibility that space could be militarized. As a result, the U.S. led several pushes in the UN to regulate space under international law, even calling for all-out disarmament. Addressing the General Assembly on September 22, 1960, President Eisenhower proposed that the principles of a treaty that focused on the Antarctic be applied to outer space and celestial bodies. Like Antarctica, he argued that no one state could make territorial claims, it should be used for peaceful purposes only, there should be the freedom of scientific investigation and information about discoveries should be freely exchanged. The Soviet Union, however, was leading the space race and did not want to curb its advantage in space. In addition to being the first to put a satellite in orbit, the Soviets were also the first to put a person in space. On April 12, 1961, Russian Lt. Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth. Just one month later, Alan Shepard became the first American to fly into space, and in February of 1962, John Glenn was the first American to orbit Earth. Following the Soviets’ successful launch of the first man into space in April of 1961, President Kennedy tasked NASA to put a man on the moon by the decade's end. After receiving this mandate, NASA’s budget increased by 89% in 1961 and 101% more from 1961 to 1962. It soon became a 34,000-person agency located in D.C. and ten other nationwide facilities managed by various universities and industrial contractors.

Though the USSR had been against a treaty that regulated weapons in space, its outlook on this and other weapons issues changed after the Cuban Missile Crisis when the U.S. and USSR came to the brink of war. Moreover, scientific advancements confirmed that the radioactive fallout from a nuclear weapon was more severe, longer-lasting, and more widespread than initially believed. In August of 1963, the Nuclear Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed, prohibiting the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, underwater, and in outer space (leaving underground testing as the only possible option). After this, on September 19, 1963, the Soviet Foreign Minister told the General Assembly that the Soviet Union wished to conclude an agreement banning the orbiting of objects carrying nuclear weapons. The U.S. ambassador replied that the United States had no intention of orbiting weapons of mass destruction, installing them on celestial bodies, or stationing them in outer space. The General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on October 17, 1963, welcoming the Soviet and U.S. statements and calling upon all states to refrain from introducing weapons of mass destruction into outer space. Seeking to sustain the momentum for arms control agreements, the United States pressed for a treaty that would give further substance to the UN resolution. An agreement was reached on January 27, 1967. On April 25, the Senate gave unanimous consent to its ratification, and the treaty entered into force on October 10, 1967.

Putting a Man on the Moon (1960s)

In the United States, Apollo moved forward as a high-priority program. After the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963, it became seen as a memorial to the fallen young president. Johnson, however, had no vision for what would become of NASA once this goal was accomplished and made no efforts to fund new programs. This effort was not as politically captivating as it once was. Though astronauts became real-world heroes, the U.S. government rested on laurels. Moreover, the Soviets made four failed attempts to launch a lunar landing craft between 1969 and 1972, including a launch-pad explosion in July of 1969. As a result, the U.S. public felt they had “won” the space race, and attention turned elsewhere. It was under Nixon that NASA officially landed on the moon on July 20th, 1969. After the moon landing, Nixon agreed to fund the development of both a space shuttle (a larger reusable rocket) and a manned space station program. Nixon seemed most interested in the idea of NASA developing space shuttles capable of disposing of nuclear waste into space. He did so rhetorically, however. Soon after making the public declaration for both programs, he proceeded to decrease NASA’s budget by 75 percent. NASA decided to focus its efforts on a space station.

Space Stations (1970s)

As early as 1969, the Soviets began to shift their emphasis from human spaceflight to the development of stations that would orbit the Earth and carry out extended observations. The first Soviet space station, called Salyut 1, was launched on April 19, 1971. Using some remaining hardware from the soon-to-be-canceled Apollo program, NASA developed Skylab, which launched in May of 1972. Skylab remained in orbit for six years, and experiments conducted aboard the craft obtained vast amounts of scientific data and demonstrated that humans could live and work productively in space for months at a time. Under President Ford (an avid space fan) NASA’s prominence was resurrected in three different ways. In 1975, amidst a detente in Cold War tensions, an Apollo space shuttle rendezvoused and docked with a Soviet space shuttle to test landing and docking capacities among ships. A year later, Ford funded unmanned missions (e.g., Galileo to Jupiter) and the Hubble Space Telescope to increase observations beyond Earth’s orbit. By the end of the 1970s, however, (due to an economic recession) the Skylab program lost all its funding and had to be discontinued. The Soviets, however, continued to send five additional stations into orbit throughout the decade. At least one of these space stations, the Salyut 3, included an aircraft cannon aboard, which was considered capable of destroying a satellite. Though the Salyut 3 tracked American space endeavors, no attack ever occurred.

Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) (1980s)

Though Carter spoke highly of the space program (he once noted that “the challenge of space takes us very close to the heart of things”), in practice, there was little evolution in the program during his administration. In contrast, Reagan was among the most ardent presidential supporters of the space program. After a six-year hiatus in his first year in office, the first space shuttle, Columbia, launched its first mission. Between the launch of Columbia in 1981 and the Challenger, there were 24 space shuttle flights. For many, Reagan was present. As one author notes, “Reagan was thrilled, and he loved seeing NASA scientists and technicians at Houston Control waving small American flags when the launch was declared a success.” Both his love of space and his desire to beat the Soviets in the arms race led Reagan to make two key military decisions related to space. In 1982 his Administration created a Space Command as part of the Air Force. And on March 23, 1983, he gave a speech calling for a nuclear weapons defense system in space. He named the program that he introduced the “Strategic Defense Initiative” or SDI. In theory, this program would use surveillance satellites to detect a nuclear missile from the USSR and then use space-based lasers and subatomic particle beams to explode the missile in space before it reached the atmosphere above the U.S.

In reality, this technology was (and is) far from being realized. By the end of the century, the U.S. had spent $60 billion on the SDI and faced much condemnation by its opponents. It was Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy that gave SDI the nickname “Star Wars.” Though there was much debate over SDI’s cost, its political implications, and its technical feasibility, many argue that the projection of power inherent in this program was one of the key factors that led the USSR to give up on its Cold War stance. In 1984, the president overruled most of his advisers and gave NASA his approval to develop a permanent space station. NASA sought that approval 15 years earlier and was forced to wait until the space shuttle was flying regularly. Reagan announced his approval in the most public way possible during his January 25, 1984 State of the Union address. “A space station will permit quantum leaps in our research in science, communications, in metals, and in lifesaving medicines which could be manufactured only in space,” Reagan said. He also indicated the United States would invite its allies to participate in the space station program in the same speech.

Private Individuals & Companies in Space

A private-public partnership around security and strategic state initiatives was first coined the military-industrial complex by President Eisenhower in his farewell address. Though Eisenhower served as a Supreme Allied Commander during WWII, after his farewell address warned that "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." In 1984, the U.S. government agreed to allow the commercial use of space via the Commercial Space Launch Act. This act was intended to reduce the cost of launching NASA rockets into space by having private contractors operate the launch pads. Such contracts went to early defense industry giants in aerospace engineering and defense, like Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

While the United States continued to allow private corporations on-ground support of space exploration, Russia began offering opportunities for private individuals to fund its space programs through space tourism, or the recreational exploration of space by private individuals. Beginning in 2001, investors paid around $20 million to the Russian space program to fly aboard its Soyuz capsules and then spend time aboard the International Space Station. Participants in space tourism included Dennis Tito (an American investor in 2001), Mark Shuttleworth (a South African venture capitalist in 2002), Gregory Olsen (an American engineer and business owner in 2005), the first woman space tourist Anousheh Ansari (an Iranian-born American telecommunications entrepreneur in 2006), Charles Simonyi (a Hungarian-born American software architect in 2007 and 2009), Richard Garriott (and American video game developer in 2008), Guy Laliberte (a Canadian founder of  Cirque du Soleil in 2009), and Maezawa Yusaku (Japanese entrepreneur in 2021). 

