NASA’s CLPS Program Carries National Security Implications

A single week in early March saw two commercial companies, Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace, land their respective spacecraft on the Moon’s surface to deliver scientific payloads on behalf of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which aims to facilitate rapid acquisition of lunar delivery services that both enable scientific exploration and commercial development of the Moon. 

These sequential landings demonstrate not only the substantial progress made by commercial space companies since the CLPS program’s inception in 2018, but also highlights the role commercial partners will serve in a new “space race,” that carries both civil and national security implications. 

In this episode of "The Elara Edge," Elara Nova partner Lt Gen (Ret) Bill Liquori breaks down the recent achievements of the CLPS program, as well as the civil and national security implications these achievements carry. Gen Liquori previously served as the first Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Strategy, Plans, Programs, and Analysis at the United States Space Force, and currently serves on several space-related advisory boards - including the Space Force Association, True Anomaly, and Intuitive Machines. 

"The Elara Edge" is hosted by Scott King and produced by Regia Multimedia Services. The full story can be found on Elara Nova's Insights page here. Music was produced by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio.

Transcript

Host: Scott King 

SME: Lt Gen (Ret) Bill Liquori, partner at Elara Nova; board member at Intuitive Machines 

00:02 - 01:30 

A single week in early March saw two commercial companies, Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace, land their respective spacecraft on the Moon’s surface to deliver scientific payloads on behalf of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. The companies were contracted as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services or CLPS program, which aims to facilitate rapid acquisition of lunar delivery services that both enable scientific exploration and commercial development of the Moon.  

These sequential landings demonstrate not only the substantial progress made by commercial space companies since the CLPS program’s inception in 2018, but also highlights the role commercial partners will serve in a new “space race,” that carries both civil and national security implications. 

Welcome to “The Elara Edge,” I’m your host, Scott King. Here to discuss the recent achievements of NASA’s CLPS program - and the civil and national security implications it carries - is retired Lt General Bill Liquori, partner at Elara Nova. 

General Liquori previously served as the first Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Strategy, Plans, Programs, and Analysis at the United States Space Force, and currently serves on several space-related advisory boards - including the Space Force Association, True Anomaly, and Intuitive Machines. 

Sir, welcome to the show! 

01:30 - 01:39 

Hey, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I've been a fan from a distance of your previous podcasts you did with some of the other partners. So I'm excited to be a part of it.  

01:40 - 02:01 

Thank you, Sir. And we’re excited to have you on. 

So, as mentioned at the top, NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS, made headlines back in March when two commercial space companies placed landers on the moon. 

But first, for those in our audience who may not be familiar with the CLPS program - can you explain what it is and what objectives it’s setting out to achieve? 

02:02 - 03:21 

Yeah, sure. This is a great place to start. So let's both agree that it's much easier to say CLPS than Commercial Lunar Payload Services and we'll do that from here on forward. But CLPS is designed to leverage the state of the U.S. commercial space industry, by contracting with multiple companies to deliver NASA science and technology experiments to the surface of the Moon.  

Rather than do a traditional government approach or procurement, which are often slower, more expensive. This approach enables NASA to achieve rapid acquisition of lunar delivery services from commercial companies. It's an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract that currently includes 14 possible vendors. To date, NASA has awarded contracts to five of those companies, and there are more mission awards expected in the future.  

Ultimately, the robotic CLPS missions lay the groundwork for the planned Artemis missions to return humans to the surface of the moon. Another way to think about this is that these early robotic missions to the South Pole serve as some level of risk reduction before sending humans that far south on the lunar surface. 

Having said all that, I think it's important to note that the technology and the cislunar procedures that are developed and the resources that are discovered by CLPS are supportive of far more than just the Artemis program itself.

03:22 - 03:45 

Now, before we get into this year’s lunar landings, I’d like to point out that this is not the first time commercial companies have landed on the moon. 

