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Thursday, June 18, 2026

Salesforce France CEO: Both leaders and employees need to adapt to AI

Copyright Euronews
By Roselyne Min
Published on 18/06/2026

Speaking at Vivatech in Paris, Emilie Sidiqian, Salesforce France’s CEO, told Euronews Next how companies should embrace AI and why leaders must drive its adoption from the top.

Once best known for its software that helps businesses track customers, sales leads and service requests, Salesforce says it is now moving deeper into artificial intelligence (AI).
The US company has been promoting what it calls the “agentic enterprise,” a model where AI agents work alongside human employees across business functions.
In 2024, Salesforce launched Agentforce, its AI-agent platform, and this month announced a $3.6 billion (€3.14bn) deal to acquire Fin, a customer-service AI company whose agent can answer customer questions and resolve support cases.
“We moved from a standard Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to data, data to AI, AI to the agentic enterprise,” Emilie Sidiqian, Salesforce France CEO, told Euronews Next at the tech conference Vivatech in Paris, France.
“Our positioning is to reinvent the way all enterprises need to embrace the AI revolution,” Sidiqian added.
Relate
Salesforce says Agentforce can deliver “real conversational AI” across service, sales and marketing workflows, citing 66% autonomous case resolution, 15% more marketing pipeline and 1.8 times higher lead conversion.
Its AI agents are already being used by clients, the CEO says, such as SharkNinja, a US home appliance company that uses them for 24/7 customer support across 30 countries.
She also says Swiss staffing company Adecco has used AI-powered candidate conversations to reach 1.2 million conversations and help accelerate 50,000 job placements.
The Salesforce executive said enterprise AI is “for everyone,” from small companies to mid-sized businesses and global corporations.
“This is not a tool,” Sidiqian said. “This is a small wave of a new kind of innovation. The pace is massive. You can see that it impacts all types of jobs, all types of activities.”
Related
France and Germany call for European AI sovereignty at VivaTech

Job transformation in the AI era

Sidiqian underlined the goal is not to replace humans, but to build a form of “hybrid” work where people remain “at the centre” while agents take on more routine or repetitive tasks.
She believes the shift should be treated as a leadership question, with CEOs and executive teams deciding how AI reshapes jobs across the company.
“AI is AI, it is a technology. When you really reinvent your business model, it is the leaders who need to understand how they will transform every single job in the company,” she said.
“This is a leadership question and it should be carried by the CEO and by every single executive committee,” she added.
Sidiqian said she uses AI tools every day, including a Salesforce-owned Slack, where Slackbot acts as a “concierge” to summarise overnight activity across teams from the US to Japan and flag what needs approval.
She said the aim is to avoid moving between several different tools and instead use AI as a “cockpit” to organise work with the right permissions and data. She also encourages her teams to use AI, arguing that adoption has to be led from the top.
“When you have like the right leadership, when you had the right adoption, when you carry this revolution at the heart of your business model, there is a huge opportunity to have growth for your company”.

From Foxconn to Nvidia: Why France is so attractive for Europe’s AI infrastructure

By Pascale Davies

Published on 18/06/2026 - EURONEWS

Foxconn, Nvidia and Mistral AI announce major AI infrastructure deals at Europe's VivaTech conference, with France's cheap nuclear energy and homegrown talent drawing global investment.

The race to build Europe's artificial intelligence future sets up a home in Paris this week, as the city's flagship tech conference VivaTech becomes a magnet for global technology giants who see France as a key to building AI on the continent

The event has grown from a 45,000-person gathering into Europe's largest startup and tech conference, drawing over 200,000 attendees from 170 countries. This year, it carries more geopolitical weight than ever, with AI sovereignty and infrastructure dominating the agenda.

Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn and French computing firm Bull announced a partnership on Thursday to build powerful AI computers in Europe to power the continent's fast-growing network of AI factories, the large-scale computing centres that form the backbone of artificial intelligence infrastructure.

“France is one of the biggest countries in Europe with quite a lot of talent… We also know that France is very good at high-tech and especially in the space industry,” Foxconn’s vice president and spokesperson James Wu told Euronews Next.

“France has very great ambitions in solving AI projects and we believe we can create a very important role to help France achieve that goal,” he added.

Components will be manufactured and tested at Foxconn's facilities in the Czech Republic before final assembly and validation at Bull's factory in Angers, France. The servers are targeted at cloud providers and the growing market of AI factories across Europe.

The announcement was made at VivaTech in Paris, marking Foxconn's first appearance at the show.

Alongside the Nvidia-powered AI server news, the company displayed two electric vehicles, one of which had a massage chair, and a wheeled humanoid robot capable of performing precision assembly tasks.