The United States began to consider the commercialization of space exploration more beginning in 2004 with the passage of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 and the NASA Authorization Act of 2004, which together allowed commercial investments in all aspects of the government space program. There were at least two reasons for this shift. First, the Russians had shown the private investment of individuals in space tourism could be lucrative. Second, the U.S. had defunded its shuttle program following the disintegration of the Challenger Space Shuttle in 2003 upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. Without its shuttle program, the United States would have to rely on Russia to reach destinations in space. By encouraging private investments in shuttle services, the U.S. could circumvent relying on Russia and still achieve its freedom of movement in its space exploration. In 2002, Elon Musk established SpaceX, and in 2004, Richard Branson Virgin Galactic. Both of these companies had the stated goal of building a shuttling service for private individuals into space and also to take U.S. astronauts into space as well.

By 2009, SpaceX launched an unmanned space flight (Falcon9) and the next year a capsule capable of carrying passengers (Dragon). In September of 2014, the United States granted both SpaceX and Bowing contracts to build multi-passenger space capsules for shuttling U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station. In 2020, SpaceX began testing its Starship model spacecraft, meant for longer voyages to the moon, Mars, and potentially beyond. In April 2021, the U.S. offered SpaceX a nearly $3 billion contract for a Starship capsule capable of taking astronauts to the moon by the end of this decade. With the growing investments in SpaceX by the government, the company is stated to be worth around $74 billion.

On July 11th, 2021, Richard Branson successfully funded the launch of a six-person rocket he had been developing for decades, the SpaceShipTwo, which climbed around 50,000 feet into the air. Instead of launching from the ground, this rocket dropped from an aircraft before firing its ascent engines and then gliding back to "Earth for a space shuttle-like runway landing." Though Branson plans to offer tickets for initially around $200,000, his stated goal is to make space "open for everybody." So far, more than 700 people have already signed up for commercial passenger flights.

Less than ten days later, on July 20th, Jeff Bezos was the second billionaire to reach the edge of space on Blue Origin's New Shephard launch vehicle. Though not a long space voyage, "New Shepard's flight did take the crew past the Kármán line, the internationally-recognized boundary of space, at nearly 330,000 feet, or roughly 62 miles above the Earth." Unlike Branson's design, the New Shephard launched from the ground like a conventional rocket. Instead of returning via the sea, however, the capsule used parachutes and braking rockets upon reentry to safely land over land.

Though SpaceX continues to launch astronauts into space, Elon Musk has not ventured on one of the flights like the other two billionaire founders. Though there is speculation as to why this is so (and Musk has even reserved a ticket on one of Branson's future flights), his strategy for SpaceX is to be less focused on private space tourism and more on working with NASA to fund larger interplanetary missions. In previous interviews, Musk has determined his goal is to make humanity a “multi-planetary species.” At one point, he even admitted his perspective that, “if this species is going to survive, we kind of have to escape.”

NASA is torn when it comes to the growing role of private companies in space. In its Safety Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel report, it notes both that companies, like SpaceX, have "tremendous upside potential - and are accompanied by equally tremendous challenges for managing the risk of human space exploration." 

Optimists explain that NASA is self-funding and controlling its largest missions, including landing its latest rover on Mars, launching the James Webb telescope (which will help us determine the origins of the universe), and gathering samples from an asteroid located 200 million miles away). From this perspective, if private companies can run the more foundational and rote processes (e.g., launching of capsules and shuttling of passengers), then NASA can focus on stretching the outer limits of space exploration. Even NASA's director of commercial spaceflight feels comfortable knowing that NASA's future is in the project areas for which "the barriers to entry are still too high for the private sector to make a compelling business case." That is, where it is too costly for companies to be able to invest. As the Washington Post describes it, let NASA blaze the trails and open "new frontiers," and let the private industries takeover "in the way homesteaders expanded into the West."

However, not everyone is as rosy in their perspective of the future role of private companies in space. Specifically, critics point to the requirement of states to be liable for any object launched into space from its territory, even by non-governmental entities. This is a lot of responsibility for the acts of private companies, without a lot of control over them. Others point to the inherent difference in the goals of private companies and governments in space. Again, the Outer Space Treaty requires all states to consider space to be the "province of all mankind." Yet, the nature of a corporation is to enrich market shares to expand profits at the expense of other companies. Though states have also competed for dominance in space, the nature of companies is explicitly competitive. Still others point to private companies beginning to invest in the large expansive areas in which NASA claims it still has exclusive rights. As just one example, Google offered its "lunar Xprize" competition, which called for privately funded teams to be the first to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit hi-definition video and images back to Earth.  

