The Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) system is an existing template if the Defense Department must move cargo through space. Even as U.S. airlift capability is furnished by military and commercial air carrier resources, spacelift capability will come from military and commercial space resources. This interdependence will be challenged to meet deployment, mobilization, and surge requirements. But if it can be pulled off, it will reduce costs and inefficiencies, create closer bonds with commercial space providers, increase agility, sustain the space industrial base, and enhance deterrence, which are all vital interests in an age of constricted funding but at the same time an age when the highest levels of government recognize the role of space in modern life.

Space law has and should continue to play an essential role in the evolution of spacepower. Testing the principle of "freedom of space" and helping establish the legality of satellite overflight were primary objectives of National Security Council Directive 5520, the first U.S. space policy, approved by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in May 1955; during the 1960s, the superpowers and other emerging spacefaring states negotiated a far-reaching and forward-thinking Outer Space Treaty (OST); and today, a variety of transparency and confidence-building measures (TCBMs) for space are being discussed and debated in a number of fora