Back in February of 2024, Intuitive Machine’s Odysseus spacecraft became the first commercial lander to reach the lunar surface - and it, too, was part of this CLPS program. 

Can you speak to the significance of Odysseus’ lunar landing last year?  

03:46 - 05:27 

Yeah, exactly. So Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus landing happened in February of 2024 and had to have been one of the more exciting moments of my 30-plus years of space experience. Ultimately, it's the confirmation of the capability and ingenuity of the space industry. It's a validation of NASA's decision to contract for commercial services and really the first step to opening the door for what can be a thriving lunar economy.  

For the first time since Apollo 17. So over 50 years, the United States returned to the moon and it was a commercial company leading the way - Intuitive Machines. If that wasn't enough, the Odyssey spacecraft landed further south on the moon than any other spacecraft in history, which is a significant step toward the early Artemis missions like we discussed before. But IM’s first mission signified the commercial industry is ready to lead the way for NASA.  

A couple other things that I think are notable to point out. This first mission proved the commercial industry's ability to land and transmit scientific data to and from the Moon. Odysseus transmitted over 350MB of data to many data hungry scientists at NASA.  

It also proved the commercial industry's ability to travel over 600,000 miles, and land within a mile of its intended target. In this case, it was the Malapert A crater. Specific to Intuitive Machines, IM-1 actually validated a proprietary liquid methane-liquid oxygen propulsion system with a first-ever deep space firing and multiple restarts throughout the mission. 

And ultimately, IM-1 opened the door for a new commercial approach leveraging fixed price contracts, providing new economics and efficiency for government agencies like NASA and others.  

05:28 - 05:49 

This brings us to March of this year, 2025, when Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost, and another Intuitive Machine’s spacecraft - Athena - landed on the moon within days of each other.  

And while each spacecraft and their respective missions experienced varying degrees of success, can you describe the purpose behind each of these landers and how their missions played out? 

05:50 - 08:33 

Absolutely. More exciting days earlier this year, for sure. The idea of having multiple CLPS vendors is that NASA can specialize the goals and the objectives for each individual mission. 

So NASA works with each company to designate a specific landing area, and then they also determine which specific experiments will fly and land on the individual CLPS missions. These landing areas range from the near side of the Moon to the far side, and the South Pole.  

So in the case of Firefly's mission, the Blue Ghost Lander, it landed near a volcanic feature in the northeast quadrant of the near side of the Moon. The experiments focused on critical data about the Moon's regolith, geophysical characteristics, and the interaction of solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field. Definitely an incredibly successful mission. With a successful landing. Performing 14 days of surface operations and transmitting over hundreds of gigabytes of data to NASA.  

Just a little while later, you get a second landing with Intuitive Machines’ second mission. Athena, in this case, was the lander. South pole was designated as the landing area. And ultimately, this was a precursor to future Artemis missions that will send humans to the South Pole. The experiments on Athena focused on a drill and a mass spectrometer to search for the presence of volatiles. The volatiles are chemical elements that exist in the permanently shadowed regions, that are located at the poles of the Moon. 

It also had a laser retro-reflector, a 4G communications network, multiple rovers, and a commercial data center. Unfortunately, after a near flawless 600,000 plus mile trip to the moon, we did run into some issues, accurately determining our altitude above the surface and the challenging lighting environment at the South Pole and Athena ended up on her side. 

But the operations team did a great job of, kind of maximizing the benefit. Even given that landing, they were able to scramble and manage our power and thermal subsystems on Athena and preserve about 13 hours of surface operations after the landing, which enabled NASA to prove that its drill worked, collect about a half a gigabyte of data from the spectrometer that scientists are reviewing right now, as well. 

And the Intuitive Machines team is already in the midst of a comprehensive hot wash. Driving toward root cause, for these issues and other areas for improvement on future missions. The cool part is the hot wash is not just internal to Intuitive Machines, but it also includes external participants from the European Space Agency, our own NASA, and the Jet Propulsion Lab, to make sure that we've got a good comprehensive look at what went on with IM-2 with an eye towards IM-3, four and beyond. 

