WEBVTT - Tim Marshall Reveals How Politics Will Expand Into the Final Frontier 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:08.040 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.239 Welcome to the City of London, the City of the 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:24.320 City of London. Please mind the gap between the and 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:33.200 the financial hearts of the country, the city, the City. 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:39.360 Welcome to in the City and clear of the doors. 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:39.800 Pease. 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.640 This is in the City, a podcast from Bloomberg about 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.239 the stories important to the City of London. I'm alegra Stratton. 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.600 It's that time of year. Streets around the Square Mile 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.400 are quieter as people are off on holiday breaks. Of course, 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:57.960 essential packing for any holiday is a good book. So 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:00.840 we're bringing you a summer reading list prepared by the 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:05.959 Voteronomics team. That's me alongside Bloomberg Opinions Adrian Woodridge and 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.080 Head of Government and Economics Stephanie Flanders. This week I 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.680 sit down with Tim Marshall. He's author of Prisoners of Geography, 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:25.240 The Power of Geography and the Future of Geography. Hello, 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:29.280 Votonomics listeners, It's Alegristratton and it is time for another 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.759 edition of our summer reading special. While Adrian, Stephanie and 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:36.360 I are off for a portion of the next month, 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.120 we thought it'd be good to offer up a useful 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:42.880 summer reading list. We each selected an author whose nonfiction 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.039 work we felt was relevant and informative on the state 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.960 of politics and economics right now. Last week Adrian spoke 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:54.720 with Freed Zakaria about his latest release, The Age of Revolutions. 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.160 It is a great listen, of course, so please check 0:01:57.200 --> 0:01:59.960 it out if you haven't already. But this week I'm 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.400 bringing you a conversation with Tim Marshall. He is the 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.840 author of Prisoners of Geography The Power of Geography. You've 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.920 probably read both of those on previous summer holidays, but 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:14.560 now more recently The Future of Geography. Now this is 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.640 the addition where votonomics goes astronomic. When I'm not at Bloomberg, 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.320 I help run the UK's first spaceport, sax of Ord, 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.400 which is based in the Shetland Islands. What has been 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.160 striking to me week after week of recording Voteronomics with 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.799 Stephanie and Adrian is that all the dynamics of diplomacy 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.919 that we discuss can also be seen in the space domain. 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.239 Space has the capacity to impact voters' lives and boardrooms too, 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.400 But despite the best efforts of Elon Musk etal, it 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:47.480 still remains a weirdly liminal area, very far away from 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:52.840 mainstream discourse. So to help bring space into votonomics, I 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:56.920 wanted to bring in author and geographer broadcaster Tim Marshall, 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.840 who wrote the best selling Prisoners of Geography and a 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.519 number of other best sellers, and has now applied or 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.760 rather published a book last year applying his signature erudition 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:08.000 and wit to space. 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.840 Welcome Tim, very kind of you. Thank you. 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.320 I'm a big fan, always have been when you were 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.840 Sky News diplomatic editor, when I was at Newsnight. 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:21.120 That sort of thing. Yes, does it feel you did 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:22.560 the big brain stuff they did? 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.120 Cross though I was trying to remember there was a summit, 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.959 wasn't there where I think we both raised eyebrows and 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.840 had our head in our hands at some point. Look, Tim, 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.200 in your book you are clear that we are now, 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.320 to quote you, we're now in the era of astropolitics. 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:38.680 Tell us what that means. 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:44.360 Astropolitics is when geopolitics moves out into space. Geopolitics is 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:51.440 where you look at resources, populations, people, well everything really 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.720 and there is a geography to space which is not 0:03:56.320 --> 0:04:00.480 properly explained usually, and that geography does inform part of 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.480 the decision making that the big countries and indeed companies 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.800 make and so we're now deep, I would say, into 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.120 the era of astropolitics and also what I would call 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:15.480 space race two point zero, because there are many similarities 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.600 with the sixties and seventies, but there are also major differences. 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.200 They are well, in those days, there were no such 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:26.039 things as lasers. There were no commercial companies in space. 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.040 We weren't shooting basically things of the size of fridge 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.120 freezers asteroids to see if we can deflect them. We 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:38.400 never dreamt of mining the Moon, and the commercial aspects 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:42.479 of it were I wouldn't say peripheral. I mean, you know, 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.839 Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Of course they always had a 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:50.000 relationship with NASA. But one of the biggest differences in 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.120 space race two point now is just how front and 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:56.200 center commercial companies are. And I don't just mean Elon Musk. 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.479 You know, there's a raft of companies who are pumping 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.320 billions of you know, it's a billion, more than billions 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:07.600 of dollars industry, and it's growing rapidly. It's a very 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.880 high risk industry in many ways. So you know, it 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:13.560 is different to the first iteration. 