U.S. Commercial Space Launch Program and the Department of Defense Dilemma, by William G. Clapp

A longer version of this paper was originally submitted to the faculty of the Naval War College in partial satisfaction of the requirements for an Advanced Research Program elective William G. Clapp, Ed.D, Major, Utah National Guard that was later updated for publication as a Strategic Research Department occasional paper. In this paper, Clapp described how the U.S. space launch program no longer dominated the world and was instead playing catch-up with the world's first commercial launch company, Arianespace. He suggested that a healthy U.S. space launch program could provide considerable economic advantages and is essential to assure continued low-cost military access to space, but that the space policy in the 1990s prohibited development of new launch vehicles and limited the Department of Defense to only upgrades of existing launch vehicles as well as a declining DoD budget. He also identified Arianespace's advantages and offered low-cost recommendations for countering them that would help the U.S. once again dominate the world commercial launch market and ensure affordable military access to space.