Perhaps even more importantly, there must be an understanding that space is the wrong arena to be accommodating and willing to let nonparticipants have an important role in the development of law and policy. The impediments caused by once innocent passage in space treaties described previously are proof of the pace of change. Enthusiasm for today's, or even tomorrow's, solutions must be tempered with the knowledge that tomorrow's wrong choice was the one that seemed so obviously correct yesterday. Yet decisions cannot be avoided, and a slow, cautious approach may be as wrong a policy of space activity as may be a headlong rush. Like the language and policies of space treaties, prescriptions for action are likely to soon become so outmoded as to be of little other than historical value in just a decade or so. Also, they are all too often prescriptions exclusively for government, which neglect the fact that though government must necessarily be part the environment that supports national space power, it is no longer the sole actor nor, perhaps, even the most important.

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Oberg, James. Space Power Theory. Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Air University, 2001. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 159 ]