Speaker 1: Hi, it's West Casova. We're taking a break this week,
Speaker 1: so here's an episode you might have missed. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening. We'll be back on Monday with a
Speaker 1: new big take.
Speaker 2: United States Space Force. Uh is it an arm of
Speaker 2: NASA or is it a private corporation?
Speaker 3: A space force? Gosh, I don't know. Are they guardians
Speaker 3: or exploration?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Defend US against alleged space threats? I mean, I don't
Speaker 4: know that. I think it does much.
Speaker 1: I'm missing, like a branch of the army that's fights
Speaker 1: crime and space.
Speaker 4: Well, I think space Force they go in space with
Speaker 4: like weapons for some reason. And I don't know why
Speaker 4: you need weapons in space explore space to the moon
Speaker 4: or fly to the moon.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's public. I'm guessing it's some
Speaker 2: sort of military arm of NASA the space program that
Speaker 2: has to do with strategic defense 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 a Netflix
Speaker 1: comedy starring Steve Carrell as a bumbling Space Force commander.
Speaker 5: Air Force is Space Force Space Force, Sir, you don't
Speaker 5: like to use your full title.
Speaker 2: Sorry, sir. Spaceman first class.
Speaker 5: Nothing to be ashamed of. Air Forces airmen, Space Forces spacemen.
Speaker 5: 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 the what does it actually do and how are
Speaker 1: they spending all those billions to find out? I paid
Speaker 1: a visit 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 3: It is now incumbent on us to do two things.
Speaker 3: First is to develop capabilities that will defend our satellites
Speaker 3: in a whole host of ways, and it will become
Speaker 3: our responsibility also to deny advisariusa space.
Speaker 1: And later in the show, I talked to Bloomberg cyber
Speaker 1: security reporter Katrina Manson.
Speaker 6: I think it's really fair to say the homes race
Speaker 6: is already on and certainly in terms of perception the
Speaker 6: amount that you're seeing from the commercial well. Putting up
Speaker 6: into space also creates huge dilemmas for the US military
Speaker 6: 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 3: You're absolutely right, it really is. There are a whole
Speaker 3: host of things that we do that many people don't
Speaker 3: really understand. But I'll start with the things that people
Speaker 3: probably see every day and may not realize it. Right,
Speaker 3: people with smartphones, you know, billions all over the world
Speaker 3: follow the blue dot on their smartphone every day. That's
Speaker 3: Global Positioning System GPS. That constellation of thirty satellites is
Speaker 3: brought to you by the United States Space Force. That
Speaker 3: constellation also provides a timing signal that synchronizes the cellular
Speaker 3: network they use, and financial networks and the Internet and
Speaker 3: things like that. That's provided as a service for the world.
Speaker 3: But the real reason it exists is US Air Force
Speaker 3: aircraft flying over the Arctic ice cap, Navy ships in
Speaker 3: the Middle Pacific Ocean, Army units in the middle of
Speaker 3: the Arabian Desert. They follow the blue dot every day
Speaker 3: as well, and that's really why it's there, so they
Speaker 3: can navigate effectively all over the globe, all over the world.
Speaker 3: There's a whole host of missile and rocket activity. Rockets
Speaker 3: are launched all over the world every single day. We
Speaker 3: operate a constellation of spacecraft that detect every single launch,
Speaker 3: figure out where it is, where it's coming from, if
Speaker 3: it poses a threat to the nation or our friends
Speaker 3: or allies and forces, and provide warning. Those are the
Speaker 3: kinds of things that we do every day. I'm done
Speaker 3: for decades, all the way up to including keeping track
Speaker 3: of objects in space. Forty thousand plus objects in space
Speaker 3: that we keep track of every single day. We figure
Speaker 3: out where they are, We figure out where they're going,
Speaker 3: and whether or not they op pose a hazard to themselves,
Speaker 3: to others, Do they pose a hazard just to astronauts
Speaker 3: on the International Space Station. We have a global array
Speaker 3: of ground and space based sensors to keep track of
Speaker 3: 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 3: What do you do well, We provide warning to whomever
Speaker 3: it poses a threat to. You know, obviously and most directly,
Speaker 3: we have a very close tie with NASA so that
Speaker 3: we protect the International Space Station and the human beings
Speaker 3: in orbit. We do the same for satellites operated by companies,
Speaker 3: satellites operated by other nations. When the Chinese have astronauts
Speaker 3: on board their space station, we provide warning to the Chinese.
