Welcome to Cash Me If You Can. I'm your host, Matt Pearl, Director of the Strategic Technologies Program at CSIS. In this podcast, we take a closer look at the technologies and policies driving tomorrow and how the United States can stay ahead in the global innovation race. Welcome to Cash Me If You Can, where we explore the global forces shaping innovation, competition, and tech policy. I'm your host, Matt Pearl, co-hosting today with Lauren Williams. And in this episode, we're looking at new heights in the tech competition with China. Matt, thanks so much. It's really great to join you today. Thanks for having me. To dive right in, since the Cold War, space has captured the world's imagination when it comes to science and exploration. Here in the 21st century, we are also in a new era of warfighting in Space, which raises new questions about security, sustainability, and the future of conflict. To help us understand what's at stake in the space domain, we are joined by someone who is incredibly familiar with tackling hard issues in the space domain. Our guest, Audrey Schaefer, is an internationally recognized expert in space policy with experience across the civil, commercial, and national security space sectors. She's currently the Vice President of Strategy and Policy at Slingshot Aerospace, a leading space domain awareness company, and a non-resident senior associate in the Aerospace Security Project at CSIS. Ms. Schaefer served in the U.S. government for over 15 years, holding a number of senior positions in the White House, the Department of Defense, the State Department, and NASA. During her time in government, she notably led DOD efforts to establish the U.S. Space Force in law as the newest branch of the Armed Forces. We're very excited to have her on the podcast. Audrey, welcome. Thank you. What is the role of space in the broader U.S. national security landscape? Where should the United States be prioritizing commercial investments and policy actions to maintain the competitive edge against China and space? Space plays a really important role in so many facets of U.S. national power. So, you know, first, if you want to think strictly of national security, you know, our military forces are really fighting wars enabled by space, both in terms of how our military troops use space to enable terrestrial operations, but also in terms of how our adversaries use space. And so having, you know, a robust architecture, both to protect yourself as well as to deny others is really important for national security. Secondly, I mean, space is pretty integral to our economy. I think most people don't realize, you know, the extent to which things like logistics, transportation, really rely on the timing and navigation signals that we all enjoy from GPS, that little blue dot that you get on your phone, which, of course, also supports our way of life. You know, every time you bring up Google Maps or your navigation aid of choice, you're relying on satellites to help you get from point A to B. And so given kind of like the pervasiveness of space just across all facets of our society, it's really important that the United States maintain its advantages in space. And so when we look, you know, across civil, commercial, national security. I think on the commercials front, the story is actually really good. If you look at the number of satellites that are in space, there's about 13,000 what we call active satellites, meaning that they're performing a mission today. Of those 13,000, 75% of them are U.S. satellites, meaning the U.S. is truly the dominant actor. But also of those 13,000, 81% are commercial, which just shows how commercial activities are so dominant in the environment today. So that does a really good job of laying out that kind of the current situation and U.S. dominance. Although, you know, we do need to be aware, I think, that there are questions about whether that's going to continue, right? The PRC is essentially launching clone constellations. Is that something that you can talk about? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, China has seen the ways in which the U.S. has benefited from space, both from the commercial perspective and from the national security perspective. So I think when you say, you know, clone constellations, China stated that they will launch not one, but two similar kinds of, you know, we call them mega constellations, you know, constellations with thousands of satellites to essentially be able to serve the same market. So they're clearly nipping at our heels in the commercial sector. But then when you look at national security, I think it's even a little more concerning where China has watched the U.S. become increasingly reliant on space, from everything from navigation to missile warning, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, not to mention communications, and knows that it's a place of advantage. And so, of course, what has China done? They want to blunt those advantages. And so they developed a very robust set of counter space capabilities to deny those advantages to the U.S. So you mentioned the role of Starlink. I do wonder, though, if one of the things that we need to keep mindful of as we try to compete with the PRC, as it's going to make these massive investments and launch constellations, is the role of competition, right? That that's essentially in the U.S. how we solve these problems and prevail. Could you talk a little bit more about the competitive landscape there and maybe what the U.S. needs to do in order to make sure that there are several players? Yeah, it's a great question, Matt. I mean, you know, the competitive landscape commercially has become much more diverse than it was even just a few years ago. You know, U.S. companies have traditionally had, if not the dominant position close to it in all sectors, whether that's launch communications or remote sensing, which is like essentially taking pictures of the Earth from space. And actually, there was a really great CSIS report done, I think it was about a year ago, actually looking specifically at the remote sensing sector and across different ways, essentially, of taking pictures of Earth. And I'm simplifying here a little bit. And what it found was that in a lot of