The Foxconn-Bull deal is part of a wider surge of AI infrastructure investment in Europe anchored by Nvidia.

At last year's VivaTech, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang committed to building more than 20 AI factories across Europe and named Mistral AI as the continent's sovereign-compute champion.

This year, Nvidia and Mistral AI announced the creation of Mistral Compute, a sovereign AI infrastructure and GPU cloud platform project designed specifically for Europe.

Why France is attractive to AI giants

Under French President Emmanuel Macron, the country has positioned itself as startup nation and a serious contender in AI.

France is at a unique advantage over other European countries in that its energy source is much cheaper, as it relies on nuclear, which was attractive to Foxconn.

“Today we talk about AI computing capacity as a power, but utility actually is fundamental for computing power. So I think France has a very good advantage in the power structures… especially with a lot coming from nuclear, which is very stable as a supply,” Wu said.

“I believe for those advanced countries to generate new energy to fulfil the demand for the AI era, France definitely has a very, very good advantage here,” he said, adding that France was also at an advantage as it has a “determination to develop the AI industry”.

Wu said that it was not just the AI server rack that powers AI factories that the company is bringing to France, but also the potential to boost the country’s entire AI ecosystem from electric vehicles to smartphones and PC’s, all of which require AI-embedded technology.

Foxconn will provide the AI factory infrastructure while the US giant Nvidia provides the latest AI chips.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang this month described AI as a five-layer cake that includes energy, chips, infrastructure, data centre servers and the AI models and applications.

“Nvidia is trying to help everyone across that cake, all the layers, work together and progress together,” Nat Ives, Nvidia’s director of enterprise for Benelux, France & Nordics, told Euronews Next.

He said that “comes home to roost in France in particular,” as France has the French multinational electric utility company EDF, which is owned by the government of France, nuclear power and renewable power.

“When I look at the work that goes into deciding where data centres should be and when people are contracting with data centres, the sustainability and the carbon impact or lack of is a really massive part of the process,” Ives said.

The planning is increasingly shaped by Nvidia's own environmental commitments. The company powered all of its global offices and data centres with renewable electricity.

Its latest Blackwell chip architecture also delivers up to 25 times lower energy consumption for AI tasks compared to the previous generation.

France is at another advantage with its AI champions, including Mistral AI, AMI, H Company, as well as software providers and builders, and has a strong history of talent that rises through the universities, he added.

“Those model builders in Europe have a massive role to play and I'm pleased to say that I've known Mistral guys since they were like three guys in a coffee shop and even before they were Mistral, and we've worked with them all the way through,” Ives said.

These open-source and open-science companies that allow access to AI for organisations or developers that lack the means to pay for other closed-source companies, such as OpenAI, help promote a more equal playing field.

“So we've worked with and collaborated with and helped and invested in those things since the very beginning because we believe that open source and open science, which most of them are doing, is super important to generate that choice,” he added.

Jeff Bezos at VivaTech: We need to colonise the Moon to save Earth

By Pascale Davies & Una Hajdari

Published on 17/06/2026 - EURONEWS

The Amazon founder told VivaTech in Paris that moving heavy industry off Earth is the only way to reconcile economic growth with a liveable planet — and the moon is where it starts.

Jeff Bezos took the stage at VivaTech in Paris on Wednesday to make the case that humanity must move to the moon and eventually beyond, not just for the sake of exploration but to save the planet from the effects of technology and industry.

Speaking alongside Blue Origin chief executive Dave Limp in a session moderated by former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, the Amazon founder and Blue Origin executive chairman argued that shifting heavy industry off Earth is the only scenario in which economic growth and environmental preservation can coexist.

"[Our] garden planet can be returned to its pre-industrial revolution state," Bezos said.

"This is the only way in which the world is worse today than it was 500 years ago ... We can actually have both," he continued, emphasising that the quality of life has improved for the entirety of humanity but that the planet suffered as a result.

His message was unambiguous on sequencing, namely that the moon comes before Mars, and skipping that step would be a mistake.

The moon's proximity, which is reachable in three and a half days, makes it accessible at any time rather than once every two years like Mars, and its shallow gravity makes it an essential staging post, he argued.

"When you skip steps, it actually doesn't make you faster," Bezos said. "It's a kind of a gift. It's so near Earth."

Materials lifted from the lunar surface require 28 times less energy per kilogram than those launched from Earth, he noted. That figure makes the moon not just a destination but a potential supplier for deeper space missions.

