Speaker 1: United States Space Force.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Is it an arm of NASA or is it a
Speaker 1: private corporation.
Speaker 3: A space force? Gosh, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Are they guardians or exploration? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Defend US against alleged space threats? I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know that I think it does much. I'm assuming like
Speaker 1: a branch of the army that fights crime and space.
Speaker 5: Well, I think Space Force they go in space with
Speaker 5: like weapons for some reason. And I don't know why
Speaker 5: I even need weapons in space, explore space.
Speaker 1: To the moon or flight to the moon or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's public.
Speaker 2: I'm guessing it's some sort of military arm of NASA,
Speaker 2: the space program that has to do with strategic defense
Speaker 2: or maybe settling Mars.
Speaker 1: The almost nine hundred billion dollar defense spending bill that's
Speaker 1: working its way through the Congress includes a thirty billion
Speaker 1: dollar request for the newest and smallest branch of the
Speaker 1: US military, the US Space Force. You may remember when
Speaker 1: it was created in twenty nineteen, there were plenty of
Speaker 1: star Trek in space cadet jokes, and even at Netflix
Speaker 1: comedy starring Steve Carrell as a bumbling Space Force commander.
Speaker 2: Air Force is Space Force, Space Force, sir, you don't
Speaker 2: like to use your full title.
Speaker 3: Sorry, sir, Spaceman first class.
Speaker 2: Nothing to be ashamed of Air Forces airmen Space Force
Speaker 2: as spacemen. Nothing embarrassing or comical about it.
Speaker 1: But we haven't heard much about Space Force since then,
Speaker 1: which made us wonder, now that it's up and running,
Speaker 1: what does it actually do and how are they spending
Speaker 1: all those billions to find out? I paid a visit
Speaker 1: to the Pentagon to speak with General David Thompson.
Speaker 3: Our job is to protect US interest in space.
Speaker 1: He's the Vice Chief of Space Operations for all of
Speaker 1: Space Force.
Speaker 4: It is now incumbent on us to do two things.
Speaker 4: First is to develop get abilities that will defend our
Speaker 4: satellites in a whole host of ways, and it will
Speaker 4: become our responsibility also to deny advisary use of space.
Speaker 1: And later in the show, I talked to Bloomberg cyber
Speaker 1: security reporter Katrina Manson.
Speaker 5: I think it's really fair to say the homes race
Speaker 5: is already on, and certainly in terms of perception, the
Speaker 5: amount that you're seeing from the commercial well putting up
Speaker 5: into space also creates huge dilemmas for the US military
Speaker 5: and what they need to defend.
Speaker 1: I'm wes Kasova today on the big take. Space Force
Speaker 1: is no joke. General, I would imagine that some portion
Speaker 1: of your job is just explaining to people you meet
Speaker 1: what the Space Force is.
Speaker 4: You're absolutely right, it really is. There a whole host
Speaker 4: of things that we do that many people don't really understand.
Speaker 4: But I'll start with the things that people probably see
Speaker 4: every day and may not realize it. Right, people with
Speaker 4: smartphones billions all over the world follow the blue dot
Speaker 4: on their smartphone every day. That's Global Positioning System GPS.
Speaker 4: That constellation of thirty satellites is brought to you by
Speaker 4: the United States Space Force. That constellation also provides a
Speaker 4: timing signal that synchronizes the cellular network they use, and
Speaker 4: financial networks and the Internet and things like that.
Speaker 3: That's provided as a service for the world.
Speaker 4: But the real reason it exists is US Air Force
Speaker 4: aircraft flying over the Arctic ice cap, Navy ships in
Speaker 4: the Middle Pacific Ocean, Army units in the middle of
Speaker 4: the Arabian Desert. They follow the blue dot every day
Speaker 4: as well, and that's really why it's there. So they
Speaker 4: can navigate effectively all over.
Speaker 3: The globe, all over the world.
Speaker 4: There's a whole host of missile and rocket activity. Rockets
Speaker 4: are launched all over the world every single day. We
Speaker 4: operate a constellation of spacecraft that detect every single launch,
Speaker 4: figure out where it is, where it's coming from, if
Speaker 4: it poses a threat to the nation or our friends
Speaker 4: or allies and forces, and provide warning. Those are the
Speaker 4: kinds of things that we do every day. I'm done
Speaker 4: for decades, all the way up to including keeping track
Speaker 4: of objects in space. Forty thousand plus objects in space
Speaker 4: that we keep track of every single day. We figure
Speaker 4: out where they are, we figure out where they're going,
Speaker 4: and whether or not they oppose a hazard to themselves,
Speaker 4: to others, Do they pose a hazard just to astronauts
Speaker 4: on the International Space Station. We have a global array
Speaker 4: of ground and space based sensors to keep track of
Speaker 4: all that.
Speaker 1: So you're keeping track of this stuff. Let's say you
Speaker 1: find an object, an old satellite, something else that does
Speaker 1: pose a threat.
