Just as the traditional lines between military, civil and commercial space are blurring, the growing international nature of space is also blurring lines between traditional national systems. It is increasingly more difficult to determine whether a SeaLaunch or a Globalstar is a U.S. system or something entirely new. And this trend will accelerate. My fourth and final point is that the stakes involved in this emerging market are huge. What is at stake is nothing less than global U.S. leadership of information technologies in the 21st century.
Commercial space is the next economic frontier.
We have extreme challenges, and we are breaking new ground. However, this a historic opportunity to think creatively about how we can impact a major sector of the U.S. economy, and a new generation of workers and entrepreneurs coming of age in the next century. This area has the potential to create high wage, high skill jobs while creating commercial products we can only dream of. If we make the right decisions now, the future looks bright, and we will have created a future for our children and grand children that we can all be proud of. If we meet the challenges ahead of us and continue to push forward, we will be remembered for having navigated a course that put us on a trajectory of security and prosperity well into the next century.