Speaker 1: From UFOs two ghosts and government cover ups. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to. Now, Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome back. My name is Matt and I am Ben
Speaker 1: and today we've got a fascinating subject for you, something
Speaker 1: that you've probably been thinking about since you were a kid,
Speaker 1: even if you weren't maybe thinking about the particulars of
Speaker 1: the weaponization of this thing. But space is something that, man,
Speaker 1: it just captures the mind, the young mind especially and
Speaker 1: uh perhaps the young mind that's within all of us.
Speaker 1: Um when you think about the vastness that's out there
Speaker 1: when we're just floating around on this tiny little planet,
Speaker 1: And what are the implications of of bringing our human
Speaker 1: warlike you know, uh, our ego and uh pushing it
Speaker 1: out to those outer reaches? Like what is that? Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: the in the vast inconceivable space of the universe. Are
Speaker 1: we the dicks at the party? I mean, well, that's
Speaker 1: it's a weird thing to think about, and it's just
Speaker 1: part of our nature that we kind of have to
Speaker 1: at some point look in the face. Now, let me
Speaker 1: ask you by way of segue, Matt, are you a
Speaker 1: Star Wars or Star Trek fan. If you had to
Speaker 1: pick one, I would wholeheartedly throw myself into the Star
Speaker 1: Trek Star Trek. Huh yeah, world there any particular reason
Speaker 1: my dad and I. I guess my dad mostly he
Speaker 1: got me into the Next Generation. UM, I was really
Speaker 1: hardcore into that. Remember how everybody flipped out on the
Speaker 1: first episode of the Next Generation when there was a
Speaker 1: clean on as part of the crew. Actually, no, I
Speaker 1: don't remember that. I don't remember that, but I did
Speaker 1: read about that later. I'm dating myself. I've flipped out
Speaker 1: as a kid. Um. Well, the the reason that I
Speaker 1: asked this is that these are two of the most
Speaker 1: well known science fiction UM. I guess the right word
Speaker 1: would be universes, right, science fiction universes in human history
Speaker 1: and um. Both of these are heavily centered on the
Speaker 1: idea that we're going to talk about today in some respect,
Speaker 1: which is war in space space space space space. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have some high class special effects here. UM. But
Speaker 1: this this brings up some really important questions because you
Speaker 1: and I have been exploring this in a bunch of
Speaker 1: different ways for a very long time. We talked, most
Speaker 1: recently about the intelligence gathering satellite programs, And please go
Speaker 1: back and watch that episode of You Haven't Yet. That's
Speaker 1: one of our it's one of my favorite latest episodes
Speaker 1: that we've done, just talking about the importance of having
Speaker 1: a wide view, the wider your view of the Earth
Speaker 1: in the world, to be able to look at, say,
Speaker 1: if there's a nuclear test going on somewhere, or you know,
Speaker 1: really just to observe people are observed, countries and other
Speaker 1: powers that you may see as an adversary. Yes, And
Speaker 1: what we'll be doing in this podcast today, you and
Speaker 1: I are going to talk about what makes outer space
Speaker 1: valuable as a as a frontier right for nation states.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about what legal things might exist
Speaker 1: or already exist to stop it from becoming a war zone. Um.
Speaker 1: And then we'll also talk about some of the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories regarding militarization or weaponization of space. Uh, and how
Speaker 1: much or how little truth is found within these ideas
Speaker 1: and how much or how little we actually know about
Speaker 1: the latest tech. Ah. Yes, that's a very good point
Speaker 1: because a lot of this, as we'll find, is classified.
Speaker 1: So first up, we know that the immediate area surrounding
Speaker 1: Earth in space is just lousy with space junk and satellites.