Speaker 4: What do you do, well, We provide warning to whomever
Speaker 4: it poses a threat to, you know, obviously and most directly,
Speaker 4: we have a very close tie with NASA so that
Speaker 4: we protect the International Space Station and to human beings
Speaker 4: in orbit. We do the same for satellites operated by companies,
Speaker 4: satellites operated by other nations. When the Chinese have astronauts
Speaker 4: on board their space station, we provide warning the We
Speaker 4: provide warning to anybody and everybody who operates a spacecraft,
Speaker 4: and then it becomes their responsibility to decide what they
Speaker 4: want to do with that information. Move their satellite, assume
Speaker 4: the risk, and hope that it doesn't hit them.
Speaker 3: Those sources of things.
Speaker 1: What do you find when you talk to people about
Speaker 1: Space Force? What do Americans think it does? Well?
Speaker 4: Yeah, great question, I mean, and you know, when we
Speaker 4: were created three and a half years ago, there was
Speaker 4: this line of conversation that said, now that we've created
Speaker 4: a space Force, we have to find something for them
Speaker 4: to do well. As I just described, there were a
Speaker 4: whole host of things we were already doing. Most of us,
Speaker 4: not all of us, but most of us were in
Speaker 4: the United States Air Force doing those things. So the GPS,
Speaker 4: the communication, satellites, the missile warning, tracking all those objects
Speaker 4: in space, we were already doing all that, and when
Speaker 4: we created the Space Force, we continued. The difference is
Speaker 4: and the reason we were created is other nations, now,
Speaker 4: especially those that wish us ill who would seek to
Speaker 4: do us harm, are looking to deny us use of
Speaker 4: those capabilities if in fact we're in conflict with them,
Speaker 4: And so one of the reasons we were created was
Speaker 4: to help protect those satellites as well and make sure
Speaker 4: those soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines get the
Speaker 4: things they need from GPS, have the communications they need,
Speaker 4: get the information they need from space, because other countries
Speaker 4: have now said we're going to try and take that
Speaker 4: away from you if it comes to conflict.
Speaker 1: Yea, and I want to talk a bit more about
Speaker 1: that a little bit later. First, this new branch of
Speaker 1: the military built up very quickly. Can you just talk
Speaker 1: about what happened from twenty nineteen when it was first
Speaker 1: announced till now?
Speaker 4: Sure, Actually we had a little bit of advanced notice.
Speaker 4: We started, as you said, when the legislation was signed
Speaker 4: into law in December of twenty nineteen, about eight months previously.
Speaker 4: We saw that this was very much a possibility, so
Speaker 4: we established a planning team to decide how we would
Speaker 4: establish the force, so that the day the law was created,
Speaker 4: we sort of had a running start. So what we
Speaker 4: did was we took the foundational pieces that existed already
Speaker 4: in the Air Force, already in the Army, already in
Speaker 4: the Navy, and we began putting them together and filling
Speaker 4: in pieces that weren't there. As an example, you know,
Speaker 4: we had organizations that built satellites and deployed satellites and
Speaker 4: operated satellites. What we didn't have was an effective intelligence enterprise,
Speaker 4: right adversaries, how do they operate in space? What are
Speaker 4: their capabilities, what sort of hostile behaviors. We didn't have
Speaker 4: an effective enterprise in that regard, so we had to
Speaker 4: build that very quickly.
Speaker 1: And how large is Space Force now?
Speaker 4: The Space Force today consists of about eighty five hundred
Speaker 4: guardians in uniform and about five thousand more civilians, and
Speaker 4: so all told, we're now approaching fourteen thousand people.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: One important point in that regard, though, is we also
Speaker 4: rely heavily on the United States Air Force for a
Speaker 4: lot of things that we need that we don't do ourselves.
Speaker 4: And there are about five thousand airmen who are out
Speaker 4: there helping us operator installations. They're providing our medical care,
Speaker 4: They're giving us logistical and security and legal support, and
Speaker 4: so a lot of the things that we need to
Speaker 4: operate effectively we don't do for ourselves. It's a great
Speaker 4: partnership that we have with the US Air Force that
Speaker 4: allows us to execute all those functions as well.
Speaker 1: So in a little over three years, really you built
Speaker 1: space for us up pretty quickly. How large will it be?
Speaker 1: Is there a final number that you're building towards.
Speaker 3: There is not, but I.
Speaker 4: Will tell you we're continuing to grow. And the reason
Speaker 4: we're continuing to go is missions that we used to
Speaker 4: do in other domains are moving to space. Right For example,
Speaker 4: something we call ground moving target indication tracking ships as
Speaker 4: they move across the ocean, tracking large vehicles on the
Speaker 4: ground and actually some of them in.
Speaker 3: The air as well.
Speaker 4: So that mission is moving to space, and so we
Speaker 4: have to grow our number of people in our systems
Speaker 4: to be able to do that. We're creating a whole
Speaker 4: lot more connectivity for forces at sea, on the ground,
Speaker 4: in the air, so that they can operate in a
Speaker 4: more integrated fashion. That requires a whole lot more connectivity
Speaker 4: to move data and to communicate through space. So we
Speaker 4: have to build that out. There's not a final number,
Speaker 4: but I would say in the next five to ten
Speaker 4: years we will probably grow by about a third just
Speaker 4: because of those new missions, and who knows what will
Speaker 4: happen in the future after that.