Speaker 3: We provide warning to anybody and everybody who operates a spacecraft,
Speaker 3: and then it becomes their responsibility to decide what they
Speaker 3: want to do with that information. Move their satellite, assume
Speaker 3: the risk, and hope that it doesn't hit them. Those
Speaker 3: sorts of things.
Speaker 1: What do you find when you talk to people about
Speaker 1: Space Force? What do Americans think it does?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question, I mean, and you know, when we
Speaker 3: were created three and a half years ago, there was
Speaker 3: this line of conversation that said, now that we've created
Speaker 3: a space Force, we have to find something for them
Speaker 3: to do. Well. As I just described, there were a
Speaker 3: whole host of things we were already doing. Most of us,
Speaker 3: not all of us, but most of us were in
Speaker 3: the United States Air Force doing those things. So the GPS,
Speaker 3: the communication satellites, the missile warning, tracking all those objects
Speaker 3: in space. We were already doing all that, and when
Speaker 3: we created the Space Force, we continued. The difference is
Speaker 3: and the reason we were created is other nations now,
Speaker 3: especially those that wish us ill, who would seek to
Speaker 3: do as harm, are looking to deny us use of
Speaker 3: those capabilities if in fact we're in conflict with them,
Speaker 3: And so one of the reasons we were created was
Speaker 3: to help protect those satellites as well and make sure
Speaker 3: those soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines get the
Speaker 3: things they need from GPS, have the communications they need,
Speaker 3: get the information they need from space, because other countries
Speaker 3: have now said we're going to try and take that
Speaker 3: 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 been from twenty nineteen when it was
Speaker 1: first announced till now.
Speaker 3: Sure, Actually we had a little bit of advanced notice.
Speaker 3: We started, as you said, when the legislation was signed
Speaker 3: into law in December of twenty nineteen, about eight months previously.
Speaker 3: We saw that this was very much a possibility so
Speaker 3: we had established a planning team to decide how we
Speaker 3: would establish the force, so that the day the law
Speaker 3: was created, we sort of had a running start. So
Speaker 3: what we did was we took the foundational pieces that
Speaker 3: existed already in the Air Force, already in the Army,
Speaker 3: already in the Navy, and we began putting them together
Speaker 3: and filling in pieces that weren't there. As an example,
Speaker 3: you know, we had organizations that built satellites and deployed
Speaker 3: satellites and operated satellites. What we didn't have was an
Speaker 3: effective intelligence enterprise right adversaries, how do they operate in space?
Speaker 3: What are their capabilities, what sort of hostile behaviors? We
Speaker 3: didn't have an effective enterprise network goinguard. So we had
Speaker 3: to build that very quickly.
Speaker 1: And how large is space Force now?
Speaker 3: The Space Force today consists of about eighty five hundred
Speaker 3: guardians in uniform and about five thousand more civilians, and
Speaker 3: so all told, we're now approaching fourteen thousand people. Now.
Speaker 3: One important point in that regard, though, is we also
Speaker 3: rely heavily on the United States Air Force for a
Speaker 3: lot of things that we need that we don't do ourselves.
Speaker 3: And there are about five thousand airmen who are out
Speaker 3: there helping US operator installations. They're providing our medical care,
Speaker 3: They're giving us logistical and security and legal support, and
Speaker 3: so a lot of the things that we need to
Speaker 3: operate effectively we don't do for ourselves. It's a great
Speaker 3: partnership that we have with the US Air Force that
Speaker 3: allows us to execute all those functions as well.
Speaker 1: So in a little over three years, really you built
Speaker 1: space force up pretty quickly.
Speaker 7: How large will it be? Is there a final number
Speaker 7: that you're building towards?
Speaker 3: There is not, but I will tell you we're continuing
Speaker 3: to grow. And the reason we're continuing goes. Missions that
Speaker 3: we used to do in other domains are moving to space.
Speaker 3: Right For example, something we call ground moving target indication
Speaker 3: tracking ships as they move across the ocean, tracking large
Speaker 3: vehicles on the ground and actually some of them in
Speaker 3: the air as well. So that mission is moving to space,
Speaker 3: and so we have to grow our number of people
Speaker 3: in our systems to be able to do that. We're
Speaker 3: creating a whole lot more connectivity for forces at sea,
Speaker 3: on the ground, in the air, so that they can
Speaker 3: operate in a more integrated fashion. That requires a whole
Speaker 3: lot more connectivity to move data and to communicate through space,
Speaker 3: So we have to build that out. There's not a
Speaker 3: final number, but I would say in the next five
Speaker 3: to ten years we will probably grow by about a
Speaker 3: third just because of those new missions, and who knows
Speaker 3: what will 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. Couldn't the Air Force have expanded to meet
Speaker 1: the challenges of a changing time.