different categories, not only is the U.S. not number one anymore, but actually China has become number one. And you see a lot more countries, primarily in Europe, but also in other parts of the world, increasingly catching up. And so what was, you know, a sort of a singular position for the U.S. is really no more. Now, unfortunately, the additional bad news is that we kind of did some of that to ourselves by having regulations that didn't necessarily allow the private sector to compete in ways that they probably could have. Because the U.S. had essentially the best capabilities, we wanted to keep them for ourselves. And we restricted our industry from selling some of their products and services overseas. And what that meant was there was unmet demand that drove commercial investments in other countries. Can you set the scene for the audience or kind of pinpoint for the audience? What is one of the largest threats facing the United States in space today? Is it the rise of China, their attempts to field a Starlink-like constellation? Is one of the elements of it the kind of commercial landscape and the rise over several years of a single player, at least here in the United States? Is it the policy and regulatory landscape and the lack of rules of the road that we find there? That's kind of a broad question, but what would you say? Yeah Lauren I mean I think all of those are risks or threats you know to U leadership I mean certainly from a purely national security perspective the fact that China is developing ways to deny the U use of space is very concerning But also concerning is that China is replicating the same advantages that space provides to our forces in its military. So it's not just the U.S. who's using satellites to, you know, have intelligence in denied areas or to detect missiles, incoming missiles. I mean, China is looking to do the same and therefore are, you know, it may be more of a competition for pure military capability. So that I find very concerning just from a pure national security perspective. But from a market access and market competitiveness perspective, I mean, I also think we should be concerned. I think we want other countries to be reliant on U.S. technology and U.S. services. And to the extent that there's international competitiveness, I mean, certainly it reduces the U.S. market share. And it also means that maybe the best innovation isn't coming out of the United States. And as, you know, someone who now works in the private sector, I would say that, you know, maintaining that innovation that we are, we really do lead the world in. You know, I think that is just so vital for our long-term strategic competitiveness. So to zero in on some of the rules that you've identified that are holding us back, is that primarily export controls? What are some of the barriers to having U.S. technology essentially diffuse in all kinds of countries and markets? Yeah, I mean, export controls is a key one. You know, historically in U.S. export control policy, there was a tight linkage between space export controls and missile technology. There was this kind of hypothesis that 30, 40 years ago that the only reason a country would want to have a satellite was to test a missile. Because a missile is essentially a launch vehicle, right? Or a launch vehicle is essentially a missile. But, you know, if you want to test your missile, you can pretend it's a launch vehicle. You just need to put a satellite on top of it. And so there was this like sort of presumption in U.S. export controls that we don't want other countries to have satellites because or to launch satellites because they're really just using that as cover. That might have been true 40 years ago. I mean, I wasn't doing export controls at the time, but it's not true today. Countries are wanting satellites for all the reasons that I talked about, whether that's, you know, navigation or communications or weather forecasting, DirecTV. I mean, that's why countries want to have a space program. It's not so they can covertly test a missile. And so we have been unintentionally limiting the ability of our space industry to export satellites and satellite components out of a sort of an outdated notion that this is somehow going to improve a country's missile technology, which, of course, is a bedrock of U.S. nonproliferation objectives. And Audrey, obviously, we all spent time working in the White House kind of tackling different elements of the space ecosystem and different kind of policy areas among each of us. What would you say about the efforts in the last administration to look into space export control reform? Where are those efforts today? So, Lauren, I'm certainly not an export control. I do like to play one on TV. And what I saw at the end of the Biden administration was, you know, a helpful improvement to space export controls. But it was mostly, I think, on the margins. I think a more holistic revision, you know, would have or could have been warranted. And so I think there's still room for the current administration to look into that. And then pushing a little bit more on policy, because, of course, we all love to talk policy. And we've already discussed how private sector actors are becoming the most dominant players in LEO. But of course, there's geopolitical competition prominently between the U.S. and China. What would you say are some of the key policy developments that you'd like to see the next administration or future administrations look into to allow for greater innovation and not hold back innovation, especially coming from the private sector? You know, one area that I've started to think a lot about is actually how more regulation can be good for the industry. And I'm not a regulatory expert, so I hesitate really to go too deep into this. But in the U.S., we've had for a very long time an extremely light touch regulatory environment for essentially just the operation of satellites. Right. We've had export control requirements. We've had requirements on, you know, the spectrum. We've had requirements on like what you can take pictures of. But like pretty much anybody can put a satellite in space. You don't have to get a license like you do if you want to drive a car or fly a plane. It could be a university student. Anybody