Perhaps you drive to work navigating with a GPS system and listening to satellite radio, and in the evening you watch satellite television in the evening with its satellite weather forecasts. Now you may wonder whether China’s recent shooting down of its own lowearth-orbit (LEO) satellites threatens these and other commercial satellite services. The short-term answer is: no. The long-term answer is less obvious.

No one is frightened that China or any other country will soon try to destroy a commercial satellite. Practically all accounts of the test have focused on the threat to military and intelligence satellites, not commercial satellites. Indeed, since the January 18 revelation of the anti-satellite test, three LEO companies, Globalstar, ICO Global, and Orbcomm, have seen their market capitalizations rise while broader market indexes have fallen.

Space has an enormous and growing commercial value. From satellite television and radio to hundreds of millions of GPS devices, consumers depend on satellite services. Hundreds of commercial satellites orbit the earth, including many LEO satellites. Iridium alone has 66 such satellites.

But escalation of military space activities today may lead to collateral damage for commercial activities tomorrow. Engineering advances will expand the range of satellites that are threatened by anti-satellite technologies, and the range of adversaries that may have access to such technology.

The Chinese anti-satellite test is not the first of its kind. America and the Soviet Union conducted similar tests in the 1980s. More recently, reports claim that China used lasers to attempt to blind some American surveillance satellites in the autumn. Of course, in response to the Chinese anti-satellite test there has been widespread public harrumphing, diplomatic protests, and calls for international treaties to ban anti-satellite activities and creation of space debris. Banning war or debris in space is as likely as banning war or debris on land and sea — a pipe dream.

Commercial concerns are focused more on tests that run amok than they are on anti-satellite exercises that perform as planned. One day, a commercial satellite may be disabled in a collision with space debris or blinded inadvertently by a laser intended for military purposes. What recourse would a commercial satellite operator have? It turns out, very little. Simply stated, there are no credible mechanisms — legal or political — to punish anti-satellite tests that harm commercial satellites, or to deter such activities in the future. Space is as lawless as it is vast.

While only a limited concern today, anti-satellite technology threatens all satellites of the future. Much like the diffusion of nuclear technology over the past 60 years, anti-satellite technology will likely be held by dozens of countries and nongovernmental entities in the not too distant future. Space has become the newest trophy of military ambitions. Over the weekend, India announced plans for a new space command as part of its military. More ominously, Aviation Week recently reports that Iran, with technical support from North Korea, is moving forward with its own satellite-launching capability.

Of course, the collateral damage from military operations gone awry threatens all commercial activities, not just satellites. But land-based systems tend to have more robustness and redundancy than space systems. For example, the major December earthquake off Taiwan disrupted and slowed telecommunications and Internet services in eastern Asia for a matter of weeks. A major catastrophe in space, however, would likely have much longer effects.

Commercial space activities face daunting challenges including: Extraordinarily long lead times to construct satellites and schedule launches; launches that occasionally fail; satellites that occasionally fail after launch; and technologies that cannot easily be updated once a satellite is launched. Now add an increasingly hostile space environment where rogue nations have access to space technologies. The 1960s James Bond thriller “Dr. No” was presciently about a technologically savvy terrorist with anti-satellite capabilities.

Space is a public commons with few if any laws or property rights. The very openness of space that has made it attractive for commercial development also makes it attractive for sinister purposes. No one can be excluded. For the foreseeable future, the benefits of commercial development of space far outweigh the calculable risks. But those risks have substantially increased in just the past few weeks.

A former FCC commissioner, Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is president of Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises. He can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com.