Speaker 1: We are the UM. We are the galactic equivalent of
Speaker 1: that really trashy neighbor with a bunch of stuff in
Speaker 1: their front yard and a bunch of non working machines
Speaker 1: that nobody bothered to clean up. Old satellites just floating around. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's funny because the reason that all of that
Speaker 1: is up there is because we've really been in this
Speaker 1: race for such a long time to have that wide view,
Speaker 1: the control, and the ability to see and sense things
Speaker 1: from that level. Because having a satellite in orbit is
Speaker 1: a huge, huge deal for a country. Yeah, that's one
Speaker 1: of the big three things that space offers any nation
Speaker 1: state capable of making the trip right, UM the and
Speaker 1: it's number one on our list. Actually, uh satellites for
Speaker 1: intelligence gathering, the ability to see in something close to
Speaker 1: real time what what your opponents, your rivals are doing,
Speaker 1: presents a tremendous advantage and in fact, UM may have
Speaker 1: saved us from war a couple of times. I know
Speaker 1: it looks like it sounds as though this might UM
Speaker 1: drive us into a war, but we do know that
Speaker 1: the satellite info during the Cold War that Lyndon Johnson
Speaker 1: received made him realize that the Soviet Union was not
Speaker 1: building near as many bombs as we thought, and he
Speaker 1: famously said, we're building stuff we don't need to build,
Speaker 1: which must have been a huge, you know, um, a
Speaker 1: huge turnoff for some some of our friends in the
Speaker 1: defense industry at well. And another thing that it provides
Speaker 1: is the ability to see and know in real time
Speaker 1: what your troops are doing and to communicate from say, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, halfway around the world too, and let your
Speaker 1: other troops know or your other installation know exactly what's
Speaker 1: going on at all times. Uh. The communication alone is
Speaker 1: a huge deal for the military. And that just means
Speaker 1: exactly what it describes. Some of the biggest innovations, some
Speaker 1: of the most uh ambitious R and D programs in
Speaker 1: the world right now are focused on improving communications. So
Speaker 1: not so much building a better bomb as building a
Speaker 1: better way to know where the bombs are yours and
Speaker 1: the other game. And the reason that um, we see
Speaker 1: this as such a priority is well, it's kind of
Speaker 1: disturbing if you think about it, but you know, Matt,
Speaker 1: for much of human history, empires have fallen and risen
Speaker 1: based on this weird lack of communication, like the old
Speaker 1: theory about UM. Now, I've never been able to figure
Speaker 1: out if this is true, but you know people who
Speaker 1: think that the Rothchild family runs the world, and it
Speaker 1: is true that no one really can calculate how much
Speaker 1: money the Rothchild family is an aggregate has It's his
Speaker 1: story for another day. Yes, they don't let me digress.
Speaker 1: But that old story about UM about how the Rothchild
Speaker 1: family was able to figure out what was actually happening
Speaker 1: UM during Napoleonic Uh. I can't remember the exact battle,
Speaker 1: but apparently was able to get information before the other
Speaker 1: folks and play the market with it, and that became
Speaker 1: a huge financial windfall. That sort of stuff is, you know,
Speaker 1: not necessarily anomalous. Traders have been making money off that
Speaker 1: for centuries, and now this is sort of closing the gap.
Speaker 1: And that's not even the last thing. We know what
Speaker 1: the last thing is on our list of three reasons. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's being able to intercept the communications of those other
Speaker 1: countries with your technology that you have up in space
Speaker 1: and which leads us. I mean, you could just put
Speaker 1: it right into the n s A. You could. We
Speaker 1: could talk about so many things here, we could branch off. Wow,
Speaker 1: this is a. This is a great podcast that we
Speaker 1: can probably in the future say, hey, go back and
Speaker 1: listen to our Militarization of Space podcast, because we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about a branch of that. For instance, as
Speaker 1: we're recording this, this is the very beginning of two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, I forgot to say Happy New Year. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Happy New Year everyone. Yeah, Happy New Year everybody as
Speaker 1: we're recording. They still probably hear it later. Um. But
Speaker 1: one of the big pieces of news that hit recently
Speaker 1: as we were coming into the studio is that France
Speaker 1: and I believe the United Arab Emirates may have just
Speaker 1: had their intelligent satellite deal scuttled. France was selling a
Speaker 1: belief to intelligence out lights to the u a E.
Speaker 1: And then with the NASA or n s A revelations
Speaker 1: excuse me, uh, come to find out that the U
Speaker 1: a E has a pretty i'm gonna say a pretty
Speaker 1: fair suspicion that some of the technology in these satellites
Speaker 1: may have a built in US government run back door.