He was pointed about the Apollo programme too: the original moon landings were pulled forward in time by geopolitics and the race with the Soviet Union, achieved by spending up to 4.5% of the US federal budget and ultimately unsustainable.

What Blue Origin is attempting now, he argued, is categorically different — not a sprint driven by rivalry but a permanent settlement driven by necessity.

"The idea that we've been to the moon before — it's the permanence of it, of staying there," he said. "Now is the right time. To really get into it and go to stay."

The economic logic of the moon, in Bezos's telling, is as compelling as the environmental one.

FILE - A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket stands ready for launch at the Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., 18 April 2026. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File) Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Lunar water ice, detectable from orbit and soon to be examined up close, could be converted into liquid oxygen — one of the key propellants for deep space travel — and launched into orbit at a fraction of the cost of lifting it from Earth.

The moon's surface, bombarded for four and a half billion years by meteorites, holds virtually every mineral needed to build infrastructure in space.

The longer vision he sketched was sweeping: large space habitats of the kind first proposed by physicist Gerard O'Neill in the 1970s, in which thousands or even millions of people live and work in orbit, compute infrastructure built in space, solar energy generated beyond the atmosphere, and chips manufactured off-world with answers beamed back to Earth.

Mars and further destinations would follow but only once the lunar foundation is in place.

"We will build colonies on Mars and so on," he said. "The moon is an important first step."

Bezos also used the appearance to address Prometheus, his artificial intelligence venture co-founded last year, which he described as a tool to compress the engineering cycle — potentially cutting a ten-year development programme to five years, then two, then one.

Unlike large language models trained on text, he said, Prometheus is built on engineering-specific data suited to designing physical objects, with the goal of dramatically accelerating the pace of invention.

He closed on characteristic optimism. Civilisational wealth, he argued, has always been driven by invention, from the plough 6,000 years ago to the steam engine, and the current moment is the most target-rich environment in human history.

"Every young person right now should be so excited," he said. "It's never been a better time to be an entrepreneur."

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Friday, June 07, 2024

SPACE TOO

War and Mir: Russia cannot back up its nuclear space race threats

7 June 2024
Maxim Starchak
Research Fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen’s University, Canada

On May 22, Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder stated publicly that it was “likely” Russia had launched an anti-satellite weapon into low-Earth orbit. The development came just a month after Russia blocked a U.S.-Japanese resolution in the UN Security Council on the non-deployment of nuclear weapons in space. Since Moscow has traditionally opposed the militarization of space, the U.S. took Russia’s veto as a possible cover-up. According to Maxim Starchak, a research fellow at the Center for International and Defense Policy at Queen’s University (Canada), the Kremlin has every incentive to engage in such behavior. However, the resources available to Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, are so limited that the veiled threats are more likely aimed at affecting negotiations than at waging war in the cosmos.

No country on Earth can compete with the space-based capabilities of the United States military. America’s constellation of satellites allows for the integration of combat intelligence, communications, and navigation systems, enabling Washington’s land, sea, and air forces to coordinate operations among themselves.The U.S. possesses approximately 240 military satellites, while Russia has just over 100, and in terms of the total number of satellites, the gap is colossal: 5180 against 180.

The massive imbalance is easily explained by the difference in production capabilities between the two countries. While the U.S. can build approximately 3,000 spacecraft a year, Russia can only produce 40.

The U.S. possesses approximately 240 military satellites for various purposes, while Russia has just over 100

In addition, the U.S. can use commercial and civilian satellites as part of its military operations, and satellite imagery from American private companies has been a great help for Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression.
Why the Russian-Chinese treaty against weapons in space does not work

Russian nuclear doctrine considers the creation and deployment of missile defense and strike systems in space to be a threat, as Moscow fears that Washington could use its superiority in outer space to launch an unstoppable attack on Russia's strategic forces.

To combat this threat, in 2008 Russia and China submitted a proposal to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva: a draft Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects (PPWT). At the time, the two countries could not rival America’s financial and technical capabilities, meaning that a blanket ban on weapons in space represented their only opportunity to limit U.S. military superiority in that domain.

Putting forward the diplomatic initiative to ban space-based weapons systems, Russia nevertheless asserted that the development of terrestrial anti-satellite systems should not be outlawed. In other words, Russia and China sought both to limit the presence of U.S. military systems in space and to continue developing their on-the-ground anti-space systems. The proposal was unrealistic, of course.

The draft treaty had other shortcomings as well, including its vague definition of what should be considered a “weapon,” especially given the abundance of space-based systems used for military navigation, communication, monitoring, and command and control. In addition, the draft did not provide for the verification of the treaty’s implementation. As a result, the initiative was not given serious consideration.

