Article by George Pullen & Samson Williams July 30, 2021 (financialexpress.com)
• Soon, the Space Economy will encompass production, trade, and commerce for goods and services both familiar and brand new taking place between the ‘Karman line’ (approximately 100 kilometers overhead) and ‘Cislunar space’
Article by Lauren Fruen June 28 2021 (the-sun.com)
• On July 23rd, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) released a 23-page document entitled: “A Primer on Cislunar Space”, referring to the area between the Earth and the Moon. The director of AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate, Col. Eric Felt, states: “As commerce extends to the Moon and beyond, it is vital we understand and solve those unique challenges so that we can provide space domain awareness and security.” With the Moon more than 238,000 miles from Earth, countries are scrambling to fill the gap.
• The US Space Force is tasked with defending and protecting U.S. interests in space. When Space Force was established by President Trump in December 2019 as a ‘separate but equal’ branch of the US military, the limits of protected space was in near-Earth geostationary range at 22,236 miles. “With new US public and private sector operations extending into cislunar space, the reach of USSF’s sphere of interest will extend to 272,000 miles and beyond – more than a tenfold increase in range and 1,000-fold expansion in service volume,” reads the report.
• The report adds: “As USSF organizes, trains, and equips to provide the resources necessary to protect and defend vital US interests in and beyond Earth-orbit, new collaborations will be key to operating safely and securely on these distant frontiers.” The report is “targeted at military space professionals who will answer the call to develop plans, capabilities, expertise, and operational concepts.”
• When Space Force was launched, Donald Trump said at the time: “When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space.
• Earlier this month, Air Force Colonel Eric Felt got straight to the point: “Space war is going to look a lot like the Cold War in a couple of different ways. First of all, we hope nobody’s actually exchanging destructive weapons with each other, and that we don’t just hope, but we take active actions to deter that from happening. The nature of conflict in space is that there is an offensive advantage, or a ‘first-mover’ advantage, in that it is a lot easier to attack somebody else than to defend your own stuff. And we’ve seen that before—that’s the same as with…nuclear weapons.”
An Air Force Research Laboratory report details how the Earth’s only natural satellite
– and the space around it – could become a new military frontier, SpaceNews reports.
The 23-page document, “A Primer on Cislunar Space”, was published by the Air Force Research Laboratory just two days before the US government admitted they could not explain 144 sightings of flying objects.
The report explains it “is targeted at military space professionals who will answer the call to develop plans, capabilities, expertise, and operational concepts.”
It adds: “When established in December 2019, USSF [United States Space Force] was tasked with defending and protecting U.S. interests in space.
“Until now, the limits of that mission have been in near Earth, out to approximately geostationary range (22,236 miles). ”
The report adds: “With new US public and private sector operations extending into cislunar space, the reach of USSF’s sphere of interest will extend to 272,000 miles and beyond – more than a tenfold increase in range and 1,000-fold expansion in service volume.”
Cislunar space is the space between Earth and the moon.
The report adds: “As USSF organizes, trains, and equips to provide the resources necessary to protect and defend vital US interests in and beyond Earth-orbit, new collaborations will be key to operating safely and securely on these distant frontiers.”
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Article by Luke Dormehl October 2, 2020 (yahoo.com)
• The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Gryphon Technologies $14 million to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion system for the US military rockets (similar to the one pictured above). The High-Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) system will be used to enable the military to carry out missions in cislunar space, or the area between the Earth and the orbit of the Moon.
• “A successfully demonstrated NTP system will provide a leap ahead in space-propulsion capability, allowing agile and rapid transit over vast distances as compared to present propulsion approaches,” said Tabitha Dodson, Gryphon’s chief engineer. In an NTP system, a nuclear reactor heats a propellant, like hydrogen, to extreme temperatures. It then expels it via a nozzle to create thrust. This method could be significantly more efficient than current chemical rockets, with a ‘thrust-to-weight ratio’ reportedly 10,000 times greater than electric propulsion.
• The CEO of Gryphon, P.J. Braden, said in a statement. “We are proud to support DRACO and the development and demonstration of NTP, a significant technological advancement in efforts to achieve cislunar space awareness.” The NTP system development is part of DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program.
• Between this, the rise of Space Force, NASA commissioning private companies to retrieve space resources, and the continued work of companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, space exploration is about as fast-moving and full of promise as it’s been in many years.
• [Editor’s Note] The Pentagon’s deep state infested Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency named its advanced propulsion development program “DRACO”? That is a bit on the nose, isn’t it?
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Gryphon Technologies $14 million to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion system for the U.S. military. Part of DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program, the High-Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) system will be used to enable the military to carry 
out missions in cislunar space, meaning the area between the Earth and the orbit of the moon.
“A successfully demonstrated NTP system will provide a leap ahead in space-propulsion capability, allowing agile and rapid transit over vast distances as compared to present propulsion approaches,” Tabitha Dodson, Gryphon’s chief engineer on the support team and a national expert in NTP systems, said in a statement.
The militarization of space, this time largely involving the United States and China, has been in the news in recent years in a way that it hasn’t since the decades-old Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviets. The idea of using Nuclear Thermal Propulsion to power spacecraft is that a nuclear reactor utilized to heat a propellant like hydrogen to extreme temperatures, prior to expelling it via a nozzle in order to create thrust, could be significantly more efficient than current chemical rockets. It would also have a thrust-to-weight ratio that is reportedly 10,000 times greater than electric propulsion.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.