Speaker 1: You said earlier that a lot of the functions that
Speaker 1: the Space Force now does was previously done by the
Speaker 1: Air Force. Why did Space Force need to become its
Speaker 1: own branch. Why couldn't the Air Force have expanded to
Speaker 1: meet the challenges of a changing time.
Speaker 4: There's a couple of reasons why. The first is really
Speaker 4: the fact that we moved from what I will call
Speaker 4: a relatively benign and domain into one where those space
Speaker 4: systems are under threat. Starting as far back as two
Speaker 4: thousand and seven, starting with the Chinese, they specifically started
Speaker 4: developing and fielding weapons to take our satellites and the
Speaker 4: services they provide away from missing conflict. They did that
Speaker 4: with a test with a missile launched from the ground
Speaker 4: to destroy a satellite space The Russians have followed suit.
Speaker 4: Both have put offensive weapons in orbit to threaten our satellites.
Speaker 4: And so now we're not talking about just providing that
Speaker 4: GPS signal or the communications or the warning. We're now
Speaker 4: talking about the need to defend and protect those assets
Speaker 4: as well. And so that requires a focused service who
Speaker 4: thinks every day about what it takes to operate in
Speaker 4: space and to do that effectively with soldier, sailors, airmen,
Speaker 4: and marines. The second thing I'll say is the United
Speaker 4: States Air Force has a really full plate, and to
Speaker 4: ask one service and one service chief and one staff
Speaker 4: to do all that effectively in the air and then sale,
Speaker 4: by the way, focus effectively on space as well, was
Speaker 4: really too large of it span of control. And so
Speaker 4: just like in nineteen forty seven, the last time we
Speaker 4: did this, the United States Army built the world's greatest
Speaker 4: air forces as part of the army. But in nineteen
Speaker 4: forty seven the nation decided we now need a separate
Speaker 4: service that focuses every day on the air and interfaces
Speaker 4: directly with the Army of the Davy. We reach the
Speaker 4: same point in space to say, now, just like we
Speaker 4: need a service to understand how to operate on the ground,
Speaker 4: at sea in the air, we need a comparable service
Speaker 4: to be able to do that in space as well.
Speaker 1: I imagine since the military is very keen on drying
Speaker 1: boundaries and lines, and what's the difference between air and space.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot of difference.
Speaker 4: In fact, it's actually pretty easy because it's a very
Speaker 4: thick and large boundary. You know, there's really you get
Speaker 4: up to about one hundred thousand feet maybe one hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty thousand feet, you can't really operate effectively in
Speaker 4: the air anymore above that, and then it's really about
Speaker 4: down to about one hundred miles where you can operate
Speaker 4: effectively in space. So there's a boundary there. We can
Speaker 4: draw one specific line, but there's really a large area
Speaker 4: in between air and space where you don't operate effectively.
Speaker 4: And the principles under which you operate are vastly different,
Speaker 4: and therefore you need to understand it, act and think
Speaker 4: about them differently to operate effectively in each kind of
Speaker 4: the same way. The difference between operating and see and
Speaker 4: operating on the ground, same thing.
Speaker 1: And what does training look like to become a member
Speaker 1: of space for us, I imagine it's a lot different
Speaker 1: than it is for other branches in out there.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 4: The initial training is very similar. First of all, you know,
Speaker 4: if you think about basic training, we just first of all,
Speaker 4: I want you to teach you the fundamentals of military service.
Speaker 4: But the second phase of training, what we call technical training,
Speaker 4: immediately becomes different. We do that technical training out at
Speaker 4: VanderBurg Space Force Base in California, and that's when we
Speaker 4: start talking about how is operating in space different than
Speaker 4: operating in the air, or land or at sea. What
Speaker 4: do we need to train you and how do we
Speaker 4: need to train you to either operate those satellites effectively
Speaker 4: or provide intelligence support or build and fly them.
Speaker 1: What sort of training is needed when you're really pushing
Speaker 1: up against the limits of technology to try to keep
Speaker 1: up with both civilian technology and military adversaries.
Speaker 4: We're now moving into an era where we have to
Speaker 4: move faster. You know, those potential adversaries out there like
Speaker 4: China are moving very quickly. Technology lets us build satellites faster.
Speaker 4: Technology allows us to build them a little more cheaply,
Speaker 4: and the way people are operating. Rather than building a
Speaker 4: handful of very large, very capable, very expensive satellites, we're
Speaker 4: now talking about building hundreds and perhaps thousands of smaller,
Speaker 4: cheaper satellites that can do the same thing. We saw
Speaker 4: that in the commercial space sector. We're now moving that
Speaker 4: direction as well.
Speaker 1: In access to space, as you're saying, is really easy.
Speaker 1: It used to be pretty hard. Now you can pay
Speaker 1: you a long musk to put a satellite up there
Speaker 1: for an amount of money that a mid sized company
Speaker 1: can afford.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it. I would say it's getting easier. It's
Speaker 3: still very.