Russia and China attempted to revive PPWT deliberations by presenting an updated draft in 2014, but they found no support from the United States. Later discussions have led only to the parties exchanging political commitments not to place weapons in space first, while also voicing calls for transparency.

In the meantime, China began to actively develop its space program, outpacing Russia in all core parameters and becoming second only to the U.S. In the future, the Chinese program is set to include more advanced navigation, communication, and reconnaissance systems that can support military operations from space. Since China cannot deploy these systems without also taking measures to ensure their security against attack, the value of PPWT for Beijing is declining.

China began to actively develop its space program, outpacing Russia in all core parameters and becoming second only to the U.S.

Obsolete Russian satellites

Although Russia has several space-based military systems that support the operations of its armed forces, none of them are operating at full capacity. The country has no radar imaging satellites, and only a limited number of photo satellites, with some of them expired. The Russian data relay satellite network, which can transmit images from reconnaissance satellites during the long periods when they are not in sight of ground stations, is also limited.

No wonder Dmitry Rogozin, then the head of Roscosmos, used outdated satellite images when making veiled threats against NATO in advance of the alliance’s 2022 summit in Madrid. One day before the opening of the event, the Roscosmos Telegram channel published a collection of images showing “the summit site and those very ‘decision-making centers’ supporting Ukrainian nationalists.” The images were labeled as if they had been taken recently by a Russian “Resurs-P” satellite; however, all of Russia’s “Resurs-P” satellites were out of commission at the time.

Russia’s space launch crisis further complicates its situation. Maintaining even limited constellations of spacecraft requires multiple launches, but Russia has carried out only 15-26 launches per year for the past eight years, far fewer than the United States or China. In 2023 alone, the U.S. had 109 successful launches, China had 66, and Russia had 19.

In 2023 alone, the U.S. had 109 successful launches, China had 66, and Russia had 19

Another major constraint is weak ground infrastructure. Although Moscow can put a group of military satellites into orbit, not all Russian military complexes can receive the signals they send back. Russia's space capabilities are generally poorly incorporated into its armed forces' command structure, making it difficult for Russian troops to benefit from them. Commanders have no understanding of how to leverage space-based assets and no technical or organizational prerequisites for their use. In addition, Russia’s shortage of satellites is compounded by the fact that its spacecraft are capable of staying in orbit for only half as long as their American counterparts, according to expert estimates.

In light of the above, Russia has a greater motivation to shoot down enemy satellites that the U.S. — or even China — does. That is precisely why Moscow is developing anti-satellite weapons, and why Washington is right to fear them. Proposals from Russian political and military experts only suggest a desire for further escalation.

Soviet-era innovations

In March 2018, less than three weeks before Russia’s presidential election, Vladimir Putin addressed the country’s Federal Assembly. After more than an hour of largely forgettable domestic policy talk, the topic shifted to defense, and the videos soon began: largely computer generated demonstrations of the supposedly groundbreaking Burevestnik cruise missile and Poseidon nuclear torpedo. However, the development of both projects began in Soviet times, and the same is true of Russia's space-based nuclear weapons.

In Washington, as part of a recent hearing before Congress, Pentagon representatives expressed concern about nuclear weapons and the potential for a nuclear explosion to be set off in Earth’s orbit. U.S. media sources familiar with the intelligence behind the statement clarified that the matter at hand concerns a nuclear weapon — and not a nuclear facility, as was previously thought. We still do not know what kind of weapon it may be, but in order to get a better idea of the range of possibilities it is instructive to examine two Soviet programs, the SK-1000 and the SP-2000, developed in the 1980s as a response to the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative (a.k.a. “Star Wars”).

The SK-1000 aimed to create a space-based missile defense echelon using satellites to engage a target orbiting Earth or a target descending from orbit into the atmosphere. This was to be accomplished by creating a sort of ballistic silo rocket that would first launch satellites into space, then use them to defeat enemy vehicles.

Russia is currently known to have a similar anti-satellite program called Burevestnik (not to be confused with the missile of the same name). As in the Soviet Union, the program creates maneuvering interceptor nanosatellites that are launched into orbit by a special rocket. Presumably, the purpose of Burevestnik satellites is to attack vehicles both in low-Earth and geostationary orbit.

The specific technology of engagement is unknown, but the construction of the satellites provides for the use of both a conventional explosive charge and a nuclear warhead.

Another Soviet-era space project of note is the air-based anti-satellite complex Kontakt, which comprised MiG-31D aircraft and 79M6 Kontakt missiles and was intended to shoot down enemy vehicles in low-Earth orbit. The project was closed in the 1990s before being resuscitated in 2009, and while its initial design provided for the use of a kinetic interceptor, there are no technical limitations that would prevent the system from using a nuclear payload.