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.719 So Tim, let's talk about low Earth orbit, which people 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:21.120 call LEO for short. There's lots of definitions for it, 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:25.360 aren't there, But essentially it's anything under a thousand kilometers up. 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:28.440 This is another problem. You know I mentioned earlier about 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.919 the differences between space race and space rates two point oh. 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.039 Another problem is we don't have the legislation or even 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.200 the guidelines for space rates two point zero because the 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.280 space regulations and guidelines were written in the nineteen sixties. 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:43.520 Out of Space treat is nineteen sixty seven, and we 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.880 can't even agree exactly where space starts. But you asked 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.080 me about LEO. It's very worrying talking to someone who 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.720 really knows more than you do about this. I had 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.760 no idea in the Scottish the same time, the Scottish 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:00.600 version of Cape Canaveral low Earth orbit is where a 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.719 vast majority of the satellites are. There are about eight 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.560 and a half thousand working satellites, about three thousand defunct satellites, 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.760 which is a lot. And you know, my generation grown 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:12.560 up in the sixties and seventies, there were only really 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.200 two space powers at the two people who really had 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.200 a presence in space that we're all aware of. There's 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.000 eighty countries in space now, and I know there's a 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.000 lot of space up there, but it is getting crowded. 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:30.000 And the conservative estimates are that there will be at 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:34.160 least thirty thousand satellites by the end of this decade. 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.600 That's a conservative estimate. The Chinese will probably put up 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.240 twenty thousand, musc will put up ten thousand, and that's 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:45.400 just two examples. And although the satellites are getting smaller 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:47.400 and smaller, some of them the size of a Rubik's 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:52.240 cube CubeSats as they're known, it's getting crowded, it's getting competitive. 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.040 He said in the introduction about how you know it's 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.760 pretty sort of out there and not part of our lives, 0:06:58.160 --> 0:06:59.920 And it's true we don't think about them, but it's 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:04.479 absolutely integral to all of our lives. Every time you 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.760 put petrol in a car, every time you get on 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:11.240 a plane, every time you do a bank transaction, and 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:15.160 thousands of other examples, they are connected to space. And 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:16.240 it's a growing industry. 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.040 You've summarized the companies and the money to be made, 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.400 the big business that is being made out of satellites 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.640 up up in space right now. But you also alluded 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.720 to if We've got thirty thousand satellites going up in 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.400 the near future. Twenty thousand of those will be Chinese, 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.120 and then some of those will be musk and American. 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.320 Right there, in that sentence, you've given us the kind 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:43.640 of great game of Earth transposed to space. Just talk 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:47.000 us through and this is, I think probably what your astropolitics. 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:46.920 Is all about. Us. 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.760 Talk us through how geopolitics is playing out right now. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.160 Go back to the beginning of the last century when 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.600 everyone realized that oil was going to replace coal in 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.880 the military terms terms. You would not find a major 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.960 company or country that when a massive oil discovery was made, said, 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:09.679 you know what, we won't bother. We're not sure about 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.200 this one. They had to go. They had to compete. 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.800 And it's the same and so you cannot leave this 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:21.840 newish domain to your rivals, whether it's the satellite industry, 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:27.400 whether it's experiments, scientific experiments in space, or the big 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.400 one and the most difficult at the moment, mining space 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.040 for the very minerals that we need for renewable energy 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.760 here on Earth, which of course is a very finite resource. 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.200 And so the great powers and the big companies are 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.959 competing against each other now Obviously the American companies are 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.920 in bed with the American space companies, and ditto the 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:54.280 other side of the Chinese and the Russians. But if 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:56.840 you look in broadbrush terms, there is a block going 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:59.720 up led by the Americans via the Artemis ac Cords, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.760 forty two countries have signed on. And then there is 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.440 a block going up led by China which is the 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.760 senior partner, with Russia as its junior partner, played Iran 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:14.000 and North Korea clutching onto their coattails. And that is 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:19.560 exactly the two blocks that we see dominating the global 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.400 picture on Earth. It is absolutely mirrored with what's going 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:24.040 on in space. 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.000 And then there was great excitement because the Europeans put 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:33.360 up Arian six listeners can't see, but has just smiled 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.480 on the camera that I'm talking to him on. So 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.760 what's the impact going to be of for the first 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.200 time in a wild Europeans returning to be able to launch. 