08:34 - 08:50 

Now, Firefly’s Blue Ghost landed on the moon on March 2nd. Meanwhile, Intuitive Machine’s Athena landed just four days later on March 6th. 

What do these landings, and the fact that they happened within mere days of each other, demonstrate about the state of commercial space today?  

08:51 - 10:58 

Yeah, it's pretty exciting. These first three successful landings, if I even include Intuitive Machines first landing in ‘24, they clearly demonstrate the viability of NASA's approach to leveraging commercial space companies for delivery of experiments to the Moon. 

Commercial companies are proving they can move faster and cheaper than traditional government programs. If you think about it when Space Policy Directive One was signed back in 2017, directing a focus on the Moon and beyond. There were no landers in development at that time. NASA approved the CLPS program a year later in 2018, and less than five years later, we've got multiple companies and landers and three successful landings so far. 

Most of us who have ever worked on any government space programs know that's a pretty impressive timeline and it's only possible because of the ingenuity, the technology, and expertise of our commercial companies.  

I think it's hard to argue against the fact that the U.S. commercial space industry is thriving and leading the way from a technology development perspective. Right now we've got the perfect storm of conditions for NASA to leverage this. We've got a combination of innovative space companies, decreasing launch costs, extremely interested space investors, and a recognition of the critical role space plays in the American way of life. 

NASA gets the benefit of [a] cheaper commercial approach, and the companies get the benefit of both NASA contracts and the ability to actually sell any remaining available space on the delivery vehicle to other government customers and an emerging commercial market. 

It's important to note the information-sharing that's going on between these companies. Obviously, any time you have multiple teams doing something, there's some competitive nature to things. But really the engineering teams, the operators and the leadership of each of these companies are constantly looking for ways to share data from their individual missions. Lessons learned.  

All of it, with a goal of continuing to advance our collective capabilities and this ultimately puts NASA, the United States, and our Allies and partners in an even better strategic position. 

10:59 – 11:00 

So what’s next for the CLPS program? 

11:01 - 11:52 

Yeah, here I think the future's bright. There's much more still to accomplish. There's at least five more CLPS missions that have already been awarded and are planned over the next 2 to 3 years. 

Intuitive Machines and Firefly both have two more missions to go, and a team led by Draper, has a lander currently scheduled for a mission in 2027. There's also several additional CLPS awards anticipated in the coming years and interestingly enough, recently many of the companies currently involved with CLPS have engaged with NASA and Congress on the benefits of a follow-on CLPS program, maybe a 2.0. and what that might mean and how that might benefit the United States going forward.  

Ultimately, though, anything beyond the current CLPS, program and budget, those details will get decided after a NASA administrator is confirmed and NASA builds its future budgets.  

11:53 - 12:11 

Shortly after the release of this episode, a Japanese commercial space company called ispace will also be attempting its own lunar landing.  

And although this landing is not part of the CLPS program - can you share a little bit about this mission is and what it says about the commercial space opportunities that exist within international and Allied countries, as well?

12:12 - 14:10 

The first thing I'll say is 'Good luck to the ispace team.' I think anybody involved with lunar landings at this point is rooting for each individual attempt and all hope to learn from the things that they learn on their mission. 

ispace has also had similar challenges, with their first landing attempt in ‘23. But they're stepping up to the plate again. Like each of these companies wants to go do. Specific to this landing, the Resilience lander - it actually entered lunar orbit on May 6th. And they're scheduled to land, as you said, shortly after this podcast airs. Although it's not a CLPS mission, it similarly carries a series of science experiments. In their case, it includes a water electrolyzer, a food production experiment, and a deep space radiation monitor. 