The dangers of nuclear weapons in space

The main problem with nuclear weapons in space is that a nuclear explosion there would have indiscriminate and long-lasting effects. Some satellites could be damaged in the direct explosion. Others would suffer damage from the electromagnetic pulse of the explosion, as the vast majority of satellites are vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses and radiation.

The explosion would immediately leave behind an environment with high radiation levels, causing unprotected satellites in the affected orbit to lose functionality more quickly than normal. Such an explosion would affect all military, civilian, and commercial satellites operated by governments and companies around the world.

A nuclear explosion in space would affect all military, civilian, and commercial satellites

Two years ago, Russia’s then Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said his country was developing kinetic and directed energy weapons. Although he provided no specifics, he may have been referring to kinetic interceptors for satellites in orbit, or to nuclear directed-energy weapons.

Nuclear directed-energy weapons use a nuclear explosion to power the active medium of a laser, thereby turning it into a generator of electromagnetic radiation that disables the radio-electronic and optical elements of spacecraft. A directed-energy weapon is considered to be more practical in space than a nuclear warhead because it could be aimed more precisely, affecting onboard computers or blinding satellites without causing indiscriminate damage.

Some experts have speculated that the Russian laser system Peresvet, which has been put on combat standby duty, could be using the energy of a nuclear explosion to blind optical reconnaissance satellites. This hypothesis is yet to be confirmed, but Russia has possessed designs for such weapons since the 1950s.

In addition to the nuclear option, the state-owned Russian news agency RIA Novosti has written, Russia's Zevs space tug can also disable satellites.

The Zevs (“Zeus”) nuclear space tug

More bark than bite

And yet, whether the Russian military-industrial complex is capable of delivering such weapons remains a major question. Despite large budget expenditures, its capabilities remain limited. Roscosmos has long suffered from low profitability, accumulated debts, and mounting losses. After Russia’s limited invasion of Ukraine in 2014, the U.S. imposed sanctions against certain Roscosmos enterprises. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many of Russia’s international partners withdrew from what international contracts remained. As a result, limited access to Western technology, components, and financing brought additional costs to Roscosmos enterprises and caused them to postpone the fulfillment of their obligations.

Financial gaps led the corporation to cut its staff and seek new partners among developing countries like Algeria and Egypt. Last year, Russia's space corporation entered the borrowing market for the first time, issuing $112 million worth of bonds.

Although Vladimir Putin advertised the Burevestnik and Poseidon weapons systems way back when he was still just a three-term president, there have been no further demonstrations — let alone documented tests. Nevertheless, Putin's public statements on the possibility of placing nuclear weapons in space represent another escalatory step aimed at convincing the United States of Russia's superiority in armaments, thereby allowing the Kremlin to secure more favorable negotiation terms.

Putin's public statements on the possibility of placing nuclear weapons in space are another escalatory step

And his words have had at least some effect, as the Biden administration has already expressed its willingness to discuss with Moscow the topic of nuclear weapons in space even as Russia’s war against Ukraine rages on with no end in sight.

However, the Russian Foreign Ministry is ready to negotiate on strategic stability only if the United States changes its policy toward Moscow, stops supporting Ukraine, and agrees to discuss other areas of Russian interest, namely: NATO expansion, missile defense, and the proximity of U.S. and other alliance members' weapons to Russia's borders. In other words, the United States would have to accept the ultimatums Russia outlined in December 2021, before the full-scale invasion — an unrealistic scenario on all counts. The Kremlin understands this, of course, and is prepared to wait for as long as it takes — even if it takes generations for politicians in charge to change.

Whether we like it or not, war is coming to space

Frank Ledwidge
Former military intelligence officer, Senior Lecturer in Military Strategy and Law, University of Portsmouth

9 February 2024

With so many armed conflicts underway on Earth, the prospects of a war in space have received less attention in recent years. But that doesn’t mean preparations for a potential battle over cosmic resources have ended. The United States and China continue to develop their capacities to protect critical satellites while shooting those of their enemies out of orbit, while Russia lags further behind in third place. Most frontiers in human history have ultimately served as battlegrounds, and space — “the final frontier” — is unlikely to prove an exception.

A day without space…..

All around us, thousands of spacecraft cross the skies — so many that congestion in space is now a real problem. On a clear night you can see some of them, small starlike points of light cruising silently across the sky. These are a small fraction of the vast networks of satellites that provide a vital part of the nervous system of our civilised, connected society: all electronic financial transactions must be timestamped using the precision timing capabilities that only GPS can supply; our food and commodity supply chains are coordinated using the same technology; electronic devices, including the one on which you are reading this, would fail, as it too depends on GPS. One single day without space would be catastrophic.