Speaker 1: So they don't want this to happen because if they
Speaker 1: pay the exorbitant amount of money to buy these satellites
Speaker 1: have them up in space, then what's just constantly sending
Speaker 1: information back to the US. And it doesn't really make
Speaker 1: what they're doing that that important, I guess right. And
Speaker 1: it's not to say that the U A E or
Speaker 1: the U S are necessarily antagonistic toward each other something no, no, no.
Speaker 1: And it's not to say that you A has any
Speaker 1: nefarious means by sending the satellites up. It's just that
Speaker 1: kind of that strategic advantage that the U S would
Speaker 1: have over whatever they're doing. It's unsettling at best. So
Speaker 1: another question is if this stuff has been going on
Speaker 1: for so long, which it has, then what if any
Speaker 1: laws exist or govern the way Earth handles space. Well,
Speaker 1: there's one very important document with a super sexy name.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Well it does have one sexy name, which
Speaker 1: is the Outer Space Treaty. That's yeah, it does. But
Speaker 1: if you read the entire thing, the formal title, the
Speaker 1: Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States and the
Speaker 1: Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and
Speaker 1: other celestial bodies. Oh wow, be still my beating heart.
Speaker 1: But sexy or non sexy name aside, this is a
Speaker 1: very important treaty. It's one of the only kind of
Speaker 1: its sort in in human history, of course, because it's
Speaker 1: the first time we managed to get the space so
Speaker 1: often that we had to sit down and you know,
Speaker 1: have a town hall meeting about it, um it. And
Speaker 1: it does some really important things. Now, this was brought
Speaker 1: into law in nineteen sixty seven, right, and it brings
Speaker 1: a lot of the heavy hitters in the space game
Speaker 1: to the table. And at this point in time, we're
Speaker 1: talking about the Soviet Union, the US, the United Kingdom
Speaker 1: and some others. And one of the things that it
Speaker 1: does that's hugely important is that it says no one
Speaker 1: can just own space. You know, it's not like a
Speaker 1: territorial water claim where which we still haven't figured out
Speaker 1: in much of the world today. You know, China and
Speaker 1: Japan and a couple of other countries are in the
Speaker 1: Philippines are fighting over who owns how much of the
Speaker 1: water around their countries. Um But this treaty makes space
Speaker 1: a little bit like the South Pole, like no one
Speaker 1: can own Antarctica. You can build research stations there, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And one of the most important things that it said
Speaker 1: was that you can send something up into space because
Speaker 1: nobody owns it, just like with the research station and
Speaker 1: an ARCA. But and you own that thing that you
Speaker 1: sent up. Whatever it is, that satellite, it's yours, it's
Speaker 1: your country's. UM. But you can't there are a couple
Speaker 1: of things you can't do with it. You can't put
Speaker 1: any weapons of mass destruction up there. It's like, no nukes. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: absolutely no nukes, or of some other kind of crazy
Speaker 1: space bacterial I don't know attack. You can't put that
Speaker 1: sort of h. James Bond esque laser beam, yes, yes, Um,
Speaker 1: well see I don't know about a laser beam. I
Speaker 1: really want to get down into some of the minutia
Speaker 1: about that. Now they classify what is a conventional one, right,
Speaker 1: we'll get to that part. So, so, no nukes. This
Speaker 1: was a huge part of the agreement because at this time,
Speaker 1: if we remember, UM, the idea of nuclear war was
Speaker 1: at the forefront of most people's minds. Um. This also
Speaker 1: limits the use of the Moon. It's supposed to make
Speaker 1: the Moon kind of a new Antarctica. Only peaceful purposes,
Speaker 1: and you have to be used for the betterment of
Speaker 1: the entire Earth. If you put a station on the Moon,
Speaker 1: you can put a station up there, just can't be
Speaker 1: militarized in any way, right, can't be a military base,
Speaker 1: can't test your Moon weapons, and you also can't conduct
Speaker 1: your military moon maneuvers. Um. That's that's the idea. But
Speaker 1: there's something really important and we just mentioned, which is
Speaker 1: that the treaty does not prohibit bringing conventional weapons into orbit.
Speaker 1: And that that's why you and I were a little
Speaker 1: bit um, a little bit hesitant to say that a
Speaker 1: laser beam had no place in space, because what defines
Speaker 1: a conventional weapon. We'll get to that in just a second.
