The Opinions - The Security Threat Hundreds of Miles Above Our Heads

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

What would happen if a nuclear weapon detonated in space, destroying the satellites that make so much of our digital existence — and our national security — possible? In this episode, William Hennigan, the lead writer for Times Opinion’s At the Brink series, speaks with the man whose job is to make sure that never happens.Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail]. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. Hi, I'm Bill Hennigan. I cover national security for the New York Times opinion section. For the last year, I've been writing on nuclear weapons in the modern age for our series at the brink. And one of the things that people don't often think about when it's related to nuclear weapons is outer space. What differentiates space from other domains, you know, such as air or sea, is the fact that there are no real rules of the road. There are no basic norms of behavior when it comes to space. In a second term, it's imperative for President-elect Trump to lead an international effort to codify rules to prevent a catastrophe unfolding in outer space,

eliminating the various satellite systems that we all depend upon. A lot of analysts and military people and diplomatic people are just saying, it's just time to make this normal like we do with all the other aspects of our functional lives. In 2019, Trump established the Space Force as its own uniform service, just as the Marines and the Navy and the Air Force. And what the Space Force does, you know, It became a punchline for a lot of Americans. There was even a show on Netflix,

starring the comedian Steve Carell, that poked fun at the Space Force. Spaceman! This is a great adventure that we are embarking on today. We are training for the worst-case scenario, but the best-case scenario is colonizing the galaxy. Imagine years from now, you could be on some distant star harvesting corn.

But what they do is a critical aspect of U.S. military operations. They ensure that, you know, missile warning and communication satellites work properly. But they also monitor for, you know, these emerging threats that we've seen from foreign adversaries like Russia and China that endanger those very expensive and critical satellites. So I spoke to someone who knows more or. about this than pretty much anybody. My name is General Chance Saltzman. I'm the chief of space operations for United States Space Force.

One of the things that General Salzman lays plane is the various ways that satellites shape our modern life. Probably the average American knows that they use space, but they may not know precisely how much they use space. We used to think about

space capabilities as kind of the icing on the cake. It just made things a little better. Now it really is the eggs and the batter of the cake. It is so baked in to what we do. We depend upon GPS satellites to navigate our way around cities or across the country. If you look for tomorrow's weather, for instance, the forecasting is done off of weather satellites. Going to a gas pump and swiping your credit card is timestamp by the GPS. There's satellite TV, of course, and smaller satellites like Starlink that are enabling internet in remote corners of the globe.

But it goes beyond that. There are so many applications that the U.S. military is dependent upon when it comes to satellites. The way that a missile finds its way to a target is based off signals from outer space. The intelligence that we have on other nations and what they're up to is because of spy satellites in space. And watching all of these satellites in outer space and ensuring that they operate the way that they're intended to is Salceman's job. Space is space. It's big. The Space Force is currently tracking about 40,000 objects in space. And at the top of the list is Cosmos 2553, a satellite that Russia launched in February of 2022. and Cosmos 2553, it's alleged,

is testing components for a future nuclear anti-satellite weapon. And it operates in this very strange orbit above low-earth orbit where all of our most critical satellites operate. And if such a weapon were ever deployed, it would have the potential to obliterate hundreds, if not thousands of satellites that are in that orbit. Detonating a nuclear weapon in outer space is not a good idea, but, you know, the United States military did do it in the late 1950s

in the early 1960s. Years before Neil Armstrong ever set foot on the moon, the United States was seeing what the implications might be of detonating a nuclear weapon in outer space. So this is not speculative. what we know about what would happen. We've done this before. In those early tests, what scientists found out was there was a pulse of charged particles

that would fry the satellites that were orbiting there. And the best known one was Starfish Prime. And at the time, there were only about two dozen satellites that were in orbit. But this test, it knocked out a third. of all functional satellites that were orbiting there. Imagine if there was such a detonation today. Dependent upon the blast size, of course, and the size of the weapon itself,

it would render useless any of the satellites in its immediate vicinity, but then it would leave this lingering radiation shell that would stay there, and if a satellite whizzed through that at 17,000 miles per hour, its electronics and its systems would begin to fail. So then you have a bunch of orbiting junk that are no longer controllable.

And this cascading domino effect of satellites careening into one another, traveling at 17,000 miles per hour become real perils to one another. A nuclear weapon going off in space does not just target your adversary's satellites. It's indiscriminate. All satellites are at risk, with such a detonation. So it's in nobody's interest that this occurs. The U.S. military doesn't like talking a lot about what it does in outer space.

But I asked General Salsman, what's the way that we can avoid such a thing from ever occurring? It's an international approach to make sure that as much pressure is applied against irresponsible type behaviors before those irresponsible acts occur. the best measure is preventative, not reactive. General Salzman's opinion is basically the same as what underpins all U.S. nuclear policy, which is deterrence, and to ensure that something like this could never occur. And right now, despite all the advancements that we've made in outer space, there are only two agreements that govern nuclear weapons in the cosmos,

both of which were signed in the 1960s. The first is the limited test ban treaty, which forbids those nuclear tests that we had taken in outer space. And the second is the outer space treaty. That says that the United States, the USSR, and the signatory sense all agree that they will never put a nuclear weapon or weapons of mass destruction in outer space. one by one, the treaties are either expiring or they're being ripped up. And the concern is the Outer Space Treaty, which has been so important for all these decades, could also be seen in the eyes of our adversaries as outdated. And that this treaty might be the next one to fall.

Because President-elect Trump has shown an interest in space, and he understands clearly, that space is a critical aspect of the way we live, he should make a diplomatic push with other countries to try to come up with norms of behavior in outer space. And one of the easy things to do is to set up a communications channel, a hotline between the United States, Russia, and China to ensure that there's less of a chance of miscalculation

or mistake or misunderstanding one another when it comes to space operations. History has shown that wherever human beings are, conflict follows soon after. So it only makes sense to try to set up guardrails in a way that a mistake doesn't spill into conflict. And the only way that we can do that is through communication. And there's just too much at risk right now

to turn a blind eye to that fact. To see the rest of our series on the threat of nuclear war in the modern age, including extensive graphics and photography. Look for At the Brink from New York Times opinion. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Vichaca, Phoebe Lett, Christina Samuoski, and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker,

Carol Sabarro and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amin Sahota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta, Christina Samuiluski, and Adrian Rivera. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Dresser.