And that’s just the normal, day-to-day world. From a military perspective, reconnaissance and communications (which are closely linked) are almost entirely dependent on space assets. The GPS system which underpins much of modern life was originally developed to assist precision targeting. It is still operated by the US Military and is one of the main functions of the new US Space force (founded by then-President Donald Trump in 2019). We saw in Ukraine the absolutely vital function fulfilled by Elon Musk’s Starlink system, possibly the single most important factor in Ukraine’s success up to now, as it has allowed Ukrainian units to communicate after the destruction (by cyber-attack) of their Viasat system early in the war.

Space as domain of conflict

All of this brings us to space as a battleground. NATO has considered space as the fifth ‘domain’ of combat (in addition to land, sea, air, and cyber) since 2019. In 2015, Russia renamed its air force the ‘Aerospace Force’ (VKS), and France – a major European space power – similarly renamed its air force to the ‘Air and Space Force’ in 2020. All major states are gearing up to protect their cosmic assets and to destroy those of their enemy.

Some of their preparations have been truly dangerous, with China (2007) and Russia (2021) using missiles to destroy old satellites of their own in order to demonstrate their capability to attack the satellites of others. These are called ‘direct ascent’ operations. The debris from these strikes produce clouds of debris that will remain in orbit for decades and that constitute a danger for all space-users. And should full-scale war arrive, the West’s space assets will face the threat of Chinese and Russian missiles and lasers, along with a specialized form of attack satellite that can approach and damage — or even literally take apart — enemy spacecraft. This kind of attack is called a ‘rendezvous and proximity’ operation. You can see an amusing but actually quite accurate depiction from the Netflix show “Space Force” here.

Where Russia’s relative capacity to wage war in space is declining, China’s is catching up quickly. Still, neither potential adversary is capable of posing the same level of threat to the United States that the United States is capable of posing to them. present a critical threat, but nowhere near as much a danger as the US presents to them. America is still by far the world’s most powerful space-faring nation, and it is conducting a major effort to defend and strengthen its space networks.

Taking war to the Moon

Both major space powers — the U.S. and China — have their sights set well beyond near-Earth orbit (and this is where things really move more into the realms of science fiction). Both countries are making plans for what to do on the moon, and they are also getting ready to use the space between Earth and Moon (‘cislunar’ space) as a potential theatre of conflict.

The first question is, of course, why are we spreading our conflicts to the moon? Can’t we leave the moon free of our local, petty, mass-casualty disputes? The answer to the first question is straightforward: resources. The moon is a vast repository of valuable minerals and chemicals that are very rare on Earth. These will be mined and exploited. The second question is essentially philosophical. The fact is that the moon is a frontier, and frontiers have, almost without exception in human history, become areas of chronic conflict. (Antarctica, protected by the Antarctic Treaty until 2057, offers a rare exception, but in the present international environment, there is little hope of reaching a similar legal or quasi-legal arrangement which will bind all nations.)

Both the U.S. and China are planning moon bases which will require energy from the moon itself, and it is very clear what the most important commodity on the moon will be – water. Scientists estimate that there are billions of tons of water embedded deep within lunar rocks. This is especially the case at parts of the lunar South Pole, and strategists already have their eyes on particular craters — especially Shackleton, which is always shaded from the sun. Vast infrastructure will be required to extract this water. It is here that China and the U.S. are likely to establish their first moon bases, and it is here where the potential for conflict may be highest.

Of course, like all bases, those on the moon will need resupplying from Earth, and those supply routes will need to be defended. America is already considering what they are calling the ‘Cislunar Highway Patrol System’ to ensure the safe passage of these resupply craft against attack by any potential enemy.

And the moon is only the beginning. The famous Astronomer Neil de Grasse Tyson once said that the first trillionaire will be made in space, and the source of their wealth will be minerals from asteroids. In other words, we stand at the brink of a new phase of space exploration: the age of space traders. It is a situation ripe with all the potential for piracy and resource-driven organized conflict that we have seen on Earth for thousands of years. Unfortunately, it looks that we will be taking our Earthly habits of war into the Cosmos.

