On Monday morning, SpaceX successfully launched a national security payload for the first time, cracking the market for US military missions. The first stage of the rocket then landed within a couple of miles from where it had taken off less than 10 minutes earlier, marking the tenth time SpaceX has safely returned a first stage to Earth.

The US military has taken note of these achievements, as well as those of Blue Origin and its reusable New Shepard suborbital vehicle—and that company’s ambitions to also build a large, reusable orbital rocket. “This has opened up a window of opportunity and gotten the attention of serious people,” Charles Miller, an aerospace consultant and president of NexGen Space, told Ars.

To that end Miller partnered with a number of Air Force officers at Air University and former Air Force officials to study the potential effects of lower-cost access to space on the US military. The “Fast Space” report, which has been briefed to senior officials in the US military and government in recent months, concludes that the US Air Force can benefit from these commercial developments.

“The USAF can form private sector partnerships to create a virtuous cycle of launch cost reductions of between 3 and 10 times lower than today’s costs,” the report finds. “Doing so could enable completely new approaches for the Air Force to defend American values, protect American interests, and enhance opportunities to exploit the unique global advantages of the ultimate high ground.”

The key concept in the report is “ultra low-cost access to space” enabled by reusable launch vehicle technology. The report says the United States, through developments by SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other companies such as Vulcan Aerospace and Virgin Galactic, has a definitive edge over global competitors in this new area of rocket technology. However, the report warns, other countries such as China could copy these ideas and surpass the United States if strategic government investments are not made.

Do billionaires need more money?

Companies founded by billionaires have led the push toward reusable spaceflight, with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Paul Allen’s Vulcan Aerospace. It is natural to wonder whether the US government needs to intervene.

“There is a belief that we’ve encountered along the way that says these companies already have so much money, why do they need more money?” said Lt. Col. Thomas Schilling, a coauthor of the report from Air University, in an interview. “But with government money we could accelerate these projects and develop a fully reusable two-stage launch system. Really, it’s a seminal moment, an opportunity for the government to work with companies already interested in reusability.”

With additional investment, Schilling said, the US government could partner with industry to build an on-demand launch capability that suits its needs, with high launch rates, lower costs, and higher reliability from reusable launch vehicles. This has long been a goal of the US defense industry, and it could increase the capability of the military to maintain a resilient network for command and control of the battlefield, tactical operations, and more, as well as to respond to threats of electronic warfare, cyber, and kinetic effects.

The study recommends the Air Force create a new organization, the “NewSpace Development Office,” to develop innovative acquisition strategies. The overall aim would be to move away from the existing model of launches, which are rare and expensive, to a model where they are common and inexpensive. In developing these strategies, the government must also be able to accept risk.

“This organization requires a ‘Fail-Fast, Fail-Forward’ culture as opposed to the traditional operationally focused risk-averse culture where ‘failure is not an option,’” the report states. “Silicon Valley and NewSpace have proven the powerful advantages of faster innovation cultures that expect and encourage incremental tactical failures as a key part of their strategy for developing new systems and technologies.”

A political backer

This concept has found at least one powerful political backer. On Monday, during a series of briefings on the subject in the US Senate Building, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke in favor of the concept. He questioned whether the US Office of Management and Budget should allow the government to purchase expendable rockets now that lower-cost, reusable options are becoming available.

According to NASA Watch, Gingrich was also critical of the space agency’s development of the Space Launch System. This NASA heavy-lift vehicle runs counter to the trends cited in the Air University report in that it is both very expensive to launch (at least $1 billion) and will launch at most once per year. Gingrich predicted the NASA rocket could become a “museum piece” due to this high cost and low flight rate.

The new report comes as the Trump administration is trying to formulate a space policy and establish a Space Council. One of the primary aims of this council, likely to be led by Vice President Mike Pence, is to coordinate space development activities by the military and civil aspects of the space agency.

Given the advocacy of Gingrich, who remains an important advisor to Trump, it is possible the concept of “Fast Space” gains some currency in the reconstituted space council. But until that space council is named and a new NASA administrator is selected, it is something of a parlor game to guess whether the US government will invest wholeheartedly in reusable launch vehicles.