Space: The Invisible Infrastructure Behind Modern Life — And Its Growing Risks (#264)

Space used to mean exploration, moon landing, shuttles, discovery.

But today, it's that and more.

It's also the invisible infrastructure behind everything: navigation, communication, even military operations.

And yet, the rules are fragile, the risks are rising, and most people aren't paying attention.

If a few satellites go down, what would happen?

And are we able to defend the systems our lives now depend upon?

Hi, everyone.

I'm Lynn Toman, and this is Three Takeaways.

On Three Takeaways, I talk with some of the world's best thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, newsmakers, and scientists.

Each episode ends with three key takeaways to help us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better.

Today, I'm excited to be joined by Jane Harmon and Lieutenant General Nina Armagno, two leaders who bring rare insight into the future of space and the national security challenges.

Jane Harmon served nine terms in Congress, where she was a leading voice on intelligence, defense, and homeland security.

After leaving Congress, she became president and CEO of the Wilson Center, one of Washington's top global think tanks.

Lieutenant General Nina Armagno recently served as Director of Staff for the U.S.

Space Force.

Over her distinguished career, she commanded both the 30th and 45th Space Wings and led missions in missile warning, satellite command and control, and space launch operations.

She also received some of the military's highest honors, including the Defense Distinguished Service Medal and the Legion of Merit.

So, Congresswoman Jane Harmon has shaped the laws and diplomacy behind national security, and Lieutenant General Nina Armagno has commanded the satellite systems and personnel.

Together, they offer an unmatched understanding of how space is governed and how it's defended.

Welcome, Jane and Nina, and thank you both so much for joining Three Takeaways today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It is my pleasure.

Why is space more critical to daily life and national security than most people realize?

It's because people don't understand what space offers.

It's because they can't see it.

You don't see satellites.

You don't see space.

We don't inhabit the space.

It's a dream if you actually get to go into space.

So I don't think that it's present in people's daily conscious.

People don't understand or really think about what we use space for in our daily lives.

And certainly in the military, there's no operation that can happen without space.

A military aircraft today won't fly without communications from space, weather data comes from satellites in space, our missile warning systems,

and of course, GPS.

It's crucial to American life.

I would just add that Nina and I co-chaired a task force for the Council on Foreign Relations on space policy management.

And if you focus on those three words, there's not adequate understanding of space, there is not management.

in space, and the policy about space is way deficient.

What would break down if we lost access to space for just 24 hours?

Well, I'll start with GPS because Nina mentioned it.

She can tell you all the important things in our military space.

But 6 billion people with a B use GPS.

And if there's a major attack on our space infrastructure, it'll be gone for a lot more than 24 hours.

You know, you just don't know how precise that timing signal is from GPS.

I mean, it is so precise that the financial sector uses it.

Telecommunications, our power grid, traffic signals.

There are backup capabilities, atomic clocks like we used to use before there was GPS.

Batteries will last only so long.

But my goodness, there would be, I think, panic and pandemonium in that first 24 hours.

Not one operation happens without space.

I mean, space is vital to our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, the Coast Guard.

When you think about a military operation, you need to synchronize the efforts.

So you need precise timing.

You need to understand the weather that's going to be on land or in the air or at sea, wherever your operation is taking place.

You need intelligence so that you can plan your mission.

You need to get the warning from our early warning systems, our missile warning systems that are based in space.

Position navigation and timing for precise targeting and execution of weapons deployment.

It's absolutely vital.

I'm certainly interested in what's going on in the world.

Most of the pictures we see are taken from space.

They're not taken from the ground.

And we are enabled, as Nina said, to do so much more because we are able to see things from space.

What other parts of daily life would be affected if we lost access to space for 24 hours?

The internet could be affected, our phones, definitely beyond that 24 hours, but potentially even within the 24 hours.

Air travel.

So all communications?

Yes, absolutely.

What concerns you both most about the future of space right now?

I certainly worry about how vulnerable it is.

The objects that we rely on, the satellites that we build, launch, and operate in space, are extremely fragile.

There's more and more other satellites, especially crowding a low Earth orbit, and those satellites were not built to be rugged.

They survive launch, but then when they're in orbit, it's kind of, you know, they're in a vacuum.

And in addition to that, some of them can be targeted by others of them.