I think any time we talk, any issue with space, whether it's national security, science, commercial, it's critical to talk about the importance of Allies and partners. Specific to CLPS missions, NASA mandates that the providers are U.S. companies, and then a majority of the lander manufacturing be done in the United States. But that doesn't mean that we can't have international commercial cooperation. 

As an example, on the recent Intuitive Machines mission, Athena, a Japanese company Dymon partnered with Intuitive Machines to deliver a Japanese rover to the surface of the Moon. And although our landing didn't enable the deployment of the rover, the company did confirm they could command the rover by turning on its wheels. Taking several photos from a camera on the rover and transmitting temperature data back to Earth. 

Firefly, similarly has had some partnership, in their case, with the Israeli Aerospace Industries on lander design and ispace has a US subsidiary, who's actually partnered with Draper on that mission that I mentioned earlier, scheduled with a launch in 2027. So there are still, even with the current CLPS restrictions, there's still plenty of opportunity for international cooperation.

14:11 - 14:28 

And aside from CLPS, NASA is looking to commercial space partners for other civil space programs: including the Lunar Terrain Vehicle - or LTV - and the Near Space Network - NSN. 

Let’s start with the Lunar Terrain Vehicle program. Can you share the purpose behind this effort and its relevance to this conversation?  

14:29 - 15:41 

Yeah. This is a great thing for us to touch on. The Lunar Terrain Vehicle program is another case where NASA is seeking to leverage commercial industry to design and operate the next generation moon buggy as a commercial service. LTV will enable astronauts to explore, collect scientific samples and transport equipment [at] much greater distances than would be possible just on foot. 

This approach, much like CLPS, avoids a prolonged, expensive government procurement, and it leverages the state of commercial innovation. NASA plans to use the LTV, not only with astronauts, but also remotely during times where there are no astronauts present and, also interesting that, the LTV approach will allow commercial vendors to use the vehicle during downtimes in the NASA schedule, for commercial lunar surface activities that are unrelated to NASA requirements. 

The state of the program right now, there's currently three commercial teams each developing feasibility studies and preliminary LTV designs that they'll present to NASA. And ultimately, NASA will down-select to a specific provider or providers for a demonstration mission ahead of the ultimate Artemis requirements.

15:42 - 15:45 

And what about NASA’s Near Space Network or NSN? What is this program looking to achieve? 

16:01 - 17:18 

Yeah, sure. I think this pulls that similar thread of NASA leveraging commercial companies. Recently NASA awarded multiple commercial companies contracts for their Near Space Network services. Which ultimately seeks to augment NASA's direct-to-Earth communication services. 

They want to leverage commercial providers to increase the capacity of many spacecraft to transmit data directly back to Earth ground stations. Intuitive Machines received multiple awards for cislunar and beyond cislunar direct-to-Earth services, as well as cislunar relay services. So relay in and around the Moon. SSC Space US, and Viasat also received awards for direct-to-Earth from low-Earth orbit, and a company called Kongsberg Satellite Services received multiple awards to support science missions in low-Earth orbit. 

Several of those awards will enable NASA to alleviate demand on their deep space network, and by leveraging commercial services for all of these commercial exploration programs, NASA is also supporting a cislunar space economy.  

And if you back up for a second from my view, the keys to this economy will be lunar access and delivery, like these landers that we've been talking about. And then commercial data services as the focus of this question. And then the previous question on LTV. There's the commercial lunar infrastructure services that'll be out there. All three pieces of those are critical to us driving a successful lunar economy. At the same time as supporting NASA's scientific goals. 

17:19 - 17:25 

And Sir, can you elaborate on the challenge of building the communications infrastructure that's needed to transfer all of this data to and from the Moon? 

17:26 - 18:42 

There's a couple aspects here. The first one I would focus on is the existing, ground stations and, and receive networks that we have. Obviously, anytime NASA is doing something out in outer space, the end goal is to get the data back to Earth and so it requires communications networks that can reach very, very long distances. 