Since 2019, SpaceX has also been launching thousands of satellites into orbit as part of a telecommunications network infrastructure called Starlink. Conventional satellite communications use larger satellites that communicate information directly to and from ground-based receivers. Instead of this single larger satellite, Musk's Starlink launched over 1,500 satellites in different levels of the Earth's atmosphere and space that are in both communications with each other and ground-based receivers. On the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, state-backed Russian hackers began launching cyberattacks against the largest Ukrainian telecommunication company, Viasat, by sending malware that overwhelmed the system's capacities, leading the company to have to temporarily pause its service. As these attacks continued, the Ukrainian government began considering alternative options. Weeks after the initial jamming, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine contacted Elon Musk and requested the use of Starlkin by the Ukrainian military.  The reasoning is that, though these satellites could also be overwhelmed, it is easier to evade this process by having multiple satellites and it is easier to respond to such attacks by rerouting communicated information through other satellites. Musk agreed and launched relevant satellites into space just two days later, offering free subscriptions for all Ukrainian citizens as well.

Weapons in Space

While the Outer Space Treaty prohibits the explicit placement of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit around Earth, on celestial bodies, or in outer space, there are some major loopholes worth exploring. The first issue is that there is no clear boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space, though most scientists use the Karman line, which is 100 kilometers (62 miles) above the Earth's surface, to mark the transition point. However, the Outer Space Treaty appears to regulate space only, the boundaries of which are unclear.

Ballistic Weapons

A ballistic weapon is a weapon that is launched with an intended trajectory, or arch. Upon launch, shorter-range missiles use booster or rockets to remain within the Earth's atmosphere before reaching its maximum height and returning to Earth to hit its intended target. Longer-range missiles traverse space during a portion of their trajectory, reaching nearly 400km above the Karmen line.

Hypersonic Weapons
Hypersonic weapons are a class of missiles designed to travel at speeds greater than five times the speed of sound, typically exceeding Mach 5 (approximately 3,836 miles per hour or 6,174 kilometers per hour). These weapons leverage cutting-edge aerospace technology to achieve unprecedented velocities, making them extremely difficult to register and respond to compared to traditional ballistic missiles. Hypersonic weapons can be launched from various platforms, including ground-based launchers, aircraft, ships, and submarines. Once launched, they use a scramjet or ramjet propulsion system (a crazy powerful jet engine), and they follow a trajectory through the Earth's atmosphere that allows them to approach targets with incredible speed and agility. The development of hypersonic weapons and the deployment and testing of these weapons have raised concerns about their potential impact on global security and strategic stability. The international community is closely monitoring these developments, and discussions about arms control and strategic stability in the context of hypersonic weapons are ongoing.

Satellites

Throughout the space race, satellites have been used for everything from communication to mapping and even television. In addition, satellites have also been used for military purposes such as reconnaissance, communication, and navigation. These satellites are typically not considered weapons in themselves, but they play a crucial role in supporting military operations on Earth.

Anti-Satellite Weapons

An ASAT, or Anti-Satellite Weapon, is a type of weapon specifically designed to incapacitate or destroy satellites in space. These weapons are developed and deployed by various countries for strategic and military purposes. ASAT weapons can be categorized into several types based on their method of operation. In 1959, the United States conducted the world's first successful anti-satellite test when a U.S. Army missile, launched a ballistic missile from the ground that intercepted and destroyed a military satellite. The Soviets did the same in 1963. In 2007, China demonstrated this capacity, taking out its weather satellite in orbit. In 2008, the U.S. demonstrated its ability to take out a satellite from a ship at sea. In 2019, India also conducted its first successful ASAT test, destroying one of its satellites, the Microsat-R, using a ground-launched missile. The test, known as "Mission Shakti," makes India the fourth country to demonstrate ASAT capabilities. In addition, several other countries continue to develop and enhance their ASAT capabilities, including the Israel and Pakistan. These efforts are driven by national security concerns, advancements in technology, and the increasing importance of space in military operations.