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To Appropriations and Beyond!

What’s your budget for space lasers?

Words: Laicie Heeley
Pictures: Marc Johns / Cast from Clay
Date:

When Congress created Space Force back in 2019, it looked to some like a wild idea from President Trump had just gone and become the sixth branch of the armed forces. But the US military has been using space for decades, and the importance of space to civilians and the military alike means that Space Force actually has a lot on its plate. As Congress considers the defense budget and the ways military activity in space can evolve, its decisions could have long-lasting consequences.

Listen and subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every two weeks.

Guests: Maj. Mike Lyons (USA, ret.), Fellow at the Truman National Security Project; Theresa Hitchens, Senior Space Reporter at Breaking Defense; Katherine Kuzminski, Senior Fellow and Director, Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security; Dr. Laura Grego, Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy

Special thanks to Dr. Robert Farley.

Additional Resources:

What’s With All the U.S. Space-Related Agencies?, US Department of Defense.

Space Threat Assessment: 2021, Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Politics of Space Security, James Clay Moltz, Stanford University Press.

Biden’s 2023 defense budget adds billions for U.S. Space Force, Sandra Erwin, Space News.

Author bio

Laicie Heeley

Editor in Chief

Laicie Heeley is the founding CEO of Inkstick Media, where she serves as Editor in Chief of the foreign policy magazine Inkstick and Executive Producer and Host of the PRX- and Inkstick-produced podcast, Things That Go Boom. Heeley’s reporting has appeared on public radio stations across America and the BBC, where she’s explored global security issues including domestic terrorism, disinformation, nuclear weapons, and climate change. Prior to launching Inkstick, Heeley was a Fellow with the Stimson Center’s Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program and Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Her publications include work on sanctions, diplomacy, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, along with the first full accounting of US counterterrorism spending after 9/11.

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