The sad demise of the human spaceflight era has a ripple effect of unintended consequences. It is yet another blow to our shrinking defense industrial base, which is fast becoming a serious national security concern.

Our earliest space vehicles are direct ancestors to our earliest intercontinental ballistic missiles. In the wake of World War II, and boosted by the challenge from Sputnik, our defense and aerospace programs grew up together as close cousins. Only that unique industrial base has the know-how to manufacture, monitor and maintain these sophisticated systems. Solid rocket motor systems have shelf-lives that can span decades, and are a key component of our national strategic deterrence.

It is a simple fact of economics that because this industrial base is already constricted, our defense and aerospace programs help subsidize one another. Look no further than manned, commercial, strategic and tactical rockets—Space Shuttle, EELV, Trident II, Minuteman III, AMRAAM, AIM-9X and others. Our space program helps lower costs for DOD programs and vice versa. By shutting down one major area, the Space Shuttle, without a replacement program, we unquestionably damage this linked chain. The implications are far-reaching.

First is the issue of supply chain. Top-tier contractors rely on a second- and third-tier supplier base to provide raw materials of various kinds – resins, binders, insulators, for example. With these cuts, lower-tier suppliers will be driven to volumes that are too low to sustain them. They can and will close their doors, fold certain production lines or retool to serve other, more stable, markets. In many of these cases, a key supplier just got out of the game. When next the national need requires it, we will go through the costly and time-consuming process of research and start-up. The necessary product will be gone or drastically increase in price and time to produce or, perhaps worst of all, we’ll be dependant on a foreign supplier.

Another concerning scenario is the sole source supplier. As competitors throw in the towel, simple supply and demand principles make their mark. Costs rise. We will be paying more for the same components because we have forfeited our leverage.

This impending cost inflation is exacerbated greatly by the rapid shredding of our technical knowledge base. Skilled workers are retiring with the Baby Boom generation.

This was predictable, yet the deplorable impact on the industrial base has been lost on … almost everyone. Key DOD officials were not prepared to deal with the decisions made by the Administration for NASA. The Human Space Flight Committee, created to study options for the best path forward in human spaceflight, did not even consider industrial base concerns.

For the last few years, foreign-owned solid rocket motor manufacturers have been qualified to produce solid rocket motors for US tactical missiles. When we endeavor to sell missiles abroad, foreign governments frequently demand work-share to compensate for the outlay of funds. In these negotiations, foreign governments have placed a premium on securing indigenous solid rocket motor manufacturing capability for systems like GMLRS, AIM-9, Standard Missile 3, and recently AMRAAM.

As costs rise within the US solid rocket industry and our technical knowledge erodes, US tactical missile prime contractors will soon find themselves at a tipping point where the cost trade will favor foreign-owned solid rocket motor providers who have in many cases been qualified to US standards with technology and manufacturing know-how that was developed in the US. The cost trade will favor foreign-owned solid rocket manufacturers whose countries have maintained a production capability for large space-lift solid rocket motors.

This resulting loss of large solid rocket motor capability in the US will transfer the entire burden of sustaining the solid rocket motor industry to the tactical defense market, which is ill prepared to sustain the industrial capability.

The end of U.S. interest in manned space flight directly threatens the strength of our national defense arsenal and our ability to develop the best options for our future. The End of the Human Spaceflight Era.