Speaker 3: There's a couple reasons why. The first is really the
Speaker 3: fact that we moved from what I will call a
Speaker 3: relatively benign and domain into one where those space systems
Speaker 3: are under threat, starting as far back as two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven, starting with the Chinese, they specifically started developing
Speaker 3: and fielding weapons to take our satellites and the services
Speaker 3: they provide away from missing conflict. They did that with
Speaker 3: a test with a missile launched from the ground to
Speaker 3: destroy a satellite space The Russians have followed suit. Both
Speaker 3: have put offensive weapons in orbit to threaten our satellites,
Speaker 3: and so now we're not talking about just providing that
Speaker 3: GPS signal or the communications or the warning. We're now
Speaker 3: talking about the need to defend and protect those assets
Speaker 3: as well, And so that requires a focused service who
Speaker 3: thinks every day about what it takes to operate in
Speaker 3: space and to do that effectively with soldier, sailors, airmen,
Speaker 3: and marines. The second thing I'll say is the United
Speaker 3: States Air Force has a really full plate, and to
Speaker 3: ask one service and one service chief and one staff
Speaker 3: to do all that effectively in the air and then say, oh,
Speaker 3: by the way, focus effectively on space as well, was
Speaker 3: really too large of hispanic control. And so, just like
Speaker 3: in nineteen forty seven, the last time we did this,
Speaker 3: the United States Army built the world's greatest air forces
Speaker 3: as part of the army. But in nineteen forty seven
Speaker 3: the nation decided we now need a separate service that
Speaker 3: focuses every day on the air and interfaces directly with
Speaker 3: the Army. In the Navy, we reached the same point
Speaker 3: in space to say, now, just like we need a
Speaker 3: service to understand how to operate on the ground at
Speaker 3: sea in the air, we need a comparable service to
Speaker 3: be able to do that in space as well.
Speaker 1: I imagine since the military is very keen on drying boundaries
Speaker 1: and lines. And what's the difference between air and space?
Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot of difference. In fact, it's actually
Speaker 3: pretty easy because it's a very thick and large boundary.
Speaker 3: You know, there's really you get up to about one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand feet maybe one hundred and fifty thousand feet.
Speaker 3: You can't really operate effectively in the air anymore above that,
Speaker 3: and then it's really about down to about one hundred
Speaker 3: miles where you can operate effectively in space. And so
Speaker 3: there's a there's a boundary there. We can draw one
Speaker 3: specific line, but there's really a large area in between
Speaker 3: air and space where you don't operate effectively. And the
Speaker 3: principles under which you operate are vastly different, and therefore
Speaker 3: you need to understand it, act and think about them
Speaker 3: differently to operate effectively in each kind of the same way.
Speaker 3: The difference between operating and see and operated on the ground.
Speaker 3: 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 the un Up there, it.
Speaker 3: Is the initial training is very similar. First of all.
Speaker 3: You know, if you think about basic training, we just
Speaker 3: first of all, I want you to teach you the
Speaker 3: fun fundamentals of military service. But the second phase of training,
Speaker 3: what we call technical training, immediately becomes different. We do
Speaker 3: that technical training out at VanderBurg Space Force Base in California,
Speaker 3: and that's when we start talking about how is operating
Speaker 3: in space different than operating in the air or land
Speaker 3: or would see. What do we need to train you
Speaker 3: and how do we need to train you to either
Speaker 3: operate those satellites effectively or provide intelligence support or build
Speaker 3: 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 3: We're now moving into an era where we have to
Speaker 3: move faster. You know, those potential adversaries out there like
Speaker 3: China are moving very quickly. Technology lets us build satellites faster.
Speaker 3: Technology allows us to build them a little more cheaply,
Speaker 3: and the way people are operating. Rather than building a
Speaker 3: handful of very large, very capable, very expensive satellites, we're
Speaker 3: now talking about building hundreds and perhaps thousands of smaller,
Speaker 3: cheaper satellites that can do the same thing. We saw
Speaker 3: that in the commercial space sector. We're now moving that
Speaker 3: direction as well.
Speaker 1: And 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 Long Musk to put a satellite up there for
Speaker 1: an amount of money that a mid sized company can afford.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it. I would say it's getting easier. It's
Speaker 3: still very complicated, but you're right compared to the past
Speaker 3: when it took superpowers to gain access to space and
Speaker 3: then countries, but you're right. Now the ability to do it,
Speaker 3: do it quickly, do it easily, and do it at
Speaker 3: reasonable cost is absolutely there. And so you know, a university,
Speaker 3: a small company, folks that don't really have tremendous expertise
Speaker 3: or a huge infrastructure could build and design and fly
Speaker 3: their own spacecraft or pay somebody to do it for them.