who has, you know, the money to buy a launch vehicle or a launch, which, by the way, is a heck of a lot cheaper than it was 10 years ago, can essentially put a satellite in space. And this is actually starting to create problems because there's no oversight or very limited oversight. There are no rules that you have to follow or common standards that you have to practice in order to fly safely in space. And we're actually getting to the point where some of the bigger companies are saying, we'd actually like there to be more regulation. Because we think, as the big companies, we're acting pretty responsibly. We have a vested interest. We have thousands of satellites in space. We want them to be safe. And we got these little onesie twosies, whether they're universities or moms and pops, watching satellites that aren't following the same rules, that don't have the experience and are actually creating safety hazards for us. So it's kind of a real sea change, actually, to think about going from a light touch regulatory environment to one in which regulations provide predictability and stability. I think that's going to be the next big thing when we look at sort of policies and regulations that sort of affect the commercial space sector writ large. Are you specifically talking about potential regulations in the space domain awareness, space flight safety realm of things, which would, of course, allow for safer passage of the thousands and in the future tens of thousands satellites that will be orbiting around the Earth? Yeah, that is kind of what I'm talking about, is the sharing of information about where your object is, where it's planned to be, and collaboratively working together to avoid collisions. You know, and historically that was done actually kind of in a hub and spokes model where the U.S. government was kind of the center of the universe. And they had all the data about where objects are, would sort of notify a satellite operator if they had a safety risk. While the U.S. government still does have a very important central role to play in kind of serving as like the FAA for space, if you want to think about it that way, one of the ways in which the industry has evolved is that satellite operators actually talk to one another. They share their positional information with each other so that they can work directly together. Because in this case, the difference between the air traffic control regime is that the U.S. government doesn't have that regulatory authority to actually direct one satellite to move. So it can provide information and advice on where you might want to move. But at the end of the day, the two operators have to work together. But guess what? There aren't any rules about what kind of information you have to or even should share. And so I recently saw a presentation from a large constellation operator that I won name that said that about 50 percent of the objects that they sort of fly near if you will don share that information with them So they have to rely on secondary tracking, which of course does happen. There's a whole ground-based network of telescopes and radars that can track objects in space, but they have to rely on that secondary information because they aren't getting the kind of communication directly from the owner operators. And it's really actually that simple. Those kinds of rules of like, you should share information on where your satellite is, and you should pick up the phone when someone calls to work out a potential collision. Those are the kinds of common sense rules that we just don't have today. So you make a really interesting point about how a lot of the information on where satellites are and what they're doing is in the private sector. On the government side, though, I imagine that there's a lot of information that the government needs to share about threats, right? Much of which is classified, but operators could use it. Private operators could use that information in order to sort of mitigate those threats or be aware and be able to respond very quickly. Is that something you think the federal government is doing an adequate job at? Or is that something that the administration needs to work harder on? You know, that is something that the government has increasingly done since Russia's invasion of Ukraine now almost, gosh, almost four You know, commercial satellites were a critical component of how the information was shared publicly about what was happening in Ukraine. I mean, if you opened up The New York Times or The Washington Post, you would almost certainly see a U.S. commercial company's imagery taken of the battlefield or of a mass grave or the border crossings that was coming from companies like Planet and Maxar. And of course, because of the role that those companies played, obviously Starlink as well was a tremendous role in terms of being a communications provider for Ukrainian forces. That made those commercial companies and those satellites targets of potential Russian attacks. And so in the wake of the war, the U.S. government actually started a number of different intelligence sharing activities with the private sector. Now, some actually were already underway, but they were sort of limited to certain operators. But since then, they have done a number of different activities, whether that's sharing strategic intelligence about the types of threats that commercial operators might face or more tactical and operational indications and warnings of, hey, like we see something potentially concerning. And then, of course, encouraging industry to self-report on anomalies or cyber attacks that may affect other satellite operators across the industry. So one of the things that you raise as well in your kind of description for us about the role that commercial space played in the Ukraine conflict is the fact that commercial satellite operators, and particularly in LEO, have continued to be an explicit target of the Russian government, as they've said explicitly, including this summer, I believe. How should the U.S. government be thinking at this time about protecting commercial space systems? You know, it's a complicated question because the U.S. government has many different relationships with the private sector. I mean, first of all, you