NASA, like other government agencies who are running ground networks. There's an insatiable demand for data. And so, time is precious on the existing networks. So they've started down the path with this near space services network to be able to augment and increase capacity, if you will.  

The other thing to think about is, other than NASA’s deep space exploration probes and things of that nature. Most of the U.S. focus on space has been in the geocentric world obviously orbits, going around the Earth.  

There's some differences in operating space systems when you get out to cislunar and beyond, you get into three body gravity issues that you have to deal with. And so each step of the way, operating new systems in cislunar and beyond, helps NASA and other space organizations understand the challenges of operating in a slightly different gravitational environment and so those are really important to us as we go forward. So a couple of different aspects to that question there.

18:43 - 18:55 

You’ve also used the term cislunar economy? From your perspective, how would you define the cislunar economy?

What are the types of commercial and economic opportunities that can be realized in the cislunar environment?

18:56 - 20:09 

Obviously CLPS's primary focus is to get NASA science experiments and exploration to the surface of the Moon. The cool part is because they're leveraging a commercial service, NASA has basically said these companies, to the extent that they have available, room and power on their landers, can market that remaining available. Swap, if you will, to commercial customers. 

So we've seen, even in just the early CLPS missions, we've seen customers like Nokia, wanting to establish their own early cellular networks in and around the Moon. We've seen other companies that are building rovers for their own purposes, contract commercially to be able to put things on the surface. 

There's just a host of things, there will be interest from pharmaceutical companies who get benefits from potentially developing new pharmaceuticals in zero-G or even lower gravity environments then you can on Earth. 

So the future is kind of limitless on what other commercial interests there may be to put something on or develop something on the surface of the Moon and NASA's commercial services programs enable this economy to develop and thrive. 

20:10 - 20:28 

Now, I’d like to place these programs and achievements into greater context. And that is that these commercial lunar landings are coming at a time when China is making significant advancements in their own lunar landings. 

What has China been able to achieve on the lunar surface? And what might their ambitions be for the Moon moving forward?

20:29 - 22:26 

Yeah, it's a great question, especially from a strategic perspective. China is definitely interested in the Moon and strategic locations around the Moon. They are a key piece of China's overall space aspirations. 

Which contribute from their perspective to national economic development, national defense and national prestige for great power competition. In 2021, China announced plans for what they called the International Lunar Research Station. In a partnership at that time with Russia, and they opened the program to other interested parties.  

And ultimately, it's their alternative to our U.S.-led Artemis missions, seeking to establish a robotic lunar base by the 2030s with an eventual human presence as well. As precursors to this effort, China successfully completed multiple robotic missions to the Moon.  

Most recently, and you're going to have to forgive my Chinese pronunciation here, but their Chang'e four spacecraft landed on the far side of the moon, and Chang'es five and six actually returned lunar samples to Earth. 

They're making a steady cadence and progress on each of these missions leading to their ultimate goals. It's probably also worth noting that, you know, right now we don't really have an effective way to monitor activities on the far side of the Moon, such as Chang’e four and any others and so it's worth it for us to be paying close attention to the Chinese progress. 

But they certainly have many more bigger plans. They've got at least two more robotic missions slated to launch in ‘26 and ‘28. And they're also working on development of their Long March 10 rocket, which is specifically designed to support human lunar missions in the future. 

They also envision a constellation of navigation and communication satellites around the Moon. But ultimately, in summary, they're making steady progress on a sustained effort for their lunar ambitions and the real question is: 'Are they only interested in international scientific cooperation or some other goals that they may have from a security perspective?'

22:27 - 22:38 

Thank you, Sir. But it’s not just China. Russia, too, has also made a recent lunar landing attempt.  

Can you bring us up to speed on its Luna-25 spacecraft and how Russia’s lunar ambitions fit into this picture? 

22:39 - 23:26 

Yeah, you bet. As you mentioned, Russia also tried a recent lunar landing. Their Luna-25 spacecraft, actually, unfortunately for them, crashed into the surface of the Moon in 2023. 