Speaker 3: And you're right, it's really unleashing. I think a new
Speaker 3: way of thinking about space.
Speaker 1: After the break have space force to diff ns us
Speaker 1: interests 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 3: Yeah, today the most concerning adversaries are to Russia and China.
Speaker 3: China for two reasons. One is they have very clearly
Speaker 3: demonstrated by their actions and by what they're developing, fielding
Speaker 3: and testing, their desire to attack our spacecraft, our satellites
Speaker 3: and deny our use of them in conflict.
Speaker 1: When you say attack, what do you mean by it?
Speaker 3: So attack in any number of ways. In two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven, as I had said earlier, they launched a
Speaker 3: missile from the ground to destroy one of their satellites,
Speaker 3: physically attack it and destroyed. They also now have spacecraft
Speaker 3: in orbit that can maneuver right up next to one
Speaker 3: of our satellites and block it, collide with it. Either.
Speaker 3: They've actually demonstrated the ability to throw a net over
Speaker 3: one of their satellites and drag it to another orbit,
Speaker 3: so to physically attack in orbit. They have the capability
Speaker 3: to interfere with the communications links of our satellites jam
Speaker 3: those links. They've demonstrated the ability to use lasers to
Speaker 3: either dazzle our sensors so that the sensors don't work,
Speaker 3: or to cause physical damage on them. So basically, whether
Speaker 3: it's direct attack, kinetic attack, reversible jamming attack. In addition
Speaker 3: to attack through cyberspace, physical attack of ground infrastructure. They
Speaker 3: have developed means to attack our satellites directly, indirectly, kinetically
Speaker 3: and non kinetically pretty much in any orbit we operate in.
Speaker 3: So they have a vast array of offensive forces.
Speaker 7: Does the US have the same capabilities? The US does not,
Speaker 7: And what is the reason for that. Well, for a
Speaker 7: couple of reasons. One is we have been very loath
Speaker 7: to pursue capabilities like that in the past because we
Speaker 7: believe in preserving the domain and using it effectively for
Speaker 7: a broad range of purposes. I will say, however, that
Speaker 7: we are We have been developing capabilities for electronic interference
Speaker 7: for several years and been using those, but at this
Speaker 7: point in time, it is now incumbent on us to
Speaker 7: do two things. First is to develop capabilities that will
Speaker 7: defend our satellites in a whole host of ways. And
Speaker 7: it will become our responsibility also to deny adversary use
Speaker 7: of space. And so what I'll say today is, as
Speaker 7: a result of the activities of others, we are looking
Speaker 7: at and preparing for a whole host of ways to
Speaker 7: both defend and protect our capabilities, but also potentially deny
Speaker 7: 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 3: So that is absolutely our approach, especially our approach to
Speaker 3: new contentstallations what we call proliferated.
Speaker 7: Constellations A constellations.
Speaker 3: Sorry, a whole bunch of satellites, right, constellation of satellites. Right.
Speaker 3: Most of the satellites we've developed in the past, relatively
Speaker 3: small in number GPS satellites about thirty provide all that
Speaker 3: global coverage communication satellites depends on specifically what they're for,
Speaker 3: but usually from about six to a dozen satellites to
Speaker 3: provide those communications, our mister warning constellations about the same size.
Speaker 3: What we're moving to now is as opposed to tens,
Speaker 3: maybe tens of satellites to conduct missions, we're now talking
Speaker 3: about one hundreds and thousands. And so the first thing
Speaker 3: you say is, Okay, if my goal is to attack
Speaker 3: ten satellites, that's a manageable problem. If now the goal
Speaker 3: is I got to take out one hundred or a
Speaker 3: thousand satellites. That's much harder, and so there's a detern
Speaker 3: effect there because it is very hard to do something
Speaker 3: like that. And so that's the first part. The second
Speaker 3: part is if an adversary looks into space and either
Speaker 3: sees through desire to deny US use of space, or
Speaker 3: US knowing that we can take their space capabilities away,
Speaker 3: if they look into space and say, I will not
Speaker 3: be able to do what I intend to do. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to go to conflict today, That's exactly what
Speaker 3: the intent is. We do not want to see, especially
Speaker 3: members of the US Space Force, but the United States America
Speaker 3: and our leaders don't want to see conflict in space.
