Resurrecting Space Guard: Concepts for a Coast Guard of Space
- Paper ID
40148
- author
- company
- country
United States
- year
2017
- abstract
This paper revisits the Space Guard concept, summarizing some existing ideas, and developing the Coast Guard model. The analogy is explored by describing the missions of the United States Coast Guard and reiterating the parallel to a potential Space Guard. The model is then generalized by focusing, in part, on the safety mission. Different Space Guard architectures are also briefly introduced, some of which appear to reflect a generalization. For example, an international politically-neutral Space Guard, is arguably supported by the fact that spaceflight rescue, just like maritime rescue, transcends nationality and represents a fundamental human need as we push the boundaries of human presence in space. On this, the paper expands the Coast Guard model by offering preliminary spaceflight rescue operations concepts for a Space Guard in any form.