For a U.S.-based organization, the Space Foundation finds its activities becoming increasingly international of late – despite the obvious limitations imposed upon all of us in the space industry by the United States' onerous, counterproductive, ill-conceived and irrational export control regimes. (Other than that, I have no opinion on the subject.)

As our just-published The Space Report chronicles, space in all its flavor and diversity has become a glorious tapestry of international activity and global interconnectedness. If our ability to participate in this burgeoning international marketplace is limited by our own constipated regulatory processes, the rest of the world simply will proceed without us.

What is remarkable, given how difficult working with the United States can be, is the degree to which our friends and allies really would rather proceed with us than without us. And that creates tremendous opportunities – for commerce, for collaboration, for mutual security, for science and for peace. 

Last month in Omaha, during Strategic Space and Defense 2006, Air Vice Marshall DN Ganesh, chairman, Steering Group for Exploitation of Aerospace, Indian Air Force, delivered a major policy address on Indo-American cooperation in national security space. His appearance on the agenda was perhaps more surprising than the appearance of our "traditional" allies such as Dr. Tom Gillon, directorate of Arms and Proliferation Control Policy, National Defence Headquarters, Canada, Group Capt Christopher Knapman, Command and Control Support, Royal Air Forces Headquarters Strike Command, United Kingdom, and Mr. Michael Shoebridge, counselor for Defense Affairs, Australian Embassy. But it is noteworthy that also invited, though unable to attend, were senior military space officials from Russia and China. As a group of about 30 of us, mostly non-U.S. citizens, gathered for a toast just a few minutes' drive from Offutt Air Force Base, I could not help but wonder what Curtis LeMay or other previous Strategic Air Command commanders would have thought about the whole thing.

The future is going to be international, no matter how much we stamp our arrogant feet about it or threaten to take our space toys and go home. I think that most of us in the space business are really explorers at some level. And if we ever want the opportunity to "boldly go where no one has gone before," we need to do it together. One happy human family. That takes realizing that we are more alike than we are different. It means speaking with each other instead of at each other. 

That is where dialogue with people from other countries is so important. At our recent Pacific Space Leadership Forum in Honolulu, we had the chance to speak with friends, allies and counterparts from 14 foreign nations in the vast Pacific region. It was a tremendous reminder that the view from "there" is seldom the same as the view from here. Even in Hawaii, a U.S. state, one's view of the world is different. From Honolulu, we care very much about what is going on with piracy in the Straits of Molucca, terrorism in the Philippines, upheaval in Papua New Guinea or Vanuatu. Space systems and space-enabled systems can bring great capability to conquering "the tyranny of distance in the Pacific area of responsibility," but if we are not talking with allies, friends, and would-be allies and friends, we will never know what space-enabled mutual security and humanitarian relief collaboration might really look like. Having the opportunity to listen to friends from Australia, New Zealand, Nepal, Chile, Japan or Malaysia quickly changes your perspective. 

That perspective is important. It helps us make smarter decisions about the space products and services we develop, acquire, and deploy. It sensitizes us to policy issues we could stumble over clumsily when developing concepts of operations for systems like Global Hawk or to the operational differences in looking for adversaries in the desert and looking for them under the jungle canopy of the Philippines.

One of the constant themes I have noticed in these discussions is that we are not going to agree with our friends and allies 100 percent of the time on 100 percent of the issues. We are going to have our differences. That is okay. What is important is that we remain engaged, collaborate to the maximum extent possible, and respect each other despite our differences. 

Somewhere, that is probably one definition of what it means to be a friend. In today's uncertain world, and with an eye toward a future of humans exploring the universe together, we need all the friends we can get. And to have a friend, you must first be a friend.