Space as a critical infrastructure

Abstract

For the last 20 years, critical infrastructure protection came up as an important issue to ensure the safety and security of citizens and the functioning ofstates. This chapter analyzes the approaches of the United States and the European Union in developing a critical infrastructure protection regarding to its involvement of space technology. After focusing on critical infrastructures in generalas well as specializing on space, it concentrates on the milestones in developing a policy of critical infrastructure protection. The analysis shows that the policies refer to space only barely, nevertheless in the United States stronger than in the European Union.