Speaker 3: And so our first goal is to deter any adversary
Speaker 3: action in space, but make it clear to everybody and
Speaker 3: anybody if it comes to that, we are preparing to
Speaker 3: win in space. So the second piece of China is
Speaker 3: not just offensive capabilities. The second piece of China is
Speaker 3: they've watched how effective we are in space with GPS,
Speaker 3: with communication satellites, with monitoring and detecting activities. They're building
Speaker 3: out a similar constellation to do the same thing that
Speaker 3: we've been doing for decades. On the Russia side, they
Speaker 3: are not as focused on that second piece, but they
Speaker 3: are very much focused on offensive capabilities, just like the Chinese.
Speaker 3: And while they're not moving as aggressively and as broddly
Speaker 3: to develop offensive weapons for space, they're doing the same things.
Speaker 3: Just recently, they conducted a kinetic attack, launched a missile
Speaker 3: from the ground, destroyed one of their satellites in space.
Speaker 3: The fall of twenty twenty, they launched objects into space
Speaker 3: maneuved them very close to some of our most capable satellites,
Speaker 3: demonstrating that they're prepared to attack them in space. Same
Speaker 3: thing with attacks through cyberspace, interference, jamming, on the ground,
Speaker 3: laser dazzling. They are as aggressively pursuing offensive capabilities, deny
Speaker 3: or use of space as the Chinese.
Speaker 7: And satellites have played a really important role in the
Speaker 7: war in Ukraine, especially on the side of Ukraine the
Speaker 7: USSEU in helping support the war.
Speaker 3: They absolutely have and in fact, in many cases those
Speaker 3: are commercial companies doing that, which has opened up a
Speaker 3: whole new area of interest and exploration and work required
Speaker 3: from a policy standpoint is what's the relationship between commercial
Speaker 3: companies and commercial services from space as it applies to conflict.
Speaker 3: A lot of companies monitor see sense collect information from space,
Speaker 3: and they've been able to provide that to Ukrainians. Companies
Speaker 3: have provided the ability to communicate where both through the
Speaker 3: physical attacks on the ground and some of the Russian
Speaker 3: cyberspace attacks, and the Russians have been working hard to
Speaker 3: deny them those that use and it has proven to
Speaker 3: be quite a challenge.
Speaker 7: Do you worry that an arms race in space is
Speaker 7: ultimately inevitable?
Speaker 3: I guess I am concerned. I'm concerned about that just
Speaker 3: like any other domain. And I would say a couple
Speaker 3: of things. One is, from my perspective, our job is
Speaker 3: to ensure that both our forces and our national leaders
Speaker 3: have the capabilities that they need and the options that
Speaker 3: they need to operate effectively in the diplomatic space, in
Speaker 3: the military space, and count on those folks to help
Speaker 3: us work through the issues of how do we do
Speaker 3: that responsibly, how do we do that as a community
Speaker 3: of nations. And so while I'm concerned about how we're
Speaker 3: growing in space, I would say, to some extent it
Speaker 3: is sort of inevitable. Unfortunately, that's a nature of the
Speaker 3: human race. Our job is provide those capabilities, help to
Speaker 3: ensure that we use them effectively but also responsibly, and
Speaker 3: then work hard on the deterrens piece so that hopefully
Speaker 3: 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 3: No, not really today, and that's not different than a
Speaker 3: lot of our communications these days. However, there is a
Speaker 3: body in the UN that's focused on developing responsible behaviors
Speaker 3: in space and trying to get the community of nations
Speaker 3: to agree to them. That effort is led for the
Speaker 3: US by the State Department. But just a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago, the Secretary of Defense Secretary of Austin put
Speaker 3: out what we believe are tenants for responsible behavior in
Speaker 3: space that we the Department of Defense will follow. Things
Speaker 3: like communicating our tension with respect to what we're doing
Speaker 3: in space, not conducting activities that create large amounts of
Speaker 3: debris like Connecticut SAT tests. Those are the sorts of
Speaker 3: things that we believe are foundational to responsible behavior in
Speaker 3: space and hope that that spurs additional negotiations and agreements
Speaker 3: in the United Nations and with others to really operate
Speaker 3: responsibly 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 3: Well, and I will say, I know that the other
Speaker 3: services are facing some recruiting chain lengers right now. We
Speaker 3: are not, but ours is. I mean, it feels like
Speaker 3: back to the future. Right when I was young, space
Speaker 3: was cool. There was this grand vision and idea of
Speaker 3: moving out into the galaxy and things are going on. Well,
Speaker 3: that's not exactly our pitch, but we are certainly leveraging
Speaker 3: that desire and that interest. If you want to do
Speaker 3: something that matters, if you want to serve the nation,
Speaker 3: if you want to work with advanced technology and really
Speaker 3: operate in and deal with activities and what is still
Speaker 3: my opinion, the final frontier, not just today focused on
Speaker 3: what we do on Earth, but in the future, as
Speaker 3: we move out towards the Moon in Mars. You can
Speaker 3: go to commercial industry, you can go to NASA, but
Speaker 3: absolutely there's a role for you in the Space force
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: And what are the top three positions say that you
Speaker 1: would be recruiting for it of yours, like, this is
Speaker 1: what we need?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we only really do four things, so they
Speaker 3: are all important. The first is we build and then
Speaker 3: launch those space systems in thework, but that's one thing
Speaker 3: you can do. You can be an engineer, a program manager.
