Today, Explained - Space Farce

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

The Democrats gave President Trump his Space Force this week. But what is it? (Transcript here.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When I was young, I would look up at the stars, trying to take in the vastness of it all. I would imagine myself hurtling through the infinite expanse in search of answers to ancient mysteries, ready to fight for a better future. Ever since I was little little i have been a warrior i'm ready to step out into the unknown to take on the ultimate challenge i close my eyes i know where i must go Space Force. Space Force. Space Force. Space Force.

Space Force. There was a lot of news this week. The Conservatives won big in the UK, making Brexit all but sure. India passed a Muslim ban. The Democrats announced articles of impeachment. It is perfectly understandable if you miss the fact that President Donald Trump finally got his Space Force. This is like Star Trek. This is like Star Wars. We've got a space army now. Not exactly. More like a bureaucratic reshuffling of personnel in the military that already do space activities. Boo!

Boo! Okay, well, Lauren Grush, senior science reporter at The Verge, you cover all things space. Before we get into the details, let's start with what President Trump originally wanted. What was his dream? Right. So Trump first started talking about a space force back in March of 2018. And it was very, you know, blasé. He was just talking about, oh, you know, we might even do a space force. We have the Air Force. We'll have a Space Force. We have the Air Force.

We'll have the Space Force. We have the Army, the Navy. You know, I was saying it the other day because we're doing a tremendous amount of work in space. I said, maybe we need a new force. We'll call it the Space Force. And I was not really serious. And then I said, what a great idea. Maybe we'll have to do that.

That could happen. That could be the big breaking story. Look at all those people back there. Look at that. Oh, that fake news. And immediately everybody started memeing it, and it was this big online joke. But then a couple months later, he actually made an official announcement at a meeting of the National Space Council, directing the Department of Defense to establish a space force. Very importantly, I'm hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon

to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces. That's a big statement. And when he talked about it, he talked about it as creating an entirely new branch of the military. He called it separate but equal and very questionable phrasing from the Air Force. So he said we'd have the Air Force and we'd have the Space Force. They'd be two completely separate things, but at the same level. So that sounds like exactly what I'm talking about, like a space army, like Star Trek or something like that. and we'd have the Space Force. They'd be two completely separate things, but at the same level.

So that sounds like exactly what I'm talking about, like a space army, like Star Trek or something like that. No, not quite. I hate to break it to you, but we already are very involved in space in our military as it is, and this would essentially just be taking the personnel and the technologies that we already use for space in the military and putting them in their own separate branch. So it's like not even new? No, not at all. So it's not like we have like boots on the moon or a space station somewhere, but this is something of a big deal. I mean, this is like the first time there's been a new branch of the military created in like 70 years. Right. I mean, the creation of the Space Force is unique. And up until now, we haven't really had an organization strictly dedicated to space activities. The military space activities have kind of been spread over various departments, the Air Force,

the Army, the Navy. The National Reconnaissance Office also launches satellites. Most of the activities have been concentrated within the Air Force. But now what is going to happen is the creation of this new branch under the helm of the Air Force that is strictly focused on space. So it's still within the Air Force. It's a far cry from what Donald Trump had originally envisioned. It's not separate but equal. It's still going to be its own sixth branch of the military. It'll have its own four-star general running it.

So it'll have a table at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but that general will be reporting to the Secretary of the Air Force. So what exactly was the Air Force already doing in space? Right. So I don't think people quite understand that space is very much a part of our military operations as it is. We launch spy satellites. We launch communication satellites that help our troops, you know, communicate overseas.

We're constantly surveilling, you know, other countries. We're doing this thing called remote sensing, where we take pictures of the earth, gather data about the earth. It's very much involved in our lives. And even we use it, the GPS system that's operated by the Air Force, we use that in our maps and our phones. So it's already a very important part of how we run military operations. The Air Force has something called the Air Force Space Command. That sounds fun. Air Force Space Command. So the Air Force Space Command is responsible for acquiring new technologies for space, new satellites, and then they're also responsible for training the military personnel to operate those satellites once they're in orbit.

Huh. So this is like Satellite Management Bureau. It's so funny. I saw something on Twitter a while back when Space Force was being talked about, and it's like, people think it looks like this, and it had a bunch of stormtroopers shooting each other. And it's actually this, and it's just a bunch of people looking at computer screens in a mission control area just had transitioned to high rate mode and we are in the atmosphere

bummer so that's just personally i guess i feel like uh is there is there like a real military threat in space where we need to be like managing satellites and making sure that other satellites aren't trafficking near our satellites or something? Is that what's going on? I would say it depends on who you talk to. A lot of people, especially Space Force advocates, would say there is a military threat in space. And there is some truth to that. So Russia has its own forces. China, obviously, the space program is very much involved

in its military operations. Then also, France recently announced that it was going to create its own kind of space force-like branch. It was reported at the time that they were going to put lasers and machine guns on their satellites. Since then, people have noted that that might be a misattribution or some kind of misstatement. China has demonstrated the capability to take out one of its own satellites in orbit. So did India earlier this year. The prime minister announced that India had entered a very elite group of nations after successfully conducting an anti-satellite missile test. China and India shot down their own satellites.