The reports that I've seen at least indicates they lost control of the spacecraft as they were performing maneuvers, sort of at end game to get into position for the landing. It obviously further highlights the challenges of landing safely on the Moon. 

That being said, a few months after the failed landing attempt, Russia did announce that it's got plans for its own human moon landings and a lunar base to assist in exploiting lunar resources - currently in the mid 2030s to 2040 timeframe. Time will tell, if their economic and space expertise will support these goals. 

23:27 - 23:35 

Can you elaborate what it is about the south pole of the Moon, and the far side of the Moon, specifically, that has captured the interest of the United States and its adversaries? 

23:36 - 25:14 

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So the South Pole, as we certainly have learned through two Intuitive Machines missions, is a unique environment. 

Many, many craters, at the South Pole. And there's a lot of what I mentioned earlier, these permanently shadowed regions. The edges of these craters create shadows that, in many cases that have not ever seen the light of the sun, so that the temperature extremes in the South Pole are great. 

The lighting extremes are great, but what the scientists believe is that in these permanently shadowed regions, that we'll find presence of water, and other elements and some of the goals of this are if we can find and harvest those resources in those areas, it may help with exploration beyond the Moon. 

Some of those elements would be critical to making fuel for future space missions. One of the most expensive things, or parts of a space mission, is the cost of breaking through Earth's gravity, if you will, the launch itself. And if we can begin to produce fuel on the Moon with resources that are found and harvested there. 

Well, now you can start to change the equation of how far out you can do exploration and things of that nature.  

The far side is of great interest because there just bottom line hasn't been that much activity on the far side. Also, a shadowed area, obviously. But, both from: 'Hey, let's find out what's over there to the resources that might be there.' 

And I already mentioned China has a lander that they put on that side. Understanding what's going on in a region that is not commonly seen or visited is critically important for many reasons. 

25:14 - 25:24 

So, why are both these advancements and ambitions, particularly as it relates to China and Russia’s International Lunar Research Station, concerning for the United States and its Allies?  

25:25 - 26:52 

You might get different answers here, but from my perspective, after 30 years working in the national security space sector, and partnering with NASA and other interagency space players during that time, as well as several more years since retirement working with commercial space companies. At the end of the day, I think we're kind of in a new space race. 

In my mind, it's a race for resources, knowledge and prestige. In 2017 and ‘18, I had the privilege to work on the National Security Council staff, and work with all of the interagency space organizations, developing the National Space Strategy, which the President signed in March of 2018. The driving factor for that strategy, as with all the other strategies developed during that time, was a U.S. vital national interest. 

And we collectively defined that for the space strategy as unfettered access to and the freedom to operate in space in order to advance our national security, economic prosperity and scientific knowledge. So there's kind of two pieces to that. There's the we've got to have the unfettered access and ability to operate. But it's not just that. We need that in order to advance those other goals. 

I realize I'm obviously biased, being a part of that effort and each successive administration gets an opportunity to chart a new course. But I still believe this vital national interest to be true. And these interests are, in my mind, an element of this new space race.

26:53 - 27:19 

Sir, you mentioned this idea that we’re in a new “space race.” The original space race goes back to the Cold War-era, when space activities were distinctly driven by the capabilities of sovereign governments, namely the United States and the Soviet Union  

But how has the overall space environment evolved to where we are now? When we find ourselves in this new space race, but now with commercial space companies driving these space activities, with the backing of sovereign governments? 

27:20 - 28:13 

I think maybe the way to describe this as you highlighted traditionally, we've had government state actors who are kind of leading the way in space, if you will. 

Everything sort of flipped on its head at this point. I mean, obviously, government space actors are still heavily involved and and all doing great things, but now we certainly have commercial companies that are providing critical services for the U.S. government to advance our goals, and even compete with Russia and China. But as I mentioned before, these companies are also establishing the basis for a commercial lunar economy. 

