International Security & Defense

The U.S. government is currently working on creating a so called Space Force. Legislation to establish the branch is expected to be included in the Pentagon's budget proposal next year, but it would still need approval from Congress.

If the Space Force branch is established, tech companies and defense contractors in Massachusetts stand to make millions — if not billions — in new contracts.

You may not realize it, but you probably interact with some space object every day. Maybe it’s your car, your television or even your internet — each relies on some space-orbiting satellite to function. Satellites are accessed by millions of devices a day and are robust providers of service. But trusting these satellites as much as we do is risky as they are all extremely vulnerable to cyberattacks.

When we think about critical infrastructure, the first assets that come to mind include the electric grid, water networks and transportation systems. Further unpacking the definition of critical infrastructure, we consider industries such as agriculture, defense or the financial sector. However, we rarely think about where the underlying systems that enable technology functionality across these sectors physically reside, who developed the technology, and who can access and manage that technology.

President Trump has hurled so many thunderbolts recently that people may have missed the one that could have the greatest long-term impact on America’s national security — his directive to the Pentagon last week to start creating a new military service that he dubbed the “Space Force.”

Early in Richard Rhodes’s new book, “Energy: A Human History,” we hear of a prominent citizen using colorful language to lament the state of his polluted city and urge his government to shut down industry or move it elsewhere: “If there be a resemblance of hell upon earth, it is in this volcano [on] a foggy day.” Though this could easily apply to modern-day Beijing, the speaker here is John Evelyn, a wealthy horticulturalist and one of the founders of the scientific Royal Society of London — and he’s complaining about London in 1659.

Space is the new frontier of warfare. That was the theme of a “Space Symposium” here this week that gathered thousands of military and corporate experts from around the globe. A variant of the Boeing simulator may someday be training the 21st-century version of space-drone pilots.