Speaker 4: Complicated, but you're right compared to the past when it
Speaker 4: took superpowers to gain access to space and then countries,
Speaker 4: but you're right. Now the ability to do it, do
Speaker 4: it quickly, do it easily, and do it at reasonable
Speaker 4: cost is absolutely there.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 4: You know, a university, a small company, folks that don't
Speaker 4: really have tremendous expertise or a huge infrastructure could build
Speaker 4: and design and fly their own spacecraft or pay somebody
Speaker 4: to do it for them. And you're right, it's really unleashing.
Speaker 4: I think a new way of thinking about.
Speaker 1: Space after the break. How Space Force defends US interests
Speaker 1: in orbit. One of the things you talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: which is very important, is the militarization of space and
Speaker 1: those concerns. Who are the adversaries the US is most
Speaker 1: concerned about in this realm.
Speaker 4: Yeah, today the most concerning adversaries are to Russia and China.
Speaker 4: China for two reasons. One is they have very clearly
Speaker 4: demonstrated by their actions and by what they're developing fielding
Speaker 4: and testing their desire to attack our spacecraft, our satellites
Speaker 4: and deny our use of them in conflict.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you say attack, what do you mean
Speaker 1: by so?
Speaker 3: Attack in any number of ways.
Speaker 4: In two thousand and seven, as I had said earlier,
Speaker 4: they launched a missile from the ground to destroy one
Speaker 4: of their satellites, physically attack it and destroy it. They
Speaker 4: also now have spacecraft in orbit that can maneuver right
Speaker 4: up next to one of our satellites and block it,
Speaker 4: collide with it. You know, they've actually demonstrated the ability
Speaker 4: to throw a net over one of their satellites and
Speaker 4: drag it to another orbit, so to physically attack in orbit.
Speaker 4: They have the capability to interfere with the communications links
Speaker 4: of our satellites jam those links. They've demonstrated the ability
Speaker 4: to use lasers to either dazzle our sensors whether the
Speaker 4: sensors don't work, or to cause physical damage on them.
Speaker 4: So basically, whether it's direct attack, kinetic attack, reversible jamming attack.
Speaker 4: In addition to attack through cyberspace physical attack of ground infrastructure,
Speaker 4: they have developed means to attack our satellites directly, indirectly,
Speaker 4: kinetically and non kinetically pretty much in any orbit we
Speaker 4: operate in. So they have a vast array of offensive force.
Speaker 1: Does the US have the same capabilities?
Speaker 3: The US does not.
Speaker 1: And what is the reason for that.
Speaker 4: Well, for a couple of reasons. One is we have
Speaker 4: been very loath to pursue capabilities like that in the
Speaker 4: past because we believe in preserving the domain and using
Speaker 4: it effectively for a broad range of purposes. I will say, however,
Speaker 4: that we are We have been developing capabilities for electronic
Speaker 4: interference for several years and been using those, but at
Speaker 4: this point in time, it is now incumbent on us
Speaker 4: to do two things. First is to develop capabilities that
Speaker 4: will defend our satellites in a whole host of ways,
Speaker 4: and it will become our responsibility also to deny adversary
Speaker 4: use of space. And so what I'll say today is,
Speaker 4: as a result of the activities of others, we are
Speaker 4: looking at and preparing for a whole host of ways
Speaker 4: to both defend and protect our capabilities but also potentially
Speaker 4: deny adversary's use of space and conflict.
Speaker 1: If you think back to the nuclear age, the concept
Speaker 1: of deterrence is maybe you didn't want to use it,
Speaker 1: but just the adversary knowing that you could deterred them.
Speaker 1: Is that the idea.
Speaker 4: So that is absolutely our approach, especially our approach to
Speaker 4: new constellations, what we call proliferated constellations A constellation, sorry,
Speaker 4: a whole bunch of satellites, right, constellation of satellites. Right.
Speaker 4: Most of the satellites we've developed in the past, relatively
Speaker 4: small in number GPS satellites about thirty provide all that
Speaker 4: global coverage communication satellites depends on specifically what they're for,
Speaker 4: but usually if from about six to a dozen satellites
Speaker 4: to provide those communications, our mister, warning, constellations about the
Speaker 4: same size. What we're moving to now is as opposed
Speaker 4: to tens, maybe tens of satellites to conduct missions, we're
Speaker 4: now talking about one hundreds and thousands. And so the
Speaker 4: first thing you say is, Okay, if my goal is
Speaker 4: to attack ten satellites, that's a manageable problem. If now
Speaker 4: the goal is I got to take out one hundred
Speaker 4: or a thousand satellites, that's much harder. And so there's
Speaker 4: a detern effect there because it is very hard to
Speaker 4: do something like that. And so that's the first part.