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.920 It's positive if you believe that this a is our 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:52.320 future and b on balance or adventures in space are 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.120 a good thing. And I do fall down on that 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:58.120 side of the argument. The Europeans in the shape of 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:02.640 the ESA European Space Agency, but also in the individual countries. 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.360 The UK is a major space player in the second tier, 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.640 the EU in the second tier, which is folded into 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.560 the ESA. Germany I think you could argue was the 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.720 second tier of space power of France, definitely, Italy definitely, 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.640 along with people like the UAE, Japan and Israel. So 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:25.640 these second tier companies they can't do what the Americans 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:30.120 and the Chinese do, mostly because of budget constraints. But 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:35.280 the French, by launching out of French Guiana that rocket 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.360 have sort of nailed their colors to the mass that 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:41.160 you know, we're not going to get left behind. I mean, 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.640 the Europeans accept they can't match the Big two or 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.080 the Big three actually because Russia's in the top tier 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.000 as well. But it is a statement of intent and 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:51.680 the Europeans really are a player. 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.360 But this matters, doesn't it. It's not just sort of 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:57.360 the Europeans showing that they have the toys too. It 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.440 is the Europeans showing that they have the axis, the 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.640 ability to get to space, so that means that they 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:09.079 can access their lucative, important vital infrastructure relying on satellite systems. 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.960 So in the event that they cannot at some point 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:14.280 ask the Americans to do it. 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:20.360 Yeah, I mean, there's many historical echoes there. Because one 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:24.199 of the reasons the French really ventured out on their own, 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.839 I mean, there's a whole bunch, including the Foster Frapp. 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.880 Then their independent nuclear capabilities is that. And this goes 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.400 all the way back to the seventies when there was 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:36.600 a coup in one of the North African countries that 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.959 France takes a great interest in still and they were 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.200 invited to intervene on the basis of some American satellite 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:48.200 information and they just didn't trust it. And it is 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:51.840 murky whether the Americans sort of fed them the best 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.959 bits of the satellite information to try to drag them 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.920 into taking some action in the African country. And this 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:00.560 was one of the triggers. France thought, we need our 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.840 own independent eyes on via the satellite. I mean, this 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.040 is the military aspect of it, and off they went with, 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:10.040 you know, as well as their independent nuclear force. They 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.560 needed their independent satellites because they do not wish to 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.440 be reliant upon the United States as so many Western 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.000 countries are. So that's the sort of genesis of that 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.760 and it continues to this day. And of course there's 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.520 the commercial aspects to that. You don't want to be 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:34.760 reliant upon American technology when your own industry, you know, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.640 will be harmed by that. I mean we're seeing a 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.679 little bit of this at the moment in the defense industry. 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:45.640 The new Labor government is very keen to forge links 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.040 back with the EU countries and actually get a place 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.440 around the table and talking about the European defense industry. 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.080 I'm not talking about you know, how many soldiers you 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:57.120 have armaments, And it's the French that is leading the 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.960 fight back within the EU saying, hang on a minute, 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.559 do we want to let Britain into the decision making 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.119 process when it's not in the EU of the European 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.640 defense arms industry. So I've gone off a bit of 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:10.880 a tangent, but it is related back to why the 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:12.439 French insist on that. 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:15.800 But it's central to what we're looking at right here, 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:20.440 which is that these are terrestrial geopolitical tussles and relationships 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.760 that are sort of having an amplified or expression in 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:25.439 the space domain. 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.160 Of your sovereignty in a way, and that will go 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.960 even further on the moon. About sovereignty on the moon, 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.079 I mean, nobody's going to use that word and say 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:38.480 we have sovereign rights. But they will certainly stake their claims, 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:40.720 they just won't use the word sovereignty. 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:42.640 Let's come on to the moon in a second, which 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.199 is a sentence you don't often utter. 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.640 Well, not for about about fifty years in fact, A. 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.400 The suggestion we could saunter onto the moon, but b 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.719 just the sentence, let's move on to the subject, that 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.439 is the moon. That's not something I have said often 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.240 in my journalistic career. But before we do, just switching 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.600 focus slightly, which is Elon Musk. Starlink was critical in 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.720 supporting Ukraine and giving it access to the Internet and 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:14.000 the rest during Russia's invasion. Clearly that was benign and 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:18.319 something to be celebrated. But is there any queasiness around 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:20.800 the idea that it is a private company that has 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:25.640 that kind of power and you know, at some point 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:27.840 which is not yet on the horizon, but at some 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:29.680 point they can turn it on and they can turn 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:30.040 it off. 