Every year, the holiday season invites us to look back and reflect. We get excited about the gifts we are about to give, of course, but we should be especially mindful of those that arrive unnoticed and unwrapped. For space geeks like us, the most meaningful gift this year wasn’t a major plus-up to Space Force or Golden Dome budgets, nor a splashy contract award. It was the growing realization that autonomy and AI are no longer forces to be feared, but tools to be embraced. When integrated responsibly, they promise to spare us the drudgery of the banal and free us to take the next, more ambitious steps into our future.
In 2025, it became clear that AI and machine learning (ML) are on an accelerated and increasingly inevitable path to becoming the backbone of future space operations. This is worth acknowledging not as a miracle, but as the natural continuation of humanity’s centuries-long effort to invent tools that help us work more effectively and build a better future for our children.
I am struck by this shift every time I visit a next-generation satellite manufacturer, ground system developer, or launch company. The first thing I notice is how few people are required to run operations that once demanded entire cadres of personnel. Twenty years ago, walking into an Air Force mission control or operations center meant rows of screens and consoles, each staffed by specialists. Today, many commercial counterparts sit dark for most of the day — their systems so reliably automated that no one needs to enter unless a rare and unusual anomaly occurs. This inflection point began well before early, large language models entered daily operations. Now, we are only beginning to glimpse what lies ahead as more powerful, agentic AI tools come online.
People often worry that autonomy or AI will cost them their jobs. I hear this concern from operators, software engineers, and even policymakers. My response is always the same: the history of technology is a story of human empowerment, not human replacement.
Much of the anxiety surrounding autonomous systems, whether physical machines or the algorithms that guide them, stems from a loss of historical perspective. For centuries, autonomy has liberated both our hands and our minds. The steam engine and the electric motor freed us from relentless physical labor. The thermostat freed us from the constant management of our own environment. Each time we have offloaded a mundane or exhausting task, productivity and creativity have increased. The same pattern is now unfolding in space. Autonomy is not pushing people out of the loop; it is elevating them to higher orbits.
When I think about automation, I’m often reminded of the early days of my own career in the space and intelligence world. Satellite imagery was analyzed on so-called “flats,” overhead photographic films placed on light tables. Analysts leaned over them with magnifiers, like jewelers examining the facets of a prized gemstone. The work was vital to statecraft at the highest levels and to our nation’s defense, but it was slow and labor-intensive. Images from just a handful of satellites required vast teams of people to produce, analyze, and interpret.
Thirty years later, autonomous systems in orbit collect and transmit imagery, while ground systems display and autonomously exploit it for intelligence support to operations. None of this has made the analysts or policymakers obsolete, only more effective. At scale, with hundreds of satellites, we can now continuously monitor thousands of hotspots around the world in near real time, rather than focusing on a few missile fields over the course of several days. Much as modern automobiles harness the power of hundreds of horses through dozens of autonomous subsystems to safely and comfortably move a family, today’s emerging space and intelligence infrastructure is only beginning to tap what advanced algorithms make possible.
2025 did not deliver full autonomy, either on orbit or on the ground — but it delivered something more important. It demonstrated, once again, that we have nothing to fear from AI and automation except expanded opportunity. The trajectory is unmistakable and inevitable. We are already seeing self-coordinating constellations adjusting their own orbital planes; networks that reroute traffic under stress without waiting for human intervention; and mission-planning tools that flag anomalies and recommend responses before operators even realize conditions have changed. These are early steps, but they all point in the same direction: greater autonomy. No one actually working in this business believes we should (or could) turn back.
The strategic implications are equally clear. As long as the United States remains a free society with free markets, the relentless cycle of innovation and the willingness to replace obsolete systems will continue to give the country a sustained advantage in the second Space Race. Autocratic governments can move quickly in short bursts, but they ultimately falter because top-down control is the antithesis of innovation. America’s enduring strength has always been an economy that rewards success, eliminates inefficiency, accepts failure as the price of progress.
As we close out another remarkable year in space, today’s space community should feel deep gratitude for those who came before us and built the tools we now inherit. Autonomy, AI, and ML are not eliminating people; they are removing the weight of the mundane. They are the inheritance passed to a new generation — returning time, attention, and judgement to human hands. By lifting routine burdens from operators, engineers, and leaders, these technologies restore the most valuable resource of all: the ability to think. This has always been the true gift from the generations that preceded us.
So here is my holiday toast: to those who laid the foundations we stand on, and to the often-unheralded builders quietly shaping the future ahead. May we leave behind a space enterprise defined by confidence, creativity, and progress that future generations will feel entitled to inherit, stand upon, and launch from.
