Audiences:
The following are audiences the group identified as those to effectively target using the right “big ideas”:

• Members of Congress
  
  • Converted Members
    
  • Persuadable Members
  
  
• Civilian Space Supporters
  
• Faith Communities
  
• Mainstream Media
  
• Foreign Allies
  
• Military (Army, Navy, and internal dissent within the Air Force)
  
• Private Companies (working on space endeavors)
  
• Fiscal Conservatives
  
• Scientific Community (including retired astronauts)
  
• Braintrust of the next administration

MESSAGES:
General Advice:

• Be mindful of the audience. Not all messages will work with all audiences; this guide is designed to allow you to pick and choose arguments according to your audience’s beliefs and interests. (In addition, of course, messengers should choose messages with which they are comfortable).
  
• Take a “resource” perspective. Speak of space as a resource in national security, environmental, and economic terms: “space is a unique resource that serves US national security and economic security.”
  
• Do not promote treaties per se. Treaties may be easily dismissed as too cumbersome or as “mere paper”
  
• Argue against “space weapons” rather than the “weaponization of space.” Framing the argument in this manner makes the concept more concrete and clear.
  
• Consider using terms that proponents of space weapons are now trying to expunge from their own public messaging, such as:
  
  • Space dominance
    
  • Space superiority
    
  • Offensive weapons
    
  • Death Star
    
  • Attack Weapons
    
  • Space attacks
    
  • Debris
    
  • Sanctuary
  
  
• Include the following information in all arguments to non-experts:
  
  • Tell People What Satellites Do: Satellites help keep our troops safe by supporting state-of-the-art reconnaissance and communications capabilities. And satellites save civilian lives by predicting weather patterns, by helping first responders provide emergency assistance and by facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid. Satellites help our economy and make our lives more convenient by making possible global positioning and mapping, navigation, modern financial transactions, and the worldwide reach of electronic communications. If you are speaking to someone concerned about environmental issues, emphasize how satellites are important to track desertification and to identify water resources. And from a security perspective, satellites are our “eyes” in space that allow countries to monitor nuclear weapons.
    
  • Emphasize Debris: Shooting and destroying satellites would create enormous amounts of debris that will damage or destroy anything in its path. Pieces of debris in low Earth orbit, even the smallest of pieces, race through space with ten times the speed of bullets on Earth. Debris is long-lasting.
    Satellites are very vulnerable. If debris hits a satellite, the satellite will be damaged (as was the case with the space shuttle) or even destroyed. To protect astronauts aboard the space shuttle and international space stations, scientists have to monitor the movements of thousands of objects already orbiting the Earth, some as small as nuts and bolts less than a foot in length.
    
  • Take a Can-Do Attitude and Offer Alternatives>/b>: Simply stating what the U.S. should NOT do could suggest that we don’t have real solutions to address our security threats. Suggest alternatives like the “can-do, collaborative” argument you’ll find below for working with other countries to create “rules of the road” in space, just as we have in the past under Republican and Democratic administrations.

    It is well within reason to have an inspection of cargo before space flights are launched so that we can be sure that other countries aren’t deploying space weapons.

    Or mention better priorities. For example: “There are cheaper, less dangerous alternatives that will actually improve America’s security. We should increase the military’s capability to collect and disseminate information and intelligence in order to protect lives. We should develop better surveillance satellites that can operate further out than those that we already have, offering some protection from possible ground-based attacks on satellites. The Air Force is also exploring new uses for high altitude balloons and blimps that can enhance battlefield intelligence and communications at a fraction of the cost of new satellite construction…”