Speaker 3: The second thing we do is we opt them, so
Speaker 3: you're no kidding sitting there in the operations center managing
Speaker 3: the activities and fly and the things you need to
Speaker 3: do every single day. If you want to be an
Speaker 3: intelligence specialist like you might be in the air, on
Speaker 3: the ground, at sea. We need folks who deeply understand
Speaker 3: what's going on in the domain, what other capabilities exist
Speaker 3: out there, how people operate, so we need those. And
Speaker 3: then lastly, space capabilities today don't really produce except through cyberspace.
Speaker 3: That information it's collectors from those satellites has to get
Speaker 3: to the ground. It has to be disseminated. We have
Speaker 3: to operate networks and IT systems to operate them, to
Speaker 3: connect them and get that data that people need them.
Speaker 3: So we need cyberspace operators and cyberspace defenders. And because
Speaker 3: we're small our numbers, we only need several hundred people
Speaker 3: a year. And so right now we don't really have
Speaker 3: a recruiting challenge. We have the opportunity to accept applicants
Speaker 3: and from those applicants choose the absolute best to come
Speaker 3: into the space for So it's a pretty easy sell.
Speaker 1: Do you ever get to premise and they're going to
Speaker 1: get to go to space?
Speaker 3: So I would say I hope someday that can guardians
Speaker 3: go to space? Yes, today we have two guardians who
Speaker 3: go to space. They are astronauts in NASA's Astronaut Core.
Speaker 3: Most of our works on the ground as the human race,
Speaker 3: as the nation and the human race goes back to
Speaker 3: the Moon, goes to Mars, goes beyond that. Will there
Speaker 3: be a place for guardians in space? Absolutely in the future,
Speaker 3: and we are you know, Ana as NASA returns to
Speaker 3: the Moon, we talk about how do you navigate near
Speaker 3: the moon, how do you communicate near the moon, how
Speaker 3: do you understand what's happening in the lunar space, and
Speaker 3: whether it's a hazard or a threat. Guardians are doing
Speaker 3: all of that today, side by side with NASA. We're
Speaker 3: just doing it from the ground. We're not doing it
Speaker 3: in space yet, but one day somewhere out there in
Speaker 3: the future.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, do you have to suffer through a lot of
Speaker 1: guardians at the galaxy jokes?
Speaker 3: Ah, we do. But you know what, humor is part
Speaker 3: of the American psyche and culture. And if you can't
Speaker 3: take a joke, you know what you really have to
Speaker 3: do is just embrace it. Like I said, you know,
Speaker 3: my people are nerds, and today nerd is cool.
Speaker 7: 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 4: That's right.
Speaker 6: I went in twenty eighteen and then again in twenty twenty,
Speaker 6: so a while ago.
Speaker 4: What really struck me.
Speaker 6: Is it's kind of a low slung building and obviously
Speaker 6: one's looking for one's fill of Star Trek analogies and
Speaker 6: a bit of Battlestar Galactica. I think you get it
Speaker 6: more and more now from Space Force, but Space Command
Speaker 6: looked to me a little bit like a sort of
Speaker 6: rudimentary rocket combined with a crossed with a sardine can.
Speaker 6: And inside it's a little bit like visiting a smaller
Speaker 6: version of the National Air and Space Museum.
Speaker 4: There are lots of wrapped boxes.