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Sunday, June 04, 2023

Lunar Orbital Congestion II: Economic and Strategic Drivers

Greg Autry

Contributor

May 27, 2023,

09:02am EDT

HAKUTO-R M1Moon 3 4.24.2023 LG — Image take by ipsace's Hakuto-R lander about 100km above the Moon's surface.
SPACE

In my previous article, Lunar Orbital Congestion Is Gonna Be A Thing, I brought up the possibility of orbital congestion and debris becoming an issue at the Moon sooner than most people would think. That article focused on the problem of satellites in low lunar orbit (LLO). This area between 30 and 1,000 km is very attractive to remote imaging and communications constellations because proximity to surface increases their performance. Satellites in those low orbits pass quickly over the lunar surface and continuous coverage will require a lot of them, which is how Earth orbit observation (Planet) and communications constellations (Starlink) have evolved.

Moon Base Illustration — Artist rendering of a base on the Moon, including launch sites, an observatory and satellite dish, ... [+]
FUTURE PUBLISHING VIA GETTY IMAGES

Today, satellites are expensive and getting them to Moon takes a lot of energy, so most proposed plans for lunar surveying and comms are less ambitious than the Earth orbital constellations. They depend on just a few satellites into higher, elliptical orbits, from which they can cover a lot of surface area, but are subject to longer observational distances and communications latency. In the last article, I predicted that we would see 1,000 satellites in lunar orbits by 2030. This aggressive forecast assumes a significant cost drop in both launch and satellite costs, which I believe are inevitable. If I am correct, the congested space around the Moon may result in international contention and/or a troublesome debris problem, similar to the one plauging Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

An Embarrassment of Rocket Riches

Atlas V Rocket lifting off — A ULA Atlas V rocket liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
GREG AUTRY

This is the golden age of space launch. We have workhorse launch systems developed by governmental agencies and state-founded enterprises including the Russian Soyuz, the European Vega and Ariane rockets, China’s Long March series, and Japan’s H-IIA. A growing livery of highly competitive commercial rockets is rapidly rendering these governmental systems economically obsolete. These include: the Atlas V from United Launch Alliance (ULA), the Falcon 9 from SpaceX, the Antares from Orbital ATK / Northrup Grumman, and the Electron from Rocket Lab. Several promising launch solutions are in the proving stage including the Alpha from Firefly, the Astra Launch System 2 Rocket, the Terran from Relativity Space, and LauncherOne from Virgin Orbit (moment of silence). This is an embarrassment of riches for satellite companies. Competitive pressures are growing, manufacturing processes are improving, and economies of scale are being captured. Consequently the launch price for payloads to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has dropped from many tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram to under $5,000. The price of delivery to the Moon is also dropping and will continue to do so.

The author poses next to two of SpaceX's Starship prototypes at Starbase, near Brownsville, Texas. ... [+]
GREG AUTRY

Several new rockets are about to hit the market including ULA’s Vulcan-Centaur, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, SpaceX’s Starship / Super Heavy, and Rocket Lab’s Neutron. These next generation vehicles promise more power, greater efficiency and significantly reduced launch costs. Meanwhile, the satellite industry is recognizing economies of scale and standardization in manufacturing. The bottom line is that a lot of smallsat could be delivered to the Moon for a remarkably small amount of money in the next few years. The only remaining question is would any want to send all those satellites to LLO?As I noted in the previous article, useable LLO orbits are highly constrained by the Moon’s smaller orbital volume and the gravitational anomalies induced by mass concentrations (mascons). Orbital real estate is extremely limited and – in the absence of any coordination or law preventing occupation of those desirable orbits – the rules of First Mover Advantage must apply. If someone wants to own the lunar surface observation and low-latency communications business for the next century, getting their satellites into the prime real estate of low, stable orbits even before market demand materializes is a smart business strategy. If it can be done for relatively cheap, I cannot imagine why some smart entrepreneur would not pack a Starship or two full of inexpensive satellites and jumpstart the lunar economy. In fact, I would bet on that. Presuming it is done well, I would applaud it, because the upsides of lunar development promise a great deal for all of humanity and our blue planet.

The Moon’s Prime Real Estate

The previous article noted that orbital congestion around the Earth is not limited to LEO. We also find many satellites in Geostationary Orbit (GEO), an arc 35,786 km above the Earth. At this distance, satellites move at the same angular speed as the Earth’s rotation and if they are over the equator, they will appear to “hover” there. If you’ve ever pointed your satellite TV antenna at a spot on the southern horizon (north if you’re down under) you’re aiming at one of those. There is no “Lunarstationary Orbit,” because such a point would so far above the Moon that it would disrupted by the stronger gravitational pull of the Earth, but there is something similar.