know, as just a U.S. company, you know, the U.S. government has some interest, I would say, in maintaining kind of the health of the U.S. industry. But it's a little different just to be a U.S. company versus to be a U.S. company that is actually like under contract with the U.S. government or that the U.S. government has, you know, somehow created an arrangement to allow an ally or a partner to receive U.S. commercial services maybe through the U.S. government. That was sort of an arrangement we also saw in the Ukraine war. And so I think it's not a one size fits all answer. I mean, if a commercial company is providing under contract services to the U.S. military or U.S. intelligence community, you know, I think the U.S. government has a vested interest in like the safety and security of those assets because they are a component of our force structure and we should look at them as such. And so when you think about it from a more military operational perspective, you know, you may have your audience may have heard terms like CalDAO, which means like critical asset list or defended asset list. Right. These are like prioritized lists of what military commanders should protect the assets that they depend upon. And what we see is commercial assets being considered for inclusion on those lists just alongside government assets. So I think that's sort of the highest level of consideration. Then you kind of have to ask yourself, well, if it's just a U.S. company, then what's the U.S. government's interest? If it's part of critical infrastructure, then certainly I think that U.S. space systems should be afforded the same types of resources and support that other critical infrastructure sectors are afforded. But if it's just a U.S. company, I don't know, doing something crazy like launching dead people's ashes into space, I don't really know that they need the kind of protection, you know, a satellite providing vital intelligence would get. I wanted to ask you, Audrey, as someone who spent time across the federal government and now in industry about how you think about the intersection of other emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence and their intersection with the space environment and with dynamics that are taking place in LEO. What are the most exciting intersections with other emerging technologies that you see across the landscape? I mean, I could probably speak to AI the best, just because I do work in that area now as well. And just like AI is revolutionizing every facet of, you know, kind of our daily lives and also business, you know, interactions. I mean, it's poised to have impacts in space. You know, we've already seen the use of AI in, you know, sifting through large data sets for space. Obviously, AI is really good at looking at AI and machine learning is really good at looking at large data sets. And in the space context, you know, that could be doing like automated change detection of large data sets of imagery of what's happening on Earth. It could be also doing change detection or predictive analysis on what you think might happen next about where an object is going or will be in space. It can help identify anomalous behavior in space. You know, when you have thousands and thousands of satellites and each has, you know, hundreds of characteristics about how they're operating, you know, a human really can't process that much information and sort of identify little minute differences. So this is where, you know, just purely from a large data set perspective, I think AI, you know, intersects with space. But I also think, you know, one of the more interesting things we're starting to see is like kind of the agentic AI and how it can be used to provide operational recommendations, whether that's, you know, how would you defeat this threat? sort of your mission co-pilot, if you will? Or how would you best maneuver your satellite to avoid a collision? I like to joke one of the ways you can tell what the hot topic is in Washington, D.C. is by looking at the ads in the metro station. And you will see tons of ads in and around the Pentagon for how AI can be used to support battle planning. I think the same exact mindset could be applied to space operations. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point. And of course, as you know, it does raise a lot of really naughty issues about how you implement it, right? Because on the one hand, agentic AI could potentially prevent a collision that there is milliseconds or seconds in order to do, right, if it's fully empowered. On the other hand are we willing do we have enough trust and confidence in it to do that Or is it going to cause more problems than it has I mean that going to be a really difficult issue in the years to come Totally And I think you know if you think about the military context I don think we anywhere near completely autonomous operations You know I think for a host of reasons, not least of which is like, you know, the Geneva Conventions, I think you're going to want military operators to be in the loop on making decisions. But that doesn't mean that AI can't be used to provide courses of action, recommendations, assessment of different courses of action. You know, I think, you know, this is the sort of the model where you ask GPT a question and then you refine your question, you know, eight times until you sort of figure out what question you actually meant to ask the first time. And then, you know, you get sort of a useful set of information. I mean, I could see a similar kind of process happening with AI for space operations. But I completely agree. I mean, I think in terms of building up the trust and the confidence, I mean, you have to, of course, train the AI as well, which does also require large data sets in order to do so. Yeah. Although there could be a security dilemma aspect to this, right? In the sense that perhaps we want military operators to be in the loop and to make those decisions. But if we believe, if our military believes that the PRC is not doing that and that's going to make them able to act faster, that could really change the calculus as well. Yeah, that's a really interesting point. I had not really thought about sort of the AI on AI piece of it, but that's like a scary feature