Speaker 6: In the sky hanging down from the ceilings, and their satellites,
Speaker 6: their models of satellites. And the thing that really struck
Speaker 6: me is the early satellites are big and the newer
Speaker 6: satellites are small, and it's just a really clear demonstration
Speaker 6: of the way the whole entire approach to space is
Speaker 6: 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 6: The simplest way to think about it is Space Force
Speaker 6: provides the people, and Space Command does the fighting, and
Speaker 6: in this case in peace, does the operations. Space Command
Speaker 6: existed a long time ago, it got disestablished and then
Speaker 6: got set up again in full in twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 6: the whole point of that really is about saying spaces
Speaker 6: in the US jargon of the thing, a war fighting domain,
Speaker 6: and the whole effort of creating, re establishing Space Command,
Speaker 6: and then establishing Space Force for the first time. As
Speaker 6: much as it was sort of accompanied by mirth, and
Speaker 6: there are lots of detractors, I think the fact that
Speaker 6: it has stuck it out is so much about this
Speaker 6: US focus on what it sees as the threat from China,
Speaker 6: and the fact that they've noticed China really develop its
Speaker 6: own space architecture really propel what it's trying to do.
Speaker 6: I think China itself has said it wants to overtake
Speaker 6: globally in space by twenty forty five, and the US
Speaker 6: has said they think China really will be a world
Speaker 6: class player by twenty thirty. But of course China already
Speaker 6: in the US estimation, has many different types of weapons
Speaker 6: in space and focused on space that has concerned the US,
Speaker 6: and I think when you speak to senior US military
Speaker 6: officials they talk a lot about developing to terrans in space.
Speaker 6: That's already an admission that the US is not quite
Speaker 6: clear what level of space superiority it has, and of
Speaker 6: course to terrance means being able to win and then letting.
Speaker 6: In this case, the Chinese know that.
Speaker 1: What is the current capability of the US in defending
Speaker 1: those satellites.
Speaker 6: I think they're really clear not enough. When I visited
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty, I spoke to a general Space Command
Speaker 6: who said the US really needed to start thinking about
Speaker 6: offensive weapons in space, and of course that triggers all
Speaker 6: sorts of questions in Congress, in the American public, and
Speaker 6: indeed the A. Biden administration, which has not set out
Speaker 6: this aim. But I think Space Command, Space Force, and
Speaker 6: its supporters are really leaning into this idea that the
Speaker 6: US needs much more capability. The US says that it
Speaker 6: has communications jamming equipment that could jam a satellite, but
Speaker 6: that it doesn't have any space based weaponry, and several
Speaker 6: other of the different types of weapons that you could
Speaker 6: use from ground to space, from space to space, and
Speaker 6: from space back.
Speaker 4: Down to the ground. There's a whole array.
Speaker 6: I think the thing that really triggered US concerns was
Speaker 6: back in two thousand and seven when the Chinese launched
Speaker 6: an anti satellite test that did explode a decaying Chinese satellite,
Speaker 6: and that's really when the US started saying, oh, China
Speaker 6: is serious about this. That test was criticized as irresponsible.
Speaker 6: It put I think more than twenty thousand pieces of
Speaker 6: debris into circulation, and a couple of thousands of those
Speaker 6: prices are still circulating today.
Speaker 4: But of course the US has done the same. It
Speaker 4: did it before.
Speaker 6: China, and it's done it since China in two thousand
Speaker 6: and eight.
Speaker 4: India's also done it.
Speaker 6: Russia did it in twenty twenty one, just on the
Speaker 6: eve of the invasion of Ukraine. And this kind of
Speaker 6: mounting concern has seen the US really want to develop things.
Speaker 6: And what the US is worried about is when they
Speaker 6: do these wargames that involve global scenarios over Taiwan, it
Speaker 6: tends to very quickly escalate to space. The US is
Speaker 6: worried that China will fire the first shots of any
Speaker 6: war in Taiwan in space, degrading US space capabilities that
Speaker 6: enable the US to communicate with its own military forces
Speaker 6: and to move its own 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.
Speaker 4: In China's case.
Speaker 6: They said they just needed to get an old weather
Speaker 6: satellite out of the way, and that's not really how
Speaker 6: you need to remove an old weather satellite. So I
Speaker 6: think the US certainly really saw that as their wake
Speaker 6: up call and used it as their wake up call.
Speaker 6: They did their own anti satellite test the next year.
Speaker 6: India did theirs in twenty nineteen. I think there is
Speaker 6: so much signaling going on in space and no one's
Speaker 6: really figured out their doctrine yet. So in the same
Speaker 6: way that you hear about a cyber pearl harbor, the
Speaker 6: original pearl harbor, there is a scenario that some US
Speaker 6: thinkers on this talk about as a space pearl harbor
Speaker 6: where China might destroy US capabilities in space to say
Speaker 6: that's it, we really mean business, leave us alone.
Speaker 4: Where the US would see that.
Speaker 6: As the first shot of all out war, and so
Speaker 6: that kind of messaging, that kind of escalatory tension is
Speaker 6: so carefully done. It's meant to be modulated very carefully,
Speaker 6: but no one quite knows the rules of the discussion.
