Spacepower theory has borrowed its metaphors for decades, comparing orbit to the sea, to the air and to the high ground. A new essay argues that the analogies import assumptions which do not survive the trip.
Writing in The Space Review, Michael Uhall points out that a satellite in low Earth orbit circles the planet roughly every 90 minutes, so no single spacecraft stays anywhere. The pattern is the opposite of restless: communications coverage, navigation signals, remote sensing, early warning and surveillance all persist because the constellation keeps repeating itself.
Moving parts, fixed product
That split is the essay’s central claim. Older domain theories assume geography is given and power is exercised across it. Orbital infrastructure works the other way round. The recurring movement of satellites constitutes the usable geography of the domain, so territory in space is something spacepower produces rather than something it occupies.
What follows for strategy
If territory is built, then access and control stop being questions about holding ground. They become questions about which architectures can sustain a pattern, how quickly a broken pattern can be rebuilt, and how much of the resulting coverage a rival can degrade or deny. The essay treats that as a corrective to the sea-power and air-power template rather than an extension of it. Mahan’s sea power assumed fleets moving between fixed ports and chokepoints. Orbit offers no chokepoint to seize, only constellations that have to keep running.
