From directing to orchestrating: Rethinking Space strategies in the Age of Coordination
Emma Gatti in conversation with Deganit Paikowsky
The “New Space” revolution is not just commercial—it is a transformation in how space is governed.
I recently recorded a podcast interview with Dr. Deganit Paikowsky, senior lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and a non-resident scholar at the George Washington Space Policy Institute.
The excerpts below present key passages from our conversation. In my view, anyone involved in long-term space strategy—and in asking the right strategic questions about the future of space governance—should pay attention to this discussion.
The extract is part of the podcast series Prague Space Security Talks, sponsored and produced in collaboration with the Prague Security Studies Institute.
You can listen to the full audio interview here.
For a deeper dive into the framework behind her arguments, you can read and download Dr. Paikowsky’s academic article here.
Emma Gatti (EG) - Deganit, you just published a very interesting paper in Space Policy in which you examine how and why the US space policy has evolved from a centralized national program into a decentralized space ecosystem. What do you mean by a national space program versus a decentralized space ecosystem? How do the two models differ?
Deganit Paikowsky (DP) – In my analysis of the US’s space politics’ evolution, I argue that the logic in the early space age was that the state defined the program, owned the major infrastructure, and measured success in terms of national achievements.
In contrast, in contemporary US space politics, the ecosystem is decentralized, meaning it is a much more distributed innovation system composed of interdependent actors: government agencies, private firms, academia, financial groups, regulators, and, increasingly, international partners.
Innovation in this kind of distributed system often originates outside the state. The role of government becomes less about commanding every component or micromanaging the system, and more about aligning actors and enabling the system to prosper.
In this kind of ecosystem, national capability and power come from the relationships themselves—the flow of resources, the knowledge networks, and the overall vitality of the system.
How have the United States traditionally thought about space, and how has that approach evolved?
By systematically analyzing US high-level space policy documents since the 1960s onwards, I offer an account of the evolution of American space politics as a gradual, cumulative process in three waves. The early period—what I call the exploration wave—runs roughly from the 1950s to the 1980s.
During that time, although intelligence from reconnaissance satellites was significant, national power from space was mainly understood through spectacular demonstrations. Space was a form of symbolic competition through singular events. As such, governance was highly centralized.
Toward the 1980s, however, we began to see a shift in the language used in policy documents. Instead of only talking about exploration, policy documents in the United States increasingly began using the term exploitation: how are we going to utilize space?
Symbolic demonstrations still mattered, but another layer that gained more importance emerged—operational utility.
This shift was amplified by the end of the Cold War. Strategic pressures temporarily declined, government budgets were reduced, and there was a strong incentive to find ways to make the use of space, and the operational utility of space, more affordable.
Around fifteen years ago, we began to see early signs of a third wave that perceived space as a physical area of human expansion. In this context, policy documents began to frame space as a domain of sustained human and economic presence. Policy increasingly treated commercial vitality, industrial scale, and international partnerships as core strategic requirements for achieving that goal, which combines exploration and exploitation.
This is why I describe the ‘New Space’ revolution not simply as a commercial revolution, but as a reconfiguration of governance, particularly of the role of space agencies or state bureaucracies in the United States.
Do you think this model will become predominant globally, or will it remain specific to the United States because of its particular characteristics?
First, prosperous technological ecosystems are becoming core national strategic assets, see the digital landscape, for example. The United States treats its space ecosystem as a strategic asset, and I do see other countries moving in that direction.
This leads to several implications.
The first is that commercial actors are now far more embedded in global politics. Space has become a highly competitive and contested domain from a geopolitical perspective, and commercial actors are increasingly and directly entangled in these rivalries.
The second implication is that governance becomes much more complex, and this complexity will continue to grow, especially with the growing reliance of dual-use technologies.
In that sense, the next space race will not only be about who can produce the most spectacular achievements. It will be about who can orchestrate this complexity most effectively, whether constructively or obstructively.
So the key question becomes what model of governance countries choose?
Exactly. The question of space governance ultimately depends on goals, objectives, and ways of implementation.
If you ask whether the U.S. model is the ideal type, my answer is no. First, it has its own limits. However, every country has its own characteristics: its strategic culture, budget, industrial base, and vision of its role in the global system. Such characteristics shape objectives and implementation mechanisms.
Each country will therefore have to find its own way of organizing and governing its space ecosystem.
But the key shift is this: moving from directing to orchestrating engagement with the ecosystem’s components.
The real challenge is learning how to orchestrate that ecosystem in a favorable way for your national context.
The full interview with Dr. Deganit Paikowsky can be listened here, and her latest research paper, where she tackles this topic in depth, can be found here.