Speaker 4: The second part is if an adversary looks into space
Speaker 4: and either sees through their desire to deny US use
Speaker 4: of space, or US knowing that we can take their
Speaker 4: space capabilities away. If they look into space and say,
Speaker 4: I will not be able to do what I intend
Speaker 4: to do. I'm not going to go to conflict today.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what the intent is. We do not want
Speaker 4: to see, especially members of the US Space Force, but
Speaker 4: the United States of America and our leaders don't want
Speaker 4: to see conflict in space. And so our first goal
Speaker 4: is to deter any adversary action in space, but make
Speaker 4: it clear to everybody and anybody if it comes to that,
Speaker 4: we are preparing to win in space. So the second
Speaker 4: piece of China is not just offensive capabilities. The second
Speaker 4: piece of China is they've watched how effective we are
Speaker 4: in space with GPS, with communication satellites, with monitoring and
Speaker 4: detecting activities. They're building out a similar constellation to do
Speaker 4: the same thing that we've been doing for decades. On
Speaker 4: the rush aside, they are not as focused on that
Speaker 4: second piece, but they are very much focused on offensive.
Speaker 3: Capabilities, just like the Chinese.
Speaker 4: And while they're not moving as aggressively and as broadly
Speaker 4: to develop offensive weapons for space. They're doing the same things.
Speaker 4: Just recently they conducted a kinetic attack, launched a missile
Speaker 4: from the ground, destroyed one of their satellites in space.
Speaker 4: The fall of twenty twenty, they launched objects into space
Speaker 4: maneuverd them very close to some of our most capable satellites,
Speaker 4: demonstrating that they're prepared to attack them in space. Same
Speaker 4: thing with attacks through cyberspace, interference, jamming on the ground,
Speaker 4: laser dazzling.
Speaker 3: They are as aggressively.
Speaker 4: Pursuing offensive capabilities, deny or use of space as the Chinese.
Speaker 1: And satellites have played a really important role in the
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine, especially on the side of Ukraine the
Speaker 1: USSEU in helping support the war.
Speaker 3: They absolutely have, and in fact, in many.
Speaker 4: Cases those are commercial companies doing that, which has opened
Speaker 4: up a whole new area of interest and exploration and
Speaker 4: work required from a policy standpoint is what's the relationship
Speaker 4: between commercial companies and commercial services from space as it
Speaker 4: applies to conflict. A lot of companies monitor see sense
Speaker 4: collect information from space, and they've been able to provide
Speaker 4: that to Ukrainians. Companies have provided the ability to communicate
Speaker 4: where both through the physical attacks on the ground and
Speaker 4: some of the Russian cyber space attacks, and the Russians
Speaker 4: have been working hard to deny them those that use
Speaker 4: and it has proven to be quite a challenge.
Speaker 1: Do you worry that an arms race in space is
Speaker 1: ultimately inevitable?
Speaker 4: I guess I am concerned. I'm concerned about that just
Speaker 4: like any other domain. And I would say a couple
Speaker 4: of things. One is, from my perspective, our job is
Speaker 4: to ensure that both our forces and our national leaders
Speaker 4: have the capabilities that they need and the options that
Speaker 4: they need to operate effectively in the diplomatic space, in
Speaker 4: the military space, and count on those folks to help
Speaker 4: us work through the issues of how do we do
Speaker 4: that responsibly, how do we do that as a community
Speaker 4: of nations. And so while I'm concerned about how we're
Speaker 4: growing in space, I would say, to some extent, it
Speaker 4: is sort of inevitable. Unfortunately, that's a nature of the
Speaker 4: human race. Our job is provide those capabilities, help to
Speaker 4: ensure that we use them effectively, but also respond and
Speaker 4: then work hard on the deterrens piece so that hopefully
Speaker 4: it never comes to actual conflict.
Speaker 1: And again, if you think back to the Cold War,
Speaker 1: there were all of these deconfliction lines that if something
Speaker 1: looked bad, you could quickly call and say, hey, it's okay.
Speaker 1: Are there those kinds of lines of communication with China,
Speaker 1: with Russia specifically with regards to space.
Speaker 4: No, not really today, and that's not different than a
Speaker 4: lot of our communications these days. However, there is a
Speaker 4: body in the UN that's focused on developing responsible behaviors
Speaker 4: in space and trying to get the Community of Nations
Speaker 4: to agree to them. That effort is led for the
Speaker 4: US by the State Department. But just a couple of
Speaker 4: years ago, the Secretary of Defense Secretary of Austin put
Speaker 4: out what we believe are tenants for responsible behavior in
Speaker 4: space that we the Department of Defense will follow. Things
Speaker 4: like communicating our tension with respect to what we're doing
Speaker 4: in space, conducting activities that create large amounts of debris
Speaker 4: like Connecticut SAT tests. Those are the sorts of things
Speaker 4: that we believe are foundational to responsible behavior in space
Speaker 4: and hope that that spurs additional negotiations and agreements in
Speaker 4: the United Nations and with others to really operate responsibly
Speaker 4: in space.
Speaker 1: So you said, in the next five ten years, maybe
Speaker 1: Space for US grows about thirty percent. That means you're recruiting.
Speaker 1: What's the recruitment pitch for Space for US, Like we
Speaker 1: know what it is for Army and Navy. You know
Speaker 1: what's your pitch today?
Speaker 4: Well, and I will say I know that the other
Speaker 4: services are facing some recruiting challenges right now. We are not,
Speaker 4: But ours is. I mean it feels like back to
Speaker 4: the future. Right when I was young, space was cool.
