The Space Race’s Shifting Center of Gravity

On Dec. 11, 2022, the Artemis 1 Orion capsule returned safely to Earth, marking the first major milestone in the United States’ ambitious plans to return humans to the moon since the Apollo 11 mission first did so more than five decades ago. With Artemis, the United States intends to create an enduring and scalable presence on the moon from which it will build its platform for a space economy operating between the Earth, the moon, and someday even Mars. For Apollo, the moon was a destination. But for Artemis, it’s just the first step.

Despite heading toward the same physical destination, Artemis bears little resemblance to its predecessor. The playing field of today’s space race is bigger, and the models of competition differ. The entire purpose of space exploration is changing as countries recognize its potential for long-term economic opportunity. As such, the Artemis mission represents an entirely new era of possibility for outer space—one that will operate under a new set of rules.

The future space race will be won not by those whose technological advancements are superior but by the rule-makers—those whose economic, legal, social, and political institutions are most innovative, attractive, and popular to other spacefaring nations and entities. In this respect, the United States has an early lead over China and Russia, but it has a long way to go in winning this popularity contest.

By the 1980s, space power became more operational, and it was embraced by the U.S. military as a force multiplier for its troops. Consequently, NASA, the national civilian space entity, was eclipsed in prominence by defense actors, who became key drivers of U.S. space power ambitions. The U.S. military pursued space-based capabilities, such as global navigation and remote sensing satellite systems, that were dual-use in nature; as a result, these technological achievements were harnessed to provide early commercial public benefits to the American people, not just the country’s military.

Once the Cold War ended and governments needed to cut their national space budgets, the United States leveraged the private sector to sustain its space prowess, first through contracting and eventually through outright commercialization. The successful use of commercial and civil space products in combat during Operation Desert Storm convinced the U.S. defense sector that partnering with the private sector would be an efficient and affordable way to keep and further its edge in outer space. Once private sector actors were incentivized to seek out and profit from their market shares, outer space capabilities were no longer merely diplomatic or strategic tools. Gradually, they represented a new frontier of economic potential from which both the public and private sectors could benefit.

In recent years, the space race entered an age of economic competition. Winning this race requires not only technological prowess or military acumen but the ability to leverage tools of economic power on the space program’s behalf.

This evolution regarding the meaning of “space power”—from technological prowess to military force multiplication and now to the space economy—has also changed the structures under which these capabilities are pursued. Unlike previous eras, space power in the economic age is derived from commercial and industrial activities. As a result, national space programs, run solely by a country’s government or military, are no longer a goal for the world’s biggest space powers. Rather, they are a means to creating an ecosystem where all stakeholders—academia, industry, civil society, and government—can work together to mobilize the capabilities necessary for a prosperous space economy.

Advancing large and comprehensive ecosystems is a privilege reserved for only a few powerful countries. Countries like the United States and China are incentivized to build large and comprehensive ecosystems in diverse fields of space activity. But most countries must make strategic choices and prioritize areas of competitive advantage as the focus of their space programs. Israel, for example, has traditionally focused on two niche areas: remote sensing and communications satellites. For its part, Canada has focused primarily on remote sensing, robotics, and human spaceflights—although it has declined to develop an indigenous launch capacity.

However, for those countries that can adopt an ecosystem model, even the most advanced technological achievements will be undermined if leaders have not invested in the economic, legal, and social mechanisms and institutions needed to govern them. This is especially relevant given that most of the international instruments that currently govern space activities date back to the Cold War, despite the nature of space activity and competition having changed so fundamentally since then.

For these reasons, NASA and the U.S. State Department initiated the Artemis Accords in 2020 as a first step toward filling this regulatory gap. The accords put forth a set of principles for operating on the moon, intended to provide helpful guardrails for parties—both public and private—seeking to establish a presence there in the future space economy. Among its many provisions, the accords require participating states to commit to transparent and peaceful uses of outer space, creating safety zones for lunar activity and protecting historic sites and artifacts.

The accords themselves are relatively uncontentious, nonbinding, and explicitly tied to existing legal precedents. More than 20 countries have signed them to date—including traditional parties, such as the United Kingdom and Japan, alongside new players, such as Australia, the United Arab Emirates, and Nigeria.

Despite having seemingly built a broad, multilateral coalition, several of the United States’ key partners—such as Germany and India—have voiced concerns about the accords and have so far refused to sign them.

Unsurprisingly, Russia and China have also opposed these moves. And like most other areas of geopolitics, the United States will have to contend with them in its bid for international leadership. Like the United States, China understands and greatly emphasizes the economic aspects of space power, and it continues to reach significant technological milestones in outer space. In 2022, China announced its plans for expanded lunar and deep space exploration, including a permanent base on the moon, making clear that it is the United States’ primary competitor in outer space. Russia, however, has largely been absent from space economy discourse. Its commercial space activity is limited, and Moscow continues to base Russia’s space power on national technological assets primarily associated with defense, as seen in its 2021 anti-satellite system demonstration. With this action, Russia has assured itself a seat at the anti-satellite weapons club, but its absence from the economic discourse and contemporary race to the moon demonstrates its failure to grasp the realities of the current space age.

With the Artemis Accords, the United States wants to prove that it is a more compelling partner for long-term space cooperation and governance than China or Russia, which, although they haven’t provided an official alternative to the accords, launched their own plans in 2021 for cooperation and coalition-building on the moon.

To many, the accords come across as the unilateral attempt of a superpower to impose its will—and, by extension, its values—on the international system by establishing a field of action, the rules of the game, and the agenda for the next era of lunar exploration and exploitation. This kind of arrangement may have worked for the United States elsewhere, but an outer space ecosystem will require long-lasting and deep relationships to succeed. The Artemis Accords are a good start, but if the United States wants to realize its ambition for leading the space economy, then it must be more attentive to the needs of those who make up its support coalition and supply chains, providing them some partnership in leadership.

During the first lunar age, the United States and Soviet Union, as early adopters, had powerful opportunities to set the norms and rules for the spacefaring nations that followed. The United States has the same opportunity ahead of it today, but it needs to demonstrate that its vision for the future is built on meaningful trust and partnerships. If it fails to do so, then it risks wasting its best shot to write the rules and shape the balance of power in outer space for decades to come.