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.960 I'll accept your use of the word benign. In the 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:39.200 original effort by Musk, he sent the Starlink terminals into 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:43.120 the Urpan region, thousands of thousands of them to link 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.480 to his Starlight satellite system to deliver the Internet to them, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.960 and that was benign. Then it was good. But of 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.200 course the Ukrainian military jumped on it and used it 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.080 to target Russian soldiers and kill them. It was inevitable. 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.240 So I put it to you, members of the jury, 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.720 does that make starlink legitimate military target for Russians to 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:08.360 fire upon? Discuss? Because I referred earlier to the treaties 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.840 of the CIS sixties. They out of Space treat in 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.600 nineteen sixty seven doesn't cover this because you couldn't do 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.000 anything in those days, whereas now you can fire a 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.200 ballistic missile from the surface of the Earth and you 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:20.960 can hit a satellite and knock it out. That has 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:25.120 been done to test by four countries Russia, USA, India, China. 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.280 They haven't done that this time. You can spoof the satellites, 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.720 you send up packets of information which can fuse the chipboard, 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.600 put them out of action perhaps, and you can dazzle them. 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.760 You send up direct energy beam so much light floods 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:41.920 into it it blinds the camera. And those last two 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.440 the Russians have been doing. They have been taking military 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.000 action against an American company in space because it has 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.920 been used by their Ukrainian foes on the ground. This 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.960 is new territory and we don't have the rules and 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:59.680 regulations required because it's hardly going to stop there. We 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:02.600 now have weapon direct energy weapons that can knock drones 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:05.560 out at a range of about seven kilometers. The Americans 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:07.360 have perfected them, the Brits have got them, so you 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:10.480 can find it fired a laser beam at a drone 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.160 several kilometers away, knocking out the sky. What happens if 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.600 somebody sticks one of those on a satellite in order 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.640 to target other satellites. The moment one country does, every 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:27.080 country will have them. So we urgently need I hesitate 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.520 to say laws because international law is an oxymoron sometimes, 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:33.160 but we definitely need guidelines. 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:35.600 Any prospects of those coming. 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:39.880 No, everyone knows we need them. Everyone suspects they will 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:44.080 eventually come. Go back to the early days of the 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.440 nuclear race, when the Americans had the bomb, the Russians 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:49.720 got the bomb, and the immediate response was both sides 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:51.320 built more and more and more of them until they 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.320 had tens of thousands of warheads. And then at that 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:55.760 point they thought, we really need to talk to each 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.760 other about this, and I think that will be the 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.600 case in space. There is arms race going on in space. 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.119 Many countries now have space commands. China got the first, 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:09.440 Trump introduced to the second. UK has one, France, Germany, India, 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:14.000 et cetera. These space forces and so it is inevitable. 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.920 But I think we're going to go through this period 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.680 of X years before we realize how dangerous it's got 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.560 because and then we realize, hang on a minute, all 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:27.040 these satellites are integral to the world economy. You know. 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:29.720 The last thing we need is people knocking into them 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.280 or firing at them. And then we will have treaties. 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.000 And the people are working on the texts already, but 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:41.080 hasn't percolated to the senior levels of industry and politics. 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:42.400 The urgency of it. 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.520 You just mentioned Donald Trump yourself. What does President Trump 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:48.680 two point zero mean for the space race. 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.560 It's difficult, isn't it, Because it all comes down to budgets. 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:53.679 The budgets are actually smaller than they used to be. 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.080 People think you might spend spending, countries are spending more 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.800 in real terms. They're not the USA for the space 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:02.240 which was part of a war, the Cold War. You know, 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:04.000 they had to win that as part of winning the 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.399 Cold War. I think it was zero point five percent 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.360 of GDP well, and I think the budget now at 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.840 state level is zero point three percent roughly of GDP. 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.480 So it was Trump that introduced space force amid much mirth, 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.400 which you know, for me, I'm not a supporter of him, 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:25.600 but when when you use something like that to make 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.680 fun of him, it betrays that you're not understanding him. 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:31.560 He too, is he trying to laugh at him? And 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.359 it's an issue that has been gone on for years now. 