Speaker 4: There was this grand vision and idea of moving out
Speaker 4: into the galaxy and things are going on. Well, that's
Speaker 4: not exactly our pitch, but we are certainly leveraging that
Speaker 4: desire and that interest. If you want to do something
Speaker 4: that matters, if you want to serve the nation, if
Speaker 4: you want to work with advanced technology and really operate
Speaker 4: in and deal with activities and what is still my opinion,
Speaker 4: the final frontier, not just today focused on what we
Speaker 4: do on Earth, but in the future as we move
Speaker 4: out towards the Moon in Mars. You can go to
Speaker 4: commercial industry, you can go to NASA, but absolutely there's
Speaker 4: a role for you in the Space Force as well.
Speaker 1: And what are the top three positions say that you
Speaker 1: would be recruiting for it of your psyche. This is
Speaker 1: what we need.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, we only really do four things, so they're
Speaker 4: all important. The first is we build and then launch
Speaker 4: those space systems in dow Or. But that's one thing
Speaker 4: you can do. You could be an engineer, a program manager.
Speaker 4: The second thing we do is we operate them, so
Speaker 4: you're no kidding sitting there in the operation center managing
Speaker 4: the activities and fly and the things you need to
Speaker 4: do every single day. If you want to be an
Speaker 4: intelligence specialist like you might be in the air, on
Speaker 4: the ground, at sea. We need folks who deeply understand
Speaker 4: what's going on in the domain, what other capabilities exist
Speaker 4: out there, how people operate, So we need those. And
Speaker 4: then lastly, space capabilities today don't really produce except through cyberspace.
Speaker 4: That information it's collectors from those satellites has to get
Speaker 4: to the ground. It has to be disseminated. We have
Speaker 4: to operate networks and IT systems to operate them to
Speaker 4: connect them and get that data that people need them.
Speaker 4: So we need cyberspace operators and cyberspace defenders. And because
Speaker 4: we're small our numbers, we only need several hundred people
Speaker 4: a year and so right now we don't really have
Speaker 4: a recruiting challenge. We have the opportunity to accept applicants
Speaker 4: and from those applicants choose the absolute best to come
Speaker 4: into the space for So it's a pretty easy sell.
Speaker 1: Do you ever get to premise and they're going to get
Speaker 1: to go to space?
Speaker 4: So I would say, I hope someday that can guardians
Speaker 4: go to space? Yes, today we have two guardians who
Speaker 4: go to space. They are astronauts in NASA's Astronaut Core.
Speaker 4: Most of our works on the ground. As the human race,
Speaker 4: as the nation and the human race goes back to
Speaker 4: the Moon, to Mars, goes beyond that, will there be
Speaker 4: a place for guardians in space? Absolutely in the future,
Speaker 4: and we are you know, Ana as NASA returns to
Speaker 4: the Moon, we talk about how do you navigate near
Speaker 4: the moon, how do you communicate near the moon? How
Speaker 4: do you understand what's happening in the lunar space and
Speaker 4: whether it's a hazard or a threat. Guardians are doing
Speaker 4: all of that today side by side with NASA. We're
Speaker 4: just doing it from the ground. We're not doing it
Speaker 4: in space yet, but one day somewhere out there in
Speaker 4: the future.
Speaker 1: Absolutely do you have to suffer through a lot of
Speaker 1: Guardians of the Galaxy jokes.
Speaker 3: Ah, we do.
Speaker 4: But you know what, humor is part of the American
Speaker 4: psyche and culture. And if you can't take a joke,
Speaker 4: you know what you really have to do is just
Speaker 4: embrace it. Like I said, you know, my people are nerds,
Speaker 4: and today nerd is cool.
Speaker 1: General Thompson, thanks so much for speaking with me.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's been a real pleasure.
Speaker 1: When we come back. What the US is doing to
Speaker 1: prepare for an escalation of tensions in space. If the
Speaker 1: kind of conflict in space that General Thompson talked about
Speaker 1: did happen, that's when the US Space Command would take charge,
Speaker 1: with Space Force and other branches of the US military
Speaker 1: pitching in personnel and resources. Bloomberg's Katrina Manson covers cyber
Speaker 1: and emerging tech. I asked her about Space Command and
Speaker 1: what exactly the US is doing to prepare for a
Speaker 1: potential military confrontation high above the Earth. Katrina, you've been
Speaker 1: out to Space Command in Colorado, I think twice now, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5: That's right. I went in twenty eighteen and then again
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty, so a while ago. What really struck
Speaker 5: me is. It's kind of a low slung building, and
Speaker 5: obviously one's looking for one's fill of Star Trek analogies
Speaker 5: and a bit of Battlestar Galactica. I think you get
Speaker 5: it more and more now from the Space Force, but
Speaker 5: Space Command looked to me a little bit like a
Speaker 5: sort of rudimentary rocket combined with a crossed with the
Speaker 5: sardine can. And inside it's a little bit like visiting
Speaker 5: a smaller version of the National Air and Space Museum.