Speaker 1: There's another very important part of this treaty, which said
Speaker 1: that no one can claim severenity over the Moon by
Speaker 1: means of use or occupation, or by any other means.
Speaker 1: Whatever the hell that means. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: like putting the Moon on your currency, or so putting
Speaker 1: a giant logo on the moon somewhere, maybe dropping a
Speaker 1: flag on there. Yeah, but we're gonna return for this um,
Speaker 1: this idea because it's important, as we'll find out later.
Speaker 1: We talked about the future of this, but one thing's
Speaker 1: for sure. When it comes to the laws, one thing
Speaker 1: is unambiguously clear. Countries are supposed to own the satellites
Speaker 1: they launch. With all that said, let's talk. Let's talk
Speaker 1: some tech, right, Yes, Jonathan Strickland would love this part.
Speaker 1: Now we mentioned the intelligence and Reconnaissance satellites, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: the l r O. The l R O. So the
Speaker 1: l RO are essentially film cameras that are set up
Speaker 1: in space that are set to take a certain amount
Speaker 1: of film that's on the satellite and then launch that
Speaker 1: sucker back down so they can be recovered by someone
Speaker 1: on Earth. Wait, whoa whoa film film, straight up film man,
Speaker 1: exposing it to light and old school wow. So before
Speaker 1: digital cameras, we had satellites in the air, in this
Speaker 1: in the space air taking taking photos um and dropping
Speaker 1: that down to go to some sort of top secret
Speaker 1: version of Kodak Eastman. Oh yeah and there. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating to me just the idea that someone
Speaker 1: had that idea and was able to get exposure correct
Speaker 1: and and get in focus images of any kind. That's
Speaker 1: I mean, that was a task man. Yeah. And as
Speaker 1: we found when we were looking at at these satellite programs,
Speaker 1: they had a huge failure rate, and the problem was
Speaker 1: once you shoot it up there, it's such a gamble.
Speaker 1: It's not like you can take it back down and
Speaker 1: fix it because we didn't have the technology to get
Speaker 1: a spaceship there, or at least we didn't have the
Speaker 1: publicly known technology on. So these are satellites like the
Speaker 1: Velis satellite program. Uh, there's also key Hole or the
Speaker 1: Cage series and Grown. And the last thing, the craziest
Speaker 1: thing to me is once it runs out of film,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna float around and not really do much
Speaker 1: of anything unless you can get back up there and
Speaker 1: spend the huge amount of money that it would take
Speaker 1: to get back there and reload it with film, not
Speaker 1: to mention at the time that would have been extremely difficult.
Speaker 1: Now there's another and perhaps the most mysterious thing that
Speaker 1: we've included under um under tech, but we don't know
Speaker 1: too much about it right now. Yeah, we might have
Speaker 1: to come back to this and again maybe in ten
Speaker 1: years we'll do a follow up to this once we
Speaker 1: find out what the heck it actually was, if they
Speaker 1: ever declassify any Yes, that's the X thirty seven class
Speaker 1: of unmanned space shuttles essentially. Yeah, it's an unmanned reusable spacecraft.
Speaker 1: It's currently on its third mission and it's been up
Speaker 1: in space for as long as what twelve months before? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: just flying around and no one will say anything about
Speaker 1: what it's officially doing. Uh super classified ben Yeah. The
Speaker 1: the pr statement from the I think it's the Air
Speaker 1: Force on the Lockheed X thirty seven was something along
Speaker 1: the lines of, well, this third mission is going to
Speaker 1: take lessons learned from the second mission and apply them
Speaker 1: to real life applications. Were excited. That was, man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel sorry for you whoever had to write that one.
