21. Dr. Scott Pace: America’s Space Agenda - Seeking to Expand our Civilization and Ensure Space will be a Home of Free People

In this episode, Senior Fellow in Defense Studies Peter Garretson interviews Dr. Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs and former Deputy Assistant to the President and Executive Secretary of the National Space Council from 2017-2020. They discuss the criticality of broad and bipartisan consensus to sustainable space exploration and development. Next, follows a discussion on exploration policy, space as a warfighting domain, China, spacepower theory (Dolman’s Astropolitics vs Bowen’s Continental Seapower), arms control, the record of the National Space Council’s space policy directives, their rational and significance. The speakers cover the possible futures in space depending on whether we can live off the land and pay our own way leading to different analogies: settlements, ‘Everest’, ‘McMurdo’, and deep sea drilling platforms. They provide details about space property rights, development and industrialization, asteroid defense and how it is getting worked into the missions of the agencies such as NASA and DoD. Finally, they discuss opportunities available to the new administration and space council and define a space agenda worthy of our nation and its values.

Dr. Pace:
https://elliott.gwu.edu/scott-pace

GWU Space Policy Institute
https://spi.elliott.gwu.edu/

Report on National Space Council Activities
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Final-Report-on-the-Activities-of-the-National-Space-Council-01.15.21.pdf

National Space Policy
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/memorandum-national-space-policy/

A New Vision for Deep Space Exploration and Development
https://aerospace.org/sites/default/files/2020-07/NSpC%20New%20Era%20for%20Space%2023Jul20.pdf

National Near Earth Object Strategy and Action Plan
https://aerospace.csis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/OSTP-NEO-Strategy-Action-Plan-Jun18.pdf

Spacepower Doctrine
https://www.spaceforce.mil/Portals/1/Space%20Capstone%20Publication_10%20Aug%202020.pdf

Artemis Accords
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-accords/index.html

Collected Space Space Policy Directives
https://www.spacefoundation.org/space_brief/space-policy-directives/