Good Heavens: A new hope for a space we can share—Space Force & space weapons—Ashes Ashes #92
Channel: Stop Fossil Fuels
Date: 2020-05-15

In 1967 the world witnessed the signing of the Outer Space Treaty, and now over 100 countries have joined the international agreement to declare space as "the province of all mankind," to be used "exclusively for peaceful purposes", and kept free of weapons and military installations. This idealism is a far cry from current reality, with US officials espousing values of domination and exclusive advantages to be maintained in space, while other countries are blowing satellites out of the sky with missiles to prove themselves mighty "space powers."

Will we ever reclaim space as the peaceful province of all mankind, or will the road to Donald J. Kessler's infamous scenario be paved with neutral particle beams, lasers, nano-satellite swarms, machine-gun mounted satellites, and giant tungsten rods?

Podcast by Ashes Ashes, reposted under CC License. Browse episode resources & read full transcript at https://ashesashes.org/blog/episode-92-good-heavens


Stop Fossil Fuels researches and disseminates effective strategies and tactics to halt fossil fuel combustion as fast as possible. Learn more at https://stopfossilfuels.org

CHAPTERS
3:46 Space Opera
8:05 Beams, Bombs, and Rods from God
15:35 Two Visions for Space
24:33 Space Force and the Drive to Dominate
27:55 Neighbors and Rockets
40:22 Satellite-Killers
52:29 What Choice?

TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT
Daniel: We've been reading about satellites and countries vying for their position at the top of those who are dominating space. Space is a fascinating realm in the context of the very many political games that are major countries play against one another. I keep reading these articles, David, and it's fascinating to me because right now the major world powers are jockeying for control and dominance of Earth's orbit, but it plays out completely different than it does on land. For one, there are no borders in space. No geographic borders anyway. On land you can say: our country is between this river and that mountain, and anyone who crosses this line is in deep trouble. But in space satellite circle the entire globe: if Russia tried to park one of their tanks next to the White House or China maneuvered an aircraft carrier into the Gulf of Mexico, we'd practically be declaring war at that point. But in space, a Chinese satellite might pass an American satellite every day. And there's not always a clear difference between a harmless space probe and a satellite-killing space weapon.

David: As far as I'm aware, space is supposed to be entirely weapon-free. There's a lot of treaties that we've agreed more or less to this idea. But you making it sound like it's the wild west almost.


Daniel: It is the wild west, we have no idea what's going on in space. It's all up for grabs up there at this point. During the Vietnam war, the United States experimented with a weapon called "lazy bombs" and these were bombs or they were shaped like bombs. You know, like you've seen a comical image of a bomb, it kind of looks like a fish with the fins but it's all metal and it drops a payload. Well, they built these to a 1-inch scale, very tiny, I mean, these are things that would fit on your finger, right? And then they folded some sheet metal, and our military welded that sheet metal fin to these 1-inch bombs and then they dropped them by the thousands of people in Vietnam from 3,000 feet in the air. The idea was that as these things fell gravity accelerated their velocity, and by the time they hit Earth they were penetrating with such force that they could go 9 inches into concrete and they would often penetrate human skin and leave many people dead as a result.


We took this idea and kicked it up a notch and said, what if we did the same thing but we dropped it not from 3,000 feet but we dropped it from space? And instead of a 1-inch little bomb, it was a 20-foot telephone pole made of solid tungsten that when it hit the Earth, it caused an explosion comparable to a small tactical nuclear bomb. That's Rods from God.

David: When you're talking about massive weights and massive speeds, there's no need to have any additional sort of explosive capability. 

Daniel: Many people talk about the need to fund space-related technology and advancement, but much of our scientific funding now goes to military purposes. Great if the military develops some technology that then trickles down to the mere public. But usually the military gets exclusive control and we don't benefit, at least not immediately. The priority of world leaders is who controls and dominates. Case in point, when Trump announced his desire to create the space force.

David: Yes and he was endlessly mocked for such a ridiculous idea.

Daniel: Endlessly mocked but it's not really a crazy idea at least in the logic of this current crazy framework of how we think about space?

David: It's not even a new idea, but by request of the Pentagon to reinstate a program that already existed...