Speaker 1: So it's up there, it's unmanned. We don't know what
Speaker 1: it's doing with no idea. Um we know that given
Speaker 1: the capabilities of shuttles right that it has, it has
Speaker 1: some maneuverability that a satellite would not have. Yeah exactly,
Speaker 1: But to what end? Yeah? To what end? Indeed? And
Speaker 1: is there someone controlling? And this is I really want
Speaker 1: to just know more about the technology, even even well,
Speaker 1: I'm more fascinated by what the heck it's classified mission is,
Speaker 1: but I want to know how it's controlled. Is it
Speaker 1: really autonomous? Um? Or is somebody controlling it the way
Speaker 1: they would control a predator aircraft a drone? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: if so, what's the lag. Yeah, gosh, man, I just
Speaker 1: want to know. It's fascinating. So, um, we will probably
Speaker 1: have to come back to the X thirty seven at
Speaker 1: some other point in time. But there are other conventional
Speaker 1: weapons that have been used in space that we included
Speaker 1: under technology. Right, Yeah, let's talk about the most simple one. Uh,
Speaker 1: straight up handgun. Just a good old fashioned nine millimeter.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it was a nine millimeter
Speaker 1: or not all I just know it was a handgun
Speaker 1: and it was given to astronauts. But wait, says everybody
Speaker 1: who knows about physics and space and the lack of gravity. Uh,
Speaker 1: wouldn't a handgun be a cartoonishly stupid thing to have
Speaker 1: in space? Well? Look, man, you don't know what you're
Speaker 1: gonna find on the Moon, you know, I mean, there
Speaker 1: could be some crazy stuff going on up there. Or
Speaker 1: if you're a cosmonaut, uh, when you land wherever the
Speaker 1: heck you land, if you make it. Um, it's sure
Speaker 1: would suck to go to space and to return from
Speaker 1: space and to be eaten by a tiger or a bear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a polar BEARA just goes hey, buddy, welcome back. That's
Speaker 1: that would be a terrible welcoming party for a nut orbit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the uh so it is true that cosmonauts did have
Speaker 1: conventional handguns, but these were not for space use. These
Speaker 1: were not four games of Russian Roulette. These were not,
Speaker 1: uh for moments when the s hits the f and
Speaker 1: things get super real on a space station. Or maybe
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, maybe if you're up there and
Speaker 1: one guy goes a little nuts and decides he's gonna
Speaker 1: erect the entire thing because it's it's a tough mental
Speaker 1: state to be in claustrophobic. So I think maybe maybe
Speaker 1: there was some some scientists who said, maybe we should
Speaker 1: have a plan in place just in case one person
Speaker 1: goes eight nuts. There's no way you could shoot a
Speaker 1: gun inside have a habitat. Yeah, you're right, You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you could go wild with it
Speaker 1: and take everybody. I wonder if there wasn't a hunting
Speaker 1: knife where some kind of knife involved as well. I
Speaker 1: haven't done any research, we don't know. I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: something like a survival kid included. Um. Sorry, I didn't
Speaker 1: mean to go and don't apologize me. It's a good question.
Speaker 1: Maybe one of our listeners, maybe you can write in
Speaker 1: and let us know about your time as a cosmonaut
Speaker 1: if you are allowed to. UM. Another thing though, that
Speaker 1: this is also a Russian thing, mispronouncing this map. But
Speaker 1: the Salute three had a cannon on it, a twenty
Speaker 1: three millimeter cannon, and it shot satellites. Apparently that's still classified.
Speaker 1: And speaking of shooting satellites, one of the other big
Speaker 1: technologies we have to talk about is UH satellite killing.
Speaker 1: So a weird thing happened in two thousand seven. China
Speaker 1: shot down one of their obsolete satellites and they said
Speaker 1: we did this as a environmental thing or testing thing,
Speaker 1: which didn't really make sense because satellites contained some toxic elements. Um.
Speaker 1: It was largely seen as a thinly veiled demonstration of
Speaker 1: UM military prowess. And the United States, of course, is
Speaker 1: not by any means and innocent in the woods here,
Speaker 1: because the US also shot down satellites. Right yeah, back
Speaker 1: in the eighties, they used the brand new F fifteen
Speaker 1: to UH to shoot down one because it could it
Speaker 1: could travel at heights that were insane at the time.