And that's a huge worry.

The weaponization of space by a variety of countries without adequate rules is extremely scary.

There are now now threats to put nuclear weapons in space.

Hopefully that won't happen.

But even without that, there have been anti-satellite tests by China and Russia, which show that they have the capacity to shoot down satellites in space.

I mean, obviously, if they don't like the United States, you can pick what they'll shoot down.

And how do we protect against that?

And if you have space debris, some call it space junk floating around.

at very high speeds, it takes a very tiny little fragment to damage a satellite.

and we really don't have adequate controls over that the united states is preparing with the establishment of the united states space force in 2019 and actually u.s space command the combatant command just a few months before that in 2019 they're building a resilient architecture so that the vulnerabilities that we were just talking about, you know, instead of having an exquisite satellite in a perfect orbit,

we will have more types of satellites in various orbits.

It's kind of a hybrid approach, and that's part of defense, actually.

If you can work through and absorb an attack, that's called resilience.

And so, these are resilient architectures that are in the works with the mission of our defense agencies to protect and defend our capabilities in space while still providing that exquisite data to soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines on the ground, built differently and faster.

So I think we are preparing.

If something were to happen today, it would be pretty catastrophic.

You mentioned debris and space.

How much of a threat is space debris and how close are we to a real crisis?

Space debris is another one of those topics.

Maybe we can't get there with respect to weaponization, although I hope we will get there.

But these are topics we do address.

And we say that there has to be a governance architecture worldwide, not just U.S.-based, because otherwise, remember, space doesn't respect national boundaries.

The only way to actually make this stuff work is to have rules and to have buy-in from all the countries of the world.

In our report, we use the number 40,000 pieces of orbital debris.

But what our report doesn't really get into is that that's just 10 centimeters or larger.

There are pieces of debris smaller than that.

So one centimeter to 10 centimeters, there's about a million pieces of debris.

And then I found a statistic, over 100 million pieces of debris that are less than one centimeter.

When those little tiny things like a fleck of paint is traveling 17,500 miles an hour in low Earth orbit, where our International Space Station resides, by the way, that can be...

catastrophic.

I mean, it's at the very least, it's damaging and little tiny pieces have damaged satellites and the international space station itself is there any way to protect against them right now if the debris is large and detectable an owner operator is alerted and they can move out of the way that sounds so simple but you know that requires fuel and these satellites don't have extra fuel the international space station thank goodness it gets resupplied but these systems weren't built to maneuver out of the way of a weapon or huge chunks of debris either.

We are working on hardening the exterior of satellites.

And because we're becoming more and more advanced, we can give more advanced warning of what's coming at you if you're a satellite or certainly the International Space Station.

Nina, you've said one of the scariest things is that there are no real traffic rules in space.

Can you comment on the lack of rules in space?

In the space domain, there's only one law that governs the domain.

It's a 1967 treaty called the Outer Space Treaty.

It has some overarching guidelines, such as space should be used for peaceful purposes.

Nations shall not claim or own orbital bodies like the moon or Mars.

Nations shall not militarize space.

No boots on the moon, for example.

And nations shall not deploy weapons of mass destruction in space, like nuclear weapons.

Those are broad.

But other domains have very specific rules, like rules of the road.

When you're driving your car, you know where to drive and to use your signals and to stop at traffic lights and traffic signs.

In the air domain, there's an international body that the FAA is part of, but there's an international body that decides and enforces rules for aircraft that are followed by airlines, international airlines all over the world.

These same types of rules apply to water, for maritime, and for the Navy.

But in space, there's nothing.

So for example, if two objects come in close proximity to each other, there is no rule that says how far apart they should stay or what they should do if they're coming in contact with each other.

There's no international guidance, no international body that governs it, no way to enforce either.

And those are things that the space domain needs because the other domains have them and it makes sense.

How does the U.S.

currently handle conflict avoidance in space, especially when it comes to to China or Russia?

Well, the U.S.

has a group of people.

They're the United States Space Force Guardians.

They work in a unit called the 18th Space Defense Squadron based at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

So you're relying on your military to track and analyze everything they can see in space.

