If you listened closely, you could hear the collective groans of the commercial space community echo through space and time on April 30, 2024. This is the infamous day that the new federal government policy on critical infrastructure (National Security Memorandum 22) was released with nary a mention of space or satellites. For many, this was an affront on the future of the space economy and a plague upon the house of space policy in the United States. 

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Nick Reese is the COO of Optica Labs, an artificial intelligence assurance company based in Washington DC. He was the director of emerging technology policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2019 to 2023 and is a professor of emerging technology...