Speaker 1: Um that nobody thought an airplane and aircraft like that
Speaker 1: would be able to fly. And again just kind of Uh, well,
Speaker 1: what's up? Yeah, I could do this. Yeah. Um. Then
Speaker 1: they did it again in two thousand and eight, and
Speaker 1: many people thought that was kind of an answer to
Speaker 1: the two thousand seven China incident. I'm one of the people,
Speaker 1: by the way. Well yeah, I mean if you if
Speaker 1: you watch the news and you look at things like that,
Speaker 1: you notice that it's posturing. There's a ton of posturing
Speaker 1: that happens. Posturing is a perfect word. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of bro do you even space and going on? Um. Alright,
Speaker 1: so this brings us wait, wait, sorry, Ben, I want
Speaker 1: to go back just to briefly talk about the Space
Speaker 1: Wars program. Where the so called space Wars program, because
Speaker 1: that kind of gives us a little background about UM,
Speaker 1: especially the satellite killer technology that we put up there.
Speaker 1: What is the space Wars program, Well, it's it's the
Speaker 1: Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, which was put together will essentially
Speaker 1: by a speech that Ronald Reagan gave in March on
Speaker 1: March twenty three, nine three, the year in which I
Speaker 1: was born, Ben, and he basically was trying to find
Speaker 1: a way to get out of the mutual assured destruction
Speaker 1: kind of the pattern that we were in UM and
Speaker 1: because that was largely based on offense, the idea that
Speaker 1: we're gonna have so many nukes. If you knuc us May,
Speaker 1: we're gonna crap out of you, and and the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union in the United States were both kind of again
Speaker 1: posturing in this manner. He thought, well, what if there's
Speaker 1: a way, And probably a lot of his advisers thought,
Speaker 1: let's just put that there. Uh, what if we could
Speaker 1: just shoot down any intercontinental ballistic missile that came our way? Okay,
Speaker 1: so what if we could just build some sort of
Speaker 1: net for lack of a better word, that could knock
Speaker 1: out any I C B M launch toward us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it made a lot of people angry. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union was a little upset about it, um, you know,
Speaker 1: and it got a ton of criticism as well because
Speaker 1: of the amount of tech and the high tech that
Speaker 1: we would need to be able to do something like this,
Speaker 1: And it was basically a money pit for a long time. UM.
Speaker 1: And it changed names a couple of times. I know,
Speaker 1: George H. W. George H. W. Bush changed the name,
Speaker 1: and then Bill Clinton again changed the name, and and
Speaker 1: really they changed the focus a bunch of different times.
Speaker 1: But under this program there were some crazy weaponry that
Speaker 1: was at least fought up to go up into space.
Speaker 1: What there were there were X ray lasers, there were
Speaker 1: chemical lasers again attached the idea would you would be
Speaker 1: you would attach it to some kind of satellite that
Speaker 1: would then aim, be able to track and aim at
Speaker 1: a missile that's flying through the air. Uh. You also
Speaker 1: had again like regular projectiles, lead projectiles that would be shot,
Speaker 1: targeted and shot just rods. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also
Speaker 1: um using rail railgun technology extremely fast, basically using magnets
Speaker 1: to shoot shoot projectiles so fast that they would be
Speaker 1: able to catch up with an intercontinental ballistic missile. It's
Speaker 1: just fascinating stuff to me. Yeah, and it sounds incredibly
Speaker 1: difficult to do well. Yeah, And and so much money,
Speaker 1: billions of dollars went into trying to come up with
Speaker 1: a good way, a good system, and basically it got scrapped,
Speaker 1: at least most of it got scrapped. Okay, if I
Speaker 1: could interject here, this is the perfect segue, NOL, could
Speaker 1: you please toss in a scary music queue, perfect matt
Speaker 1: billions of dollars, yea few public results, how much of
Speaker 1: it was corruption and waste, certainly a bit. How much
Speaker 1: of it could have been building something else, something classified. See,
Speaker 1: that's the scary thing when we look at the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories surrounding weapons in space, there's very little that people
Speaker 1: actually know or that has occurred. We we know some
Speaker 1: of the stuff, and we know a lot of it
Speaker 1: way later than it actually happened. If somebody had found
Speaker 1: out about the Keyhole satellites when they were up there,
Speaker 1: it would have blown their frigging minds. It still blows
Speaker 1: my mind. So I'm going to rate the conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: about space. I'm going to rate them as potentially plausible
Speaker 1: with a big, big, big, big caveat. I didn't even
Speaker 1: say possible as a plausible, which is a big leap, right. Um.