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:39.760 So he realized space force good idea in the context 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:41.840 of China's got one. Everyone's going to have them. We 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.080 need to up the game. Trump is aware of how 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.800 much the Chinese are spending on space and doesn't want 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:49.600 to get left behind. 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.040 But Musk helps him. I mean, Musk has helped him 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.399 in a number of ways in the In the last 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.920 he'll make the case, yeah, indeed, but Musk helps him 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.119 in that his company space x is doing a lot 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:06.520 of the heavy lifting, and they've got billions and billions 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.840 of pounds of US funding. So it's a kind of 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.600 you know, an ecosystem where the one is scratching the 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.040 back of the other and assisting the space effort. 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.439 It is and just as you'll know the I think 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:23.480 it's something like ninety percent of the US budget that 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:27.080 goes on armaments for Ukraine is spent in the United 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:31.160 States first building them. You know, it is very beneficial 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.760 to American industry. But it's a similar argument when it 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.680 comes to space. And yes, Musk has his ear because 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.199 he's such a big player in the space industry. But 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:42.040 also a lot of the things we've been talking about 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.239 come together here space MAS two point zero and the 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:50.919 centrality of private enterprise because, as I said, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.600 many other companies, yet NASA went to them and said 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.080 can you build me that widget or that, But it 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:01.160 was very much a government driven It's now a rough 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.840 percentage fifty percent is private enterprise. And that's the same 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:08.640 in China, although all companies are essentially controlled by the CCP, 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.200 but there's a lot of startups there. So private enterprise 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.639 in America is a major, major part of this. Private 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.840 enterprise across the world is a major part of this. 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:24.000 I just wonder whether governments have had the conversation with 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.520 the electorate about everything we've just been discussing. The role 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.760 that it plays in people's lives. The centrality the you 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:34.400 know it is, if any of these satellites were taken down, 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:38.400 it's many billions of pounds of economic damage per day, right, 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:40.960 and so in order to make sure that they are 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.879 safe and protected and so on, they probably will in 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.000 these years ahead need to be greater money spent on them. 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.639 So I wonder, given we'd never have that conversation whether 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:52.679 it's a sort of going to be a shock to 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.440 prime ministers and their you know chances and so on, 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.800 when the economic impact of them being vulnerable is fully 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:03.280 on stood. It's very striking in your book that passage 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.320 where you talk about how once America had put a 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:09.520 man on the moon, not long after they can the 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.320 funding for it. Because once you've done the kind of 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:16.320 TV gold and the historic moment, you know, we're in 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:18.040 a different ear now, and so there is there is 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:20.360 plenty more to do. But at the time they made 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:22.920 a different decision. They made a decision that there were 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:25.960 you know, terrestrial policy programs they wanted to put that 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:26.760 money into. 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:31.280 That I think would be relatively easy if you came 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.440 to the military side of it. People kind of understand 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:40.200 that protecting satellites from debris by cleaning up space, which 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.240 is a huge, huge issue. I thought war was going 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:46.400 to be the biggest issue, and then the experts explained 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:48.040 to me that what keeps them awake at night is 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.440 debris because in case the systems go down and as 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:53.280 you said, cost economy is billion. 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:55.720 And this is just to explain, this is just all 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:59.399 bits of old satellite and junk from stations and so 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.400 on flying through space and knocking out satellite. 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:05.520 Which they're knocks out to satellite, which then knocks out 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:08.880 of satellite, etc. Yeah, it's in the film gravity, which 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.920 they nicked off the Kessler syndrome, which was the sort 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.199 of worst case scenario where they all crash into each 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:17.560 other in the world economy collapses and goes dark. So 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:20.879 I think you can make those cases. It gets harder 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.600 when you just talk about exploration. You know, why are 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.720 you cutting budgets here so we can go and explore there. 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:32.600 That's much harder. But I think as we gradually become 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:34.960 more and more aware of how important space is to 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:38.960 our economic livelihoods, and also if you can make the 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.800 very contentious case that it is worth burning all that 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:46.399 fuel and taking all those risks to go and mine 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:50.840 for and despoil the moon. Yes, for the metals we 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:54.800 need for renewable energy, that's a hard sell as well. 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:57.680 But no, we're not really having these arguments. But I 0:22:57.720 --> 0:22:59.560 think we'd be having more of them if it wasn't 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:02.200