This emerging economy, just like the one on Earth, will be a key enabler for achieving more lofty goals across science, the broader economy, and even national security. Companies like Intuitive Machines and Firefly and a host of other commercial companies will all be key players in the U.S. success going forward.  

28:14 - 28:23 

We’re also no longer in a bi-polar world, with a broad number of space-faring nations. So what opportunities exist to collaborate with international partners in space? 

28:23 - 29:16 

Much like everything else we do in space, there's a lot of room and need for international partnerships. We can just simply do more when international partners are involved. And these partnerships can come in all shapes and sizes: from shared funding, technology development and academic research, to complementary and mutually beneficial mission responsibilities, to like-minded policy development that comes from programs like Artemis and other multilateral forums that are out there. 

Another benefit of partnerships, is the goal of building like-minded partners that make it easier and oftentimes more effective to call out any irresponsible behavior from others in the space domain. My experience thus far is that no country can go it alone in space, regardless of which sector you're talking about, and the right international partnerships often prove to be force multipliers as you're working through it.

29:17 - 29:26 

Space is also a highly capital-intensive endeavor, particularly for commercial companies.  

So how do partnerships with the investment community factor into this conversation? 

29:27 - 30:33 

They are a critical piece of the puzzle, no doubt about it. As I mentioned earlier, you know, one of the keys to that we're able to do this currently is that we have extremely interested investors. Whether those be individual investor investors that have large pocket books or investment companies that have access to resources. 

Not only are they interested in space and what it has to offer, but they see the benefits, and the return on investment, if you will.  

Even back when I was on active duty in my last couple of years, as we were asked to do speaking engagements, it was not just speaking to the government audiences. We had multiple engagements with investor conferences, with banking conferences and I know that continues to this day.  

I've even done some speaking after retirement at some of these conferences with an intent to ensure that this investment community realizes the benefits that are out there and what the return on investment possibilities are. And at the end of the day, I don't think we would be as successful if we did not have that critical piece of investment dollars, going in from venture capital, private equity, and other banks.

30:34 - 30:53 

Thank you, Sir. Now, we started today’s conversation with CLPS, a civil space program under the purview of NASA.  

So CLPS is not explicitly a national security program. But due to the inherent dual-use nature of space technologies, what are some of the national security implications for civil space programs like CLPS? 

30:54 - 34:43 

This is a really important question. But I need to caveat upfront. I can't speak for the Space Force anymore. I gave up that opportunity as I retired. But I can offer my perspective. 

I think this ties to if I go back to that vital national interest that I talked about earlier. Everyone that's operating in the domain is doing it for one of three or the combination of all three: to improve your national security, your economic prosperity and your scientific knowledge. And the reality is, one space system can do all three of those things. And so there is this dual-use nature of the ability to maintain domain awareness. I'll use it as an example. In this case, we've been focused on the Moon. 

So let's talk about domain awareness in and around the Moon. Obviously, it will help, as we continue to explore the surface of the Moon. But as I mentioned, there's resources up there on the Moon, and there will be competition for those resources, just like there has been in every other domain where resources exist. That domain awareness now also has national security implications as well.  

That's just one example but, clearly, NASA started CLPS, as they do with all their missions, with an intent to advance space exploration, scientific knowledge, and resource utilization. The commercial companies are interested in the economic benefits associated with this, but they also each individually take great pride in contributing to larger U.S. goals.  

China and Russia, as we talked about, are equally interested in the potential resources and China seems to be having one success after another in their own march toward a lunar base, placing taikonauts on the Moon.  

Throughout human history when there's been resource competition, eventually there are also security concerns and requirements. And it's these security considerations where I think the Space Force will come into play. To date, there's been little interest in involving the military in space efforts at the Moon and beyond. Multiple reasons for this. All of them - valid. There have been policy concerns of militarizing space. 