Speaker 1: That big caveat is simply that not a lot of
Speaker 1: information exists. And while it's while it's possible that there's
Speaker 1: technology generations and generations further ahead than we actually know,
Speaker 1: what is more plausible is that there's stuff kind of
Speaker 1: the head of the curve. You know, maybe not thirty
Speaker 1: years ahead of the curve, maybe five years ahead of
Speaker 1: the curve. And think about how how far ahead of
Speaker 1: the curve five years is now exactly exactly, and think
Speaker 1: about how possible it is to have an unaccounted satellite.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things that really tripped us
Speaker 1: out was when we found out that um, it is
Speaker 1: possible to track secret satellites and the group of people
Speaker 1: who were doing these as hobbyists had been discovered by
Speaker 1: various governments, and those various governments had altered the paths
Speaker 1: of the satellites. That's amazing. That's not even a conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1: That is a conspiracy story. That is factual. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's interesting that all it takes is a few interested
Speaker 1: people to just do a little bit of observation and
Speaker 1: the entire program had to shift. Now, this leads us
Speaker 1: to something that we want to ask you guys out
Speaker 1: here listening. Do you think that it is Do you
Speaker 1: think that it's plausible that there would be some sort
Speaker 1: of weapon like Matt and I have described that would
Speaker 1: be capable of shooting out an I, C B M
Speaker 1: from space? Um. You know, given that there are other
Speaker 1: similar programs to the Star Wars initiative that actually have
Speaker 1: some degree of success, like the Iron Dome UM, which
Speaker 1: protects from rockets in the Middle East? Right, Uh there,
Speaker 1: and that's all technology that's shot from the ground, right,
Speaker 1: But but it uses satellites to track things, right, and
Speaker 1: not very well to be honest. So could there be
Speaker 1: something like that? What are the space weapon conspiracies that
Speaker 1: you believe are true? That's what we want to hear
Speaker 1: about it because we know there are a lot of
Speaker 1: countries sticking their fingers up there into the inky darkness
Speaker 1: of space, right and uh, what are they fiddling with? Right? So, Matt,
Speaker 1: I can't think of a better way for us to
Speaker 1: go out than the future. Yes, the future, Uh, this
Speaker 1: is we're not trying to see the future in anywhere.
Speaker 1: We're just going to talk about the path that we're
Speaker 1: currently on. Yeah, the trends um, So the biggest thing
Speaker 1: is that it's getting not easier per se, but it's
Speaker 1: getting a little bit cheaper with some of the new
Speaker 1: ways that we can get up into space. Um. With
Speaker 1: the especially with the entrepreneurs that are pursuing this sure,
Speaker 1: Richard Branson for example. UM. And there are privately funded
Speaker 1: initiatives to even take people to Mars, which we'll see
Speaker 1: if that ever materializes. But we do know that private
Speaker 1: individuals and corporations. Uh, may well be the torch bearers
Speaker 1: for the next space race. We also know that the
Speaker 1: space race is picking up. China, of course, landed on
Speaker 1: the Moon successfully with the uh I can't remember how
Speaker 1: to pronounce it Chung gay three and rover called the
Speaker 1: jade rabbit. Yeah, that's this is one of the more
Speaker 1: fascinating things that you can do on the internet now
Speaker 1: is just search search about that rover and you can
Speaker 1: see pictures, brand new higher resolution photos of the Moon. Now,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating taking selfies and it is uh. And then
Speaker 1: India just created their first cryogenic engine, which originally was
Speaker 1: technology relegated to a few Western powers. Um. But now
Speaker 1: India has been able to make it domestically. And we
Speaker 1: can't over emphasize the importance of something like this. These
Speaker 1: these kind of breakthroughs make it quite possible that the
Speaker 1: first person to ever speak on Mars, or the next
Speaker 1: person to go to the Moon won't be speaking English,
Speaker 1: oh gosh. Or maybe they will speak English, it will
Speaker 1: just be their third or fourth language, right yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: and may not be recognizable um to people who speak
Speaker 1: the old fashioned English. Right um. And we're gonna leave
Speaker 1: on an interesting note, we're just gonna say this is interesting.