Speaker 6: And what you see from Space Command and Space Force
Speaker 6: is saying no, no, no. China is putting so much
Speaker 6: much military hardware now into space. It did more military
Speaker 6: launches in space last year than the US, and that
Speaker 6: trajectory really scares the US. And whether you sort of
Speaker 6: look away and say we won't compete, or you say
Speaker 6: we will match you, that's the very difficult balancing it
Speaker 6: that the US is facing, because it's clear that the
Speaker 6: US isn't prepared to let China have that capability. The
Speaker 6: US wants to be able to have superiority, because that's
Speaker 6: 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 6: I think it's really fair to say the arms race
Speaker 6: is already on, And certainly in terms of perception, the
Speaker 6: amount that you're seeing from the commercial world putting up
Speaker 6: into space also creates huge dilemmas for the US military
Speaker 6: and what they need to defend, and a lot of
Speaker 6: that hasn't been ironed out yet. The US at the
Speaker 6: moment is trying to work out if they should make
Speaker 6: space critical infrastructure, should they specifically designate things in space's
Speaker 6: critical infrastructure. There are a number of different elements that
Speaker 6: are label critical infrastructure, which means that any attack on
Speaker 6: them is seen as an attack on national security and
Speaker 6: the US needs to defend. And in fact, when President
Speaker 6: Biden went to meet Vladimir Putin some time ago, he said, hey,
Speaker 6: don't touch.
Speaker 4: Our critical infrastructure. This is what it is now.
Speaker 6: A lot of that critical infrastructure depends on space, and
Speaker 6: there's a discussion right now in the US about whether
Speaker 6: that is sufficient. Does the fact that these things depend
Speaker 6: on space mean that space is indirectly preserved and clearly
Speaker 6: off limits, or does the US need to take a
Speaker 6: step extra and say, actually, anything in space counts as
Speaker 6: critical infrastructure, which would then require all sorts of different
Speaker 6: defensive means. And of course, a lot of US food
Speaker 6: supply now depends on space, our mobile phones depend more
Speaker 6: and more on space. Every single element of US national economy,
Speaker 6: which is increasingly tied to national security, relies on space
Speaker 6: in part and will only rely more on space in future.
Speaker 6: Looking at exactly how you defend that and putting more
Speaker 6: things up in space to defend that, of course, begins
Speaker 6: to create huge anxiety on both sides. I think you
Speaker 6: could speak to a number of people today who would
Speaker 6: 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 6: Well, of course there's this TV show all about Space
Speaker 6: Force with Steve Carell, and that became a kind of
Speaker 6: very clear parody of Space Force, and they've been a
Speaker 6: little health hostage to some of that themselves. They've spent
Speaker 6: a lot of time on uniforms. All of this always
Speaker 6: happens in the military services, and they're only getting going.
Speaker 6: So I think they defend that quite clearly. But obviously,
Speaker 6: the entire corpus of sci fi and our popular understanding
Speaker 6: of space is sort of fun and quirky, and so
Speaker 6: they have to with that fun and quirky feeling at
Speaker 6: the same time as thinking, hold on, can we just
Speaker 6: put our hands up. Everything we have depends on space.
Speaker 6: This is far more vulnerable than people realize, and I
Speaker 6: think the popular conception is that it's a bit of
Speaker 6: a joke. And when I did speak to a general
Speaker 6: at Space Command, I asked him if you'd watched the
Speaker 6: TV show and he binge watched it in a night.
Speaker 6: And they're very good natured about it. They say anything
Speaker 6: that brings attention to space force and anything to do
Speaker 6: with space is good by us. I think they took
Speaker 6: a sort of sanguine view that they couldn't start fighting
Speaker 6: it before they'd even established their own reputation. But this
Speaker 6: is a reputation that is developing in the public consciousness now,
Speaker 6: so it really depends and I think the language around
Speaker 6: it matters so much for trying to get public support
Speaker 6: on board.
Speaker 1: Katrina, thanks so much for speaking with me today, Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me, Thanks for listening to us here at
Speaker 1: the Big Day. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio.
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Speaker 1: Email questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot Net.
Speaker 1: The supervising producer of the Big Take and the producer
Speaker 1: of this episode is Vicky Virgalina. Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Katherine Fink. Raphae alm Sei is our engineer, with additional
Speaker 1: production support from Nielli, Haramio Plata and Abrea Ruffin. Our
Speaker 1: original music was composed by Leo Sidrin. I'm west Kosova.
Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take.