The sun, earth and corresponding Lagrange Points mapped — Earth-Moon Lagrange Points and gravitational contours.
NASA

The lunar equivalent of GEO are two points in space known as the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points 1 and 2 (L1 and L2). These gravitationally stable points in space are about 60,000 km above the Moon. L1 is located between the Earth and Moon; imagine the spot where the relative pull of the bigger Earth and smaller Moon balance. L2 is 180° away, on the far side of the Moon, at the same distance. All two-body celestial systems have these Lagrange Points, where a third body can settle in at. Even more interestingly, it is possible to place something into orbit around the empty space of L1 or L2. This is known as a “halo orbit.” The James Webb Space Telescope is in a halo orbit around the L2 point in the Sun-Earth system, million miles from Earth, opposite the sun. Several space weather satellites are located at Sun-Earth L1 and several more are planned. Among them is the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) which provides us with early warning of potentially dangerous solar storms and glorious pictures of the Earth-Moon system.

Earth-Moon L2 is a great place to put a satellite for communicating with landers or rovers on the Moon’s far side, and China located their Queqiao relay satellite there to support their Chang’e 4 lander and Yutu-2 rover mission. The Lunar Gateway, a NASA lead multi-national space habitat, will be placed in a special halo orbit around L2, called a Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). This weeklong orbit has one end which allows the Orion deep space capsule to dock and another in a good location for dropping a lander on the surface of the Moon. That’s important because Orion’s service module doesn’t have the power required to bring Orion into LLO to drop a lander and get back out of that orbit to return to Earth. The decision to use left-over Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering Engines (6,000 lbs. of thrust) to power the large Orion capsule left it much less lunar capable than the Apollo Command Module. An Apollo capsule weighed about half as much as an Orion and had a similar but much more powerful Service Module Propulsion System (21,900 lbs. of thrust). This shortfall created the opportunity for Gateway, a solution conceived while I was at NASA headquarters. While its original purpose was to fill this gap, I have argued that the Gateway is exactly the sort of flexible infrastructure NASA can use in a variety of future missions. Planting a big stake in the valuable L2 neighborhood is not a bad idea either.

Going Down?

Diagram of a lunar space elevator
STAR TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH, INC./JEROME PEARSON & BRYAN DERKSEN VIA WIKIMEDIA

One way to avoid the need for powerful rockets to get into and out of LLO would be a Lunar Space Elevator. Such an elevator would ride on a cable tethered from L1 or L2 that extended down to a surface location on the Moon’s equator. People and material could be transported from the lunar surface to a high orbit and back, with very little energy, on lunar funicular cars. The system requires a counter-balancing cable extending in the other direction. Zephyr Penoyre and Emily Sandford, scientists from Cambridge and Columbia, published a paper suggesting the cable could potentially reach as close to the Earth as the GEO arc. Earth based space elevators have been an idea for a long while, but while it is theoretically possible to run a cable from GEO to a spot outside of Quito Ecuador (or some other equatorial location) it is practically impossible. No material that can currently be manufactured in quantity could withstand the stresses associated with the weight of a space elevator cable under Earth’s gravity. Several engineers – including NASA leaders whom I’ve explored this topic with – agree that cables made of traditional materials like steel would suffice in lunar gravity. This makes L1 a very valuable piece of orbital real estate. The anchor point on the Moon’s equator underneath L1 would also be coveted. L2 has also been proposed as a location for assembling and launching ships constructed from lunar material deeper into the solar system. A space elevator at that point would facilitate such an orbital shipyard and spaceport. L1 and L2 may very well turnout to be the Suez and Gibraltar of cis-Lunar space and hot spots of international contention.

As you can see from the illustration, there are also three other Lagrange Points. L3 is on the other side of the Earth, directly opposite the Moon. There really aren’t many apparent reasons to use L3. L4 and L5 hang off to the sides and optical communications satellites might be located at either of these points to relay transmissions from a satellite at L2. Orbits around L5 were proposed as stable locations to locate large human space habitats by space settlement pioneer Gerard K. O’Neill in his seminal book, The High Frontier. In fact, I joined the L5 Society as a student in high school and my first space policy work was fighting the Moon Treaty with fellow L5 members. Back in 1980, we convinced the US Senate not to ratify that misguided UN agreement, which would have turned the Moon (and possibly all of space) into a boundless scientific preserve, making commercial development of space about as difficult as it is in Antarctica. This would have denied all humankind the economic benefits of space and denied our planet the ultimate release valve for its environmental pressures. I’m now proud to serve as Vice President of Space Development for the L5 Society’s successor, the National Space Society. If you share our vision of a brighter future with humans living and working in space, please join.

SEE

http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/01/moon-is-harsh-mistress.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/06/lagrange-5.html