Speaker 1: So remember we said we would go back to Article
Speaker 1: two of the Outer Space Treaty where they said that
Speaker 1: no one can own the moon. Well, it turns out
Speaker 1: there's some latitude, there's some wiggle room there, and to
Speaker 1: fix that, there was another treaty just for the moon.
Speaker 1: And this would be a binding, effective treaty that would
Speaker 1: have guaranteed that not just the moon, but all celestial
Speaker 1: bodies fall under international jurisdiction. So not just um, the
Speaker 1: idea that no one nation can claim the own the moon,
Speaker 1: but that they all everybody owns someone, right, And so
Speaker 1: it's an interesting, interesting difference. Um. And it was enough
Speaker 1: of a difference that no country that can go into
Speaker 1: space signed it. No one said that's crazy to me.
Speaker 1: It ties into UM, I think it ties into how
Speaker 1: much disproportionate power some countries have cough cough United States,
Speaker 1: cough in the United Nations, Um, Western countries have a
Speaker 1: lot of a disproportionate poll and a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could say it's not disproportionate given the
Speaker 1: you know, percentages of funding and stuff. Um, But geopolitically,
Speaker 1: a lot of countries said no, way, am I going
Speaker 1: to let the U N own the Moon? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and let's not forget the dish disproportionate amount of
Speaker 1: money that exists in the hands of so very few
Speaker 1: right now. And just to think about, there are there
Speaker 1: are a large number of people now that if they
Speaker 1: wanted to, they have the means to get into the
Speaker 1: private space sector, at least the monetary means to do so.
Speaker 1: And uh, if things continue to get worse environmentally on
Speaker 1: this planet, I wonder how many different small private space
Speaker 1: companies will be born in the next five to fifty years.
Speaker 1: You know what I think that is? That is a
Speaker 1: fairly plausible thing that probably the incentive will be to
Speaker 1: try to reclaim parts of Earth instead. Um, but I
Speaker 1: could definitely see both of them going that way. And
Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and say it. I don't know what
Speaker 1: you think, Matt, and I don't know what you think, listeners.
Speaker 1: What the future of space travel? I think is going
Speaker 1: to be driven by the private industry. I mean, corporations
Speaker 1: will become the new states. It's um, that's where we're heading.
Speaker 1: Fairly inevitable, right, just like states became the new religions.
Speaker 1: There's a cycle there, and perhaps we've said too much already.
Speaker 1: Oh god, Um, all right, so that's it. What what
Speaker 1: do you want people to mail us this week? Matt?
Speaker 1: I want to see if any of you are amateur astronomers,
Speaker 1: I want to see pictures that you've taken specifically about Jupiter,
Speaker 1: because right now Jupiter is extremely close to the Earth
Speaker 1: and I'd love to see some of those pictures. If
Speaker 1: you're into that. Um, maybe if you've been tracking a satellite,
Speaker 1: I'd love to know about that if you can tell us.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if you're really you're allowed to tell us.
Speaker 1: And also, one last thing, let's do a little let's
Speaker 1: play a game, just a quick little thought experiment. So
Speaker 1: let's say you're on a mission. You're an astronaut or
Speaker 1: cosmonaut or whatever not you are. You've been sent on
Speaker 1: a mission to go to a planet that's far, that's
Speaker 1: in far outside of our Solar System, and we've confirmed
Speaker 1: that it contains biological life of some sort. It's in class,
Speaker 1: yes and M class. You're on this mission and you
Speaker 1: actually have to go and get out and explore us
Speaker 1: new planet. What kind of weapon do you want to
Speaker 1: have with you? A good question, M. A positive attitude, Yeah,
Speaker 1: nobody picked positive attitude. That's a terrible, terrible choice. UM.
Speaker 1: All right, so let us know you can always follow
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Speaker 1: if you find us on Twitter, and those two places
Speaker 1: are some of the best places to ask us for
Speaker 1: a shout out on the air, which we just might
Speaker 1: give you if the stars are in your favor. And
Speaker 1: there's of course one way that you can always contact
Speaker 1: us directly. That's our email address, which is conspiracy at
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com. From more on this topic, another unexplained phenomena,
Speaker 1: visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can
Speaker 1: also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at
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