The U.S. is risking its economic and defense leadership in low Earth orbit 

Since 2011, NASA and the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory have engaged in public-private partnerships with entrepreneurial United States companies to bootstrap a commercial business ecosystem in low Earth orbit dubbed “the LEO economy”. Today, 15 commercial service providers own and operate private facilities on the ISS, representing tens of millions of private dollars invested in high-risk commercial facilities and services. These are mostly small businesses, and they are the ground troops for the early LEO economy. However, recent changes, especially the imminent decommissioning of the ISS, the drop in ISS cargo missions caused by NASA budget shifts, and the resulting loss of access to these private facilities, threaten to derail and reverse this progress and cause the U.S. to cede the space-based industrial economy and possibly the military high ground to our adversaries.