They track launches, they track what is deployed from launches, they track maneuvers, deorbits, and breakups, and they conduct something called collision avoidance so that when they see that two objects may come in contact with each other, like collide, they warn the owner operator, whether it be a U.S.

military satellite, a U.S.

owner of a satellite, or any other country or agency around the world.

China is a very specific example.

They don't answer their phones.

They don't answer emails.

So the communication kind of happens by the fact that the 18th squadron there updates a web page that tells the world, and they share data with the world on objects in space, their location.

And I'm just guessing that China must go to that website or they look at their emails, but there's not a lot of, if any, communication back.

And that is dangerous.

Misunderstanding leads to miscalculation, could lead to unintended reactions and unintended consequences in space.

Space is actually being weaponized now by other countries, and it's also an opportunity.

What do you think will actually move to space in the next decade or so beyond satellites?

Will it be energy?

Will it be manufacturing?

All of that is being worked today, actually.

My friend General Stephen Whiting, who's the commander of U.S.

Space Command, just called for manufacturing in space and on-orbit refueling type of capabilities to extend the combat power of his systems, extend the lives of his systems if they have to maneuver

many times out of the way.

He's looking at, okay, how do I extend that capability?

On-orbit refueling would be a way.

On-orbit repair,

if a satellite today gets damaged, there's no thousand-mile screwdriver.

If there's no backup system, it's done.

But an exciting thing that's moving to space, commercial space stations.

Blue Origin is talking about building a commercial space station.

There's other companies as well to replace the International Space Station.

NASA has said it will deorbit, and I don't think there's a NASA replacement, but commercial companies could make that replacement.

And that is, to me, exciting.

You know, the future means more humans in space.

I'd also add, you know, here I am, Ms.

Optimist, the kind of research we can do at zero gravity.

especially of things like pharmaceuticals are amazing.

Again, if we can stop any wars in space, there's another promise.

A nightmare I personally have is if we start manufacturing in space and doing other things, are we going to export pollution and some of the mistakes we've made on Earth?

Boo.

Let's, again, have some rules of the road and figure out a way to do that.

That could be a huge improvement now that we've learned so much on land.

Can you imagine harnessing the sun's power and bringing it to Earth controlled and where we need it and distributing around the entire planet.

Oh my goodness, that is possible.

That is

not yet, not today, but that is a potential future use of the space domain.

And those kinds of things are exciting and inspirational.

Think solar panels on steroids.

I mean,

there really is so much positive, but we mustn't screw it up.

And our report is an effort to reach internationally.

And we did travel to international fora, especially in Austria.

Vienna has a whole island devoted to the UN and its agencies.

Imagine.

I had no idea.

And everyone shows up.

So there is a building block there.

And if we can just get it right, imagine what that would mean, not just again to us, Russia, China, but to the entire world, to all these countries that could leverage this capability for their uses, that are struggling to meet energy demands, and that want their own kids to dream.

I mean, something that really struck me, I was on the NASA Advisory Committee the last few years.

Bill Nelson, former senator, former astronaut, the administrator of NASA, would travel around and he would go to little school sites and to Latin America last year.

That was so rewarding.

And all these kids dream of going to space.

And they're not, you know, they're not American kids.

It's not that American kids don't dream of this too, but they're every kid.

And how wonderful to nurture that and to provide hope for the whole world.

Couldn't we use a little more hope?

Yes, we certainly can use more hope.

Nina, what are the three takeaways you'd like to leave the audience with today?

Number one, space is vital to the American way of life.

It's vital to modern American life, and it needs to be protected and defended.

Number two, the president should declare space a vital national imperative

and he should resource it properly.

And then number three,

we need a national space strategy.

not just one for defense, but one for exploration and all of our uses of space that is resourced with increased and predictable budgets.

Jane, what are the three takeaways you would like to leave the audience with today?

One, make space a top national priority.

Two, fix the vulnerability problem and enhance deterrence.

And three,

sharpen policy on China and seek strategic engagement on hotline issues.

I love it.

Yes, thank you both.

Thank you both for your service in government and the military and for leading this important task force.

This is such a critical area that I think has been flying under the radar.

Thank you for highlighting it, Lynn, and for having us on Three Takeaways.

If you're enjoying the podcast, and I really hope you are, please review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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I'm Lynn Toman, and this is Three Takeaways.

Thanks for listening.