Speaker 5: There are lots of wrapped boxes in the sky hanging
Speaker 5: down from the ceilings, and their satellites, their models of satellites.
Speaker 5: And the thing that really struck me is the early
Speaker 5: satellites are big and the newer satellites are small, and
Speaker 5: it's just a really clear demonstration of the way the
Speaker 5: whole entire approach to space is changing.
Speaker 1: And of course that's what we're talking about today. And
Speaker 1: you visited Space Command and there's that distinction between Space
Speaker 1: Command and Space Force.
Speaker 5: The simplest way to think about it is Space Force
Speaker 5: provides the people and Space Command does the fighting, and
Speaker 5: in this case in peace, does the operations. Space Command
Speaker 5: existed a long time ago. It got disestablished and then
Speaker 5: got set up again in full in twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 5: the whole point of that really is about saying spaces
Speaker 5: in the US jargon of the thing, a war fighting domain,
Speaker 5: and the whole effort of creating, re establishing Space Command,
Speaker 5: and then establishing Space Force for the first time. As
Speaker 5: much as it was sort of accompanied by mirth, and
Speaker 5: there are lots of detractors, I think the fact that
Speaker 5: it has stuck it out is so much about this
Speaker 5: US focus on what it sees as the threat from
Speaker 5: China and the fact that they've noticed China really developed
Speaker 5: its own space architecture really propel what it's trying to do.
Speaker 5: I think China itself has said it wants to overtake
Speaker 5: globally in space by twenty forty five, and the US
Speaker 5: has said they think China really will be a world
Speaker 5: class player by twenty thirty. But of course, China already,
Speaker 5: in the US estimation, has many different types of weapons
Speaker 5: in space and focused on space. That has concerned the US,
Speaker 5: and I think when you speak to senior US military officials,
Speaker 5: they talk a lot about developing to terrance in space.
Speaker 5: That's already an admission that the US is not quite
Speaker 5: clear what level of space superiority it has, and of course,
Speaker 5: to Terrance means being able to win and then letting.
Speaker 5: In this case, the Chinese know.
Speaker 1: That what is the current capability of the US in
Speaker 1: defending those satellites.
Speaker 5: I think they're really clear not enough. When I visited
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty, I spoke to a general Space Command
Speaker 5: who said the US really needed to start thinking about
Speaker 5: offensive weapons in space. And of course that triggers all
Speaker 5: sorts of questions in Congress, in the American public, and
Speaker 5: indeed the Biden administration, which has not set out this aim.
Speaker 5: But I think Space Command, Space Force, and its supporters
Speaker 5: are really leaning into this idea that the US needs
Speaker 5: much more capability. The US says that it has communications
Speaker 5: jamming equipment that could jam a satellite, but that it
Speaker 5: doesn't have any space based weaponry, and several other of
Speaker 5: the different types of weapons that you could use from
Speaker 5: ground to space, from space to space, and from space
Speaker 5: back down to the ground. There's a whole array. I
Speaker 5: think the thing that really triggered US concerns was back
Speaker 5: in two thousand and seven when the Chinese launched an
Speaker 5: anti satellite test that did explode a decaying Chinese satellite,
Speaker 5: and that's really when the US started saying, oh, China
Speaker 5: is serious about this. That test was criticized as irresponsible.
Speaker 5: It put I think more than twenty thousand pieces of
Speaker 5: debris into circulation, and a couple of thousands of those
Speaker 5: pieces are still circulating today. But of course the US
Speaker 5: has done the same. It did it before China, and
Speaker 5: it's done it since China in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 5: India's also done it. Russia did it in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 5: just on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine. And
Speaker 5: this kind of mounting concern has seen the US really
Speaker 5: want to develop things. And what the US is worried
Speaker 5: about is when they do these war games that involve
Speaker 5: global scenarios over Taiwan, it tends to very quickly escalate
Speaker 5: to space. The US is worried that China will fire
Speaker 5: the first shots of any war in Taiwan in space,
Speaker 5: degrading US space capabilities that enable the US to communicate
Speaker 5: with its own military forces and to move its own
Speaker 5: weapons around the world.
Speaker 1: You talked about these shootdowns of satellites that China did
Speaker 1: and Russia did, is some of the thinking that those
Speaker 1: were in part just to show the US the capability
Speaker 1: that they had that the shooting down of the satellite
Speaker 1: wasn't really the main point in China's case.
Speaker 5: They said they just needed to get an old weather
Speaker 5: satellite out of the way, and that's not really how
Speaker 5: you need to remove an old weather satellite. So I
Speaker 5: think the US certainly really saw that as their wake
Speaker 5: up call and used it as their wake up call.
Speaker 5: They did their own anti satellite test the next year.
Speaker 5: India did theirs in twenty nineteen. I think there is
Speaker 5: so much signaling going on in space and no one's
Speaker 5: really figured out their doctrine yet. So in the same
Speaker 5: way that you hear about a cyber pearl harbor, the
Speaker 5: original pearl harbor, there is a scenario that some US
Speaker 5: thinkers on this talk about as a space pearl harbor,
Speaker 5: where China might destroy US capabilities in space to say
Speaker 5: that's it, we really mean business, leave us alone, where
Speaker 5: the US would see that as the first shot of
Speaker 5: all out war. And so that kind of messaging, that
Speaker 5: kind of escalatory tension is so carefully done. It's meant
Speaker 5: to be modulated very carefully, but no one quite knows
Speaker 5: the rules of the discussion and what you see from
Speaker 5: Space Command in Space Force is saying no, no, no.