you're outlining, Matt. Okay, Audrey. Well, this has been a really fascinating and wide-ranging conversation. So let me try to reflect back to you some of the takeaways and what we learned from the discussion. First, you know, space is increasingly central in terms of both our national security and our economy, right? All kinds of uses, both for the military as well as the commercial sector, and in some cases a blending of the two, that we've seen this increase in predominance of commercial satellites that are used for both commercial and national security uses, and that many of those satellites, the good news, are launched and operated by U.S. companies. That's how things have developed, which I think is a good place to be in. But we also talked about the response from the PRC, that it's making huge investments, that it's seen the U.S. success in this area. And that's going to be a challenge going forward. In terms of how the U.S. addresses that, we talked about the need for competition. The space sector is becoming increasingly diverse and that that's something that we want to see, how we want to avoid having regulations that don't necessarily let the U.S. private sector compete. And that can include export controls as an example of something that is perhaps in some areas outdated and doesn't let the U.S. to fully diffuse and allow its commercial sectors to outcompete the PRC globally. We also talked about the threats in space. One of them is that market competitiveness aspect, which in some ways is the most important, right? If we don't actually have the operational capabilities, then nothing else is going to matter. But there are a number of other risks, right? That China is developing ways to deny U.S. access to space, that it's replicating some of the advantages it's seen in Ukraine and elsewhere that the U.S. has in space. We also talked about, from a competitiveness standpoint, what might need to be done on the regulatory front, that the U.S. has had a light-touch approach to regulation, that in many ways that's been a success, but that companies need some predictability and stability, things around rules for information sharing, the ability to have positional information, that the responsible actors in space already do this, and that may need to have a bit more regulation. Don't want it to be burdensome, but just to enable companies to be able to have that ability to operate in space and know what the environment's going to be like. And then we talked about protecting commercial space systems and all of the nuances that are involved in that, that there are a lot of different relationships and responsibilities that the U.S. government can have vis-a-vis the space sector, that in some cases, it's a U.S. contractor that is a really critical asset to the U.S. military. Maybe it needs to be on a critical asset list that the military actually takes some responsibility for. And then we talked about how there are companies that are neither of those things, that are just doing things in space. And there are some basic regulations that they need to follow, but that perhaps the U.S. doesn't have, in that case, a really integral interest. So I think that kind of captures where we are up to the present day. And then finally, we talked about how AI is going to change the way that operators do things in space and how agentic AI in particular will really fundamentally change the way we operate in space, but also create a lot of challenging issues that the government and industry are going to have to work through. So, you know, you've covered space for a long time. Is there a single really important issue that you feel like listeners also need to be aware of? I don't think there's just one thing. I mean, I think what I would say to kind of just sum all of it up is, you know, we often make this like trite statement that policy doesn't keep pace with technology. You know, people have been saying that to me as a as a career policy practitioner. You know, I've heard that my whole career. Policy is not keeping pace with technology. And to be honest, for most of my career, I didn't really think that was true. I actually thought we did a lot on space policy that was at least on par with where technology was. But the changes that are happening in the space environment, both just sheer numbers of objects, but also the security challenges, have accelerated rapidly in the last five years. And I am at the place now where I am seeing policy falling behind to some degree in the U.S., but really internationally. You know, look, there's nothing special about space policy. You know, space policy doesn't happen in a vacuum. Ha ha. You know, space is a geopolitical issue, just like any other geopolitical issue. And just as it's become increasingly difficult for nations to agree in other areas, whether they be technology or not, you know, space is experiencing the same challenges. But we really can't afford that anymore with just the growing pace of change. Yeah. And so this is an area that comes down to, you know, all three of us have worked at the White House before. It comes down to prioritization and resources. Right. Obviously, this is an international issue, but it starts in the U.S. with the administration really devoting the time and priority to it. So this is an area that, you know, it's good that the administration is focused on it in some ways in terms of Iron Dome and recognizing that the high ground is critical. But covering all those commercial, military, civil aspects of it is something that we really hope to see. Absolutely. You know, that's a good place to end. And I think, you know, it's an area where we can look at what the administration is doing and also offer some recommendations, perhaps, on coming out of this conversation on what they should perhaps pursue. So thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Matt. Thanks, Lauren. Thanks so much, Audrey. It was incredibly helpful for us and for you, for our listeners, to learn from your wide-ranging expertise. And we thank our listeners and hope that you look out for another episode in two weeks. that's it for this episode of cash me if you can don't forget to subscribe and follow csis for more deep dives into the technology shaping our future