And really, the traditional geocentric orbits have been sufficient to meet the joint force needs. I think this will naturally change over time and is already beginning to change. But I also don't think it needs to preclude the goodness of international scientific cooperation for the benefit of all mankind. 

When you talk about any organization. But let's talk about the military and the Space Force here. I know all too well the challenges of building a Space Force budget capable of meeting all the requirements. The last job I had a big piece of that was to develop our budget. The fact that the Space Force gets less than 3% of the DOD budget makes this an even bigger challenge. 

What I foresee going forward, based on a lot of different factors, is an opportunity for the Space Force to increase its budget share, and the need to begin to improve our space domain awareness capabilities in and around the Moon, especially in the face of China's sustained, steady and oftentimes opaque space ambitions.  

Programs like CLPS offer the national security space sector an affordable opportunity to maybe host a sensor, a communications or navigation payload, or even buy commercial services, without the expense of your traditional large acquisition program that would include bus development costs and that expensive launch cost.  

In my mind, this would be a good and affordable way to address the gaps we have currently around the Moon and the worst thing we could do as a nation is to wait for a crisis to develop in or around the Moon or beyond, and then realize that we need some capability up there. 

It's a good way to remind folks that the dual-use and the multiple benefits we get from the program are big reasons why we, the United States, need to continue to show a leadership role in this area. 

34:44 - 34:51 

And Sir, can you speak to the risk of the United States ceding their traditional leadership role in space, to China or Russia? What do those implications look like? 

34:52 - 36:24 

We have gotten so much benefit as a nation since we jumped into space, back in the late 50s and early 60s. Not only have we gotten great, national security benefits. I mean, ultimately, let's be honest, the reason we got into space in the beginning was to be able to see beyond the Iron Curtain, to understand what it was that the Soviet Union was doing and we have continued to get great military benefit from our space activities. 

I mean, at the end of the day, space is central to our American way of war and there are very few military operations that don't involve the critical aspects that space brings to the fight. Having said that, space is also critical to our American way of life. The fact that we got into space ultimately led to things like the Global Positioning System, which everyone knows will help you navigate to different places. 

I think more and more people are understanding [that] there's also an element of the accurate timing source that GPS provides. This is something the Space Force provides to the entire world for free. But it's that accurate timing source that's the backbone for trillions of dollars of international banking every year and enables you to pay for gas at the pump, all kinds of things that many Americans take for granted. 

Or certainly enjoy the benefits of, and so, where we go in the future, still to be determined what other benefits are out there. But if we don't choose to be a part of this race and look to continue to lead the way from a U.S. perspective with our Allies and partners, we run the risk of losing out on some of the future benefits.

36:25 - 36:39 

Thank you, Sir. Now, you also currently serve as a partner with Elara Nova. So from this perspective, what opportunities exist for the consulting firm to support civil space programs that also carry national security space implications, like CLPS? 

36:40 - 37:53 

Yeah, let's start here with kudos to our co-founders, who had the foresight and recognized the need for a space-focused consultancy, and the need to staff it with expertise across all space sectors, from national security, civil, commercial and Allied space. Clearly, companies and government organizations cannot grow this level of expertise overnight. 

But the co-founders reached out into all of those different pockets and gathered a group of experts that can provide a lot of benefit to organizations, both commercial and government. The Elara Nova team is a great choice to help augment government or industry teams, with expertise across all those space mission areas, with strategy and policy development, market engagement, technology and capital investment, mergers and acquisitions, legal and regulatory issues, as well as interagency and inter-governmental cooperation. 

When you look across the team of co-founders, senior advisers, partners, and the rest of the team at Elara Nova, it is an impressive, wide-ranging, set of expertise and experience that, again, any government or industry organization can benefit from. 

37:54 - 38:32 

This has been an episode of "The Elara Edge." As a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space and aeronautics domains, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in national security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. This episode was edited and produced by Regia Multimedia Services. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at The Elara Edge.