Speaker 5: China is putting so much military hardware now into space.
Speaker 5: It did more military launches in space last year than
Speaker 5: the US, and that trajectory really scares the US. And
Speaker 5: whether you sort of look away and say we won't compete,
Speaker 5: or you say we will match you. That's the very
Speaker 5: difficult balancing it that the US is facing, because it's
Speaker 5: clear that the US isn't prepared to let China have
Speaker 5: that capability. The US wants to be able to have
Speaker 5: superiority because that's what it sees as the deterrent effect.
Speaker 1: When you're talking to your sources, how concerned are they
Speaker 1: that we could have an arms race in space?
Speaker 5: I think it's really fair to say the arms race
Speaker 5: is already on, and certainly in terms of perception, the
Speaker 5: amount that you're seeing from the commercial world putting up
Speaker 5: into space also creates huge dilemmas for the US military
Speaker 5: and what they need to defend, and a lot of
Speaker 5: that hasn't been ironed out yet. The US at the
Speaker 5: moment is trying to work out if they should make
Speaker 5: space critical infrastructure, should they specifically designate things in space's
Speaker 5: critical infrastructure. There are a number of different elements that
Speaker 5: are labeled critical infrastructure, which means that any attack on
Speaker 5: them is seen as an attack on national security and
Speaker 5: the US needs to defend. And in fact, when President
Speaker 5: Biden went to meet Vladimir Putin some time ago, he said, hey,
Speaker 5: don't touch our critical infrastructure. This is what it is.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 5: A lot of that critical infrastructure depends on space, and
Speaker 5: there's a discussion right now in the US about whether
Speaker 5: that is sufficient. Does the fact that these things depend
Speaker 5: on space mean that space is indirectly preserved and clearly
Speaker 5: off limits, or does the US need to take a
Speaker 5: step extra and say, actually, anything in space counts as
Speaker 5: critical infrastructure, which would then require all sorts of different
Speaker 5: defensive means. And of course a lot of US food
Speaker 5: supply now depends on space. Our mobile phones depend more
Speaker 5: and more on space. Every single element of US national economy,
Speaker 5: which is increasingly tied to national security, relies on space
Speaker 5: in part and will only rely more on space in future.
Speaker 5: And so looking at exactly how you defend that, and
Speaker 5: putting more things up in space to defend that, of
Speaker 5: course begins to create huge anxiety on both sides. I
Speaker 5: think you could speak to a number of people today
Speaker 5: who would say the space race is already.
Speaker 1: On, Katrina. One of the reasons we're doing this episode
Speaker 1: is because all the things we're talking about here, I
Speaker 1: think most people just don't even know is something that
Speaker 1: Space Force does. What do you think people get wrong
Speaker 1: about Space Force?
Speaker 5: Well, of course there's this TV show all about Space
Speaker 5: Force with Steve Carell, and that became a kind of
Speaker 5: very clear parody of Space Force, and they've been a
Speaker 5: little health hostage to some of that themselves. They've spent
Speaker 5: a lot of time on uniforms. All of this always
Speaker 5: happens in the military services, and they're only getting going.
Speaker 5: So I think they defend that quite clearly. But obviously
Speaker 5: the entire corpus of sci fi and our popular understanding
Speaker 5: of space is sort of fun and quirky, and so
Speaker 5: they have to deal with that fun and quirky feeling
Speaker 5: at the same time as thinking, hold on, can we
Speaker 5: just put our hands up? Everything we have depends on space.
Speaker 5: This is far more vulnerable than people realize, and I
Speaker 5: think the popular conception is that it's a bit of
Speaker 5: a joke. And when I did speak to a general
Speaker 5: at Space Command, I asked him if he'd watched the
Speaker 5: TV show, and he Binge watched it in a night,
Speaker 5: and they're very good natured about it. They say anything
Speaker 5: that brings attention to space force and anything to do
Speaker 5: with space is good by us. I think they took
Speaker 5: a sort of sanguine view that they couldn't start fighting
Speaker 5: it before they'd even established their own reputation. But this
Speaker 5: is a reputation that is developing in the public consciousness now,
Speaker 5: so it really depends, and I think the language around
Speaker 5: it matters so much for trying to get public support on.
Speaker 1: Board, Katrina, thanks so much for speaking with me today,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening to us here
Speaker 1: at The Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, and we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. Email us questions or comments to Big
Speaker 1: Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The
Speaker 1: Big Take and the producer of this episode is Vicky Ergolina.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Raphae almcaly is our
Speaker 1: engineer with additional production support. From Nielli Haramo Plata and
Speaker 1: a Brayer Ruffin. Original music was composed by Leo Sidron.
Speaker 1: I'm West Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another big take.