I don't know, Lauren, it sounds a lot like a cell phone. So essentially launching a missile from Earth, targeting one of their own satellites and destroying it. It's called an ASAT test, an anti-satellite test. These ASAT tests are kind of condemned by everyone in the space community because they are so dangerous. And what they'll do is they'll break apart these satellites into hundreds, even thousands of tiny pieces. And then that just creates more debris in the space environment that could threaten other satellites. But they do demonstrate that they have the capability to take out a satellite if they want. So while China took out its own satellite or India

took out its own satellite, theoretically, they could do that to one of our satellites. Are we blowing up our own satellites in space? We, the United States? So we did do our own ASET test. We do it too. We made the excuse because we were targeting one of our satellites that was already decaying. So it was going to reenter the Earth's atmosphere anyway. And there was concern that it was going to spread toxic fuel. So we decided to destroy it.

And even that test was done, you know, in a low altitude to kind of mitigate how much debris would pose a threat to the space environment. But it still created, you know, quite a bit of debris. So that's why no one's really a fan of these ASAT tests. It's not fun for anybody. When you talk about machine guns and shooting missiles at satellites, I have to wonder, like, do we have some sort of international agreement on weapons in space and what we'll tolerate and what we won't? Right. So actually, 50 years ago, most of the world's nations came together and signed a treaty. It's called the Outer Space Treaty, which I adore. And it basically lays out guidelines for how we should explore space. And one of the main tenets is we should

use space for peaceful exploration. So one of the things that it prohibits is putting weapons of mass destruction in space. So basically, we can't put nukes in orbit. Meanwhile, the foreign minister presided at the signing of the treaty banning nuclear weapons from outer space. He pledged Britain's wholehearted support. Without such a treaty, life on Earth would be under continual threat, a nightmare existence. However, that doesn't mean that we can't use space for military activities. As we've established, we use it for surveillance, we use it for communications. So it's definitely open to interpretation.

Also, the Outer Space Treaty was purposely written vague so that we could interpret it the way that we wanted. It was built to be flexible so that as nations progressed, we could interpret it the way that we wanted. It was built to be flexible so that as nations progressed, we could interpret it in different ways. The main thing is no nukes in space, but beyond that, it's kind of a shrug. Okay, so the Space Force is necessary, it sounds like, and it's something we already do. There needs to be some sense of order up there in space with how our satellites are being managed and how our satellites are interacting with other satellites? Is that a fair summary?

I would say necessary is up for debate. Advocates were saying all of these space activities are spread out throughout the military. So you have the Air Force, you have the Army, the Navy, the National Reconnaissance Office. So there isn't really a centralized program for this. So the idea behind the Space Force is to create a dedicated branch, one that is focused on space, to kind of give them their own culture and to make them think outside the box and, you know, inspire them to come up with new technologies and new ways of doing things. So someone described it to me as if you came home and then came back to work the next day and you had a new boss and you had new coworkers and you were working on a new floor.

That's a bit like what's happening within the Air Force right now. So all the people who are working in Air Force Space Command are going to go home. They're going to come back the next day, you know, if this gets enacted and they'll be part of the Space Force. And how much is the Space Force going to cost the United States taxpayers? So that is still up for debate. Originally, I think the price tag was the main point of contention, right? Nobody wants to pay money for this. But the reality is we are already paying money for what the Space Force would do. So I think the way that this Space Force

would be enacted is a little more palatable to people because it is just kind of taking the personnel that were already working on this and moving them over to their own new branch. Trump administration requested some $72 million. That doesn't sound like a lot of money compared to everything else.

Yeah, it's fairly low. If they do get this Space Force created, I've heard from some experts who are saying that, you know, legislators who are in favor of it are going to argue for, you know, giving them a bunch of money so that they can kind of start the momentum of thinking outside the box, getting that culture going, feeling like they have their own mission and are not just this kind of reshuffling that they kind of are right now.

Democrats gave him this money this week. They approved this military spending all while approving articles of impeachment. Why are they giving the president what he wants in space while trying to kick him out of office down here on Earth? Well, first of all, I would say they haven't given him the money yet. And I think because this is the Authorization Act and the Spending Act, the appropriations is coming next week. So I think that is still up for debate. But what reports said is they had struck a deal with the Republicans that they would get paid parental leave for federal workers. And so what comes next? The Senate is going to vote on the National Defense

Authorization Act next week. And then I've heard rumblings that there is an agreement on budget spending that is also maybe going to go up for vote next week as well. Last I checked, the vote was like 377 to 48. So definitely this big bipartisan coalition voted to support the Space Force, the creation of the Space Force. But I wonder, like, what did the 48 people have to say? What is the opposition out there to Space Force? Well, I think when you talk to people about Space Force is that the messaging hasn't been super precise. You know, a lot of people do think it's Starship Troopers or, you know, space lasers and things

like that. True, true, true. And I think a lot of that has come from the administration and Trump himself, because the way that they've advertised it, it does sound like this very boisterous, guns blazing type of thing. I think that's because it's called Space Force. Could Donald Trump one day be considered like a space pioneer for pulling this off? You know, when Trump was elected, I remember thinking, you know, it sounds like I'm going to have a really quiet time because they didn't seem very much into space.

And that has been the exact opposite. Not only have they been huge advocates for the Space Force, they also stood up the U.S. Space Command, which is the warfighting combatant command that oversees our whole space strategy. The Trump administration has also been very active in NASA's human spaceflight program. So Vice President Mike Pence challenged NASA to send humans back to the moon by 2024, which in NASA timescale is a very, very short amount of time. So this administration has been very active in the space world since they took office. Has anyone voiced any interest in like sending Donald Trump into space? I mean, have you been on Twitter? My name is Zagthamar, leader of Gleesnox Explained, Gleesnox's greatest daily podcast.

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