April 30, 2024 • 41 mins
In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert chats with space strategies expert Paul Szymanski, co-author with Jerry Drew of the new book “The Battle Beyond: Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space.”
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb. Joe's out today, so I'm going
to present an interview here with Paul Samansky, co author
with Jerry Drew of the new book The Battle Beyond
Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space. Paul Smansky
has forty nine years of experience in all fields related
to space control, policy, strategy, simulation, surveillance, survivability, threat assessment,
(00:37):
long range strategic planning, and command and control. I do
want to advise listeners that this one gets a little
more into topics of contemporary and near future warfare. I
realize that is not everyone's cup of tea, so just
fair warning about that. But without further ado, let's get
right into this fascinating chat. Well, Paul, welcome to the show.
(01:04):
The new book is The Battle Beyond Fighting and Winning
the Coming War in Space, co authored with Jerry Drew.
It's a detailed breakdown of the emerging technologies and ideas
that are going to define war and warfare in space.
And you've certainly a great deal of expertise in this field.
How did you become interested in outer space and how
did your career end up moving into this domain of
(01:26):
space systems and space warfare.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, first of all, I actually have six books out.
They all begin with the title you know that you mentioned,
and then there's various details. One is about how to
fight and win space wars. Another one is on sun Zoo,
the ancient Chinese philosopher translated from two thousand years ago
(01:51):
to space. I always liked the bigger picture thought, and
so I've always worked at think tanks, you know, not
for fit semi government kinds of things. And the first
thing tank I worked at decades ago, I had the
option of either working nuclear war or space war. And
(02:14):
for a space war, you know, sounds like the what
do you call it? Star wars and sort of thing
you know from when I was growing up. So is
that sounds cooler? I guess I'll go that way. So
it was almost a random sequence of events.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Let's say the book does a great job of breaking
down a lot of the core concepts, you know, forcing
the reader to re examine basics that a lot of us,
especially general science faders like myself, probably take for granted.
So getting down to brass tax as they say, could
you remind the listeners what we're talking about when we're
talking about the space domain from a military perspective.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, one thing, and you know, I'm on I've been
on the board of directors of Air Force Research Lab
with you know, retired general officers and vice admirals, and
one was an astronaut who has been up in space
five times, you know, and none of them understand how
to fight space wars. Really comes down to it when
(03:11):
you really think about it, You're not attacking a satellite,
You're attacking the mission. Oh, this satellite's providing imagery for
the battlefield. We're about to do a sneak attack. We
better take out the guy's imagery, you know, So you
need to take out the mission. Oh, by the way,
the commander in the particular theater is going to say,
(03:33):
deny the adversary imagery of the battlefield over these latitude
launch coronets and resolution over the next seventy two hours.
You know, you figure out how to do it within
the laws of armed conflict. So you not only have
to take out that satellite, you have to take out
(03:53):
the drones you know, doing the same mission, or the
guy on a camel with binoculars, So you have to
think that bigger picture. And you know, the guys I've
worked with, they love the technology. We love the technology
in this country. But the whole point of war, and
even the ancient Greeks understood this two thousand years ago.
(04:14):
The whole point of war is make the other side
change their mind, you know. So getting back to you're
not attacking the satelle attacking the mission, and you're not
even really attacking the mission. You're attacking the mind of
the adversary commander who's using that imagery information. So you know,
it's kind of information warfare, whatever you want to call it.
(04:35):
And that's kind of hard to figure. Like, you know,
how do you model human mind? Did he get this
information or not? Did he attack left or right? You know,
if you had like an extra one hundred million dollars
some fiscal year and he said, well, gee, should I
buy one of these fancy new space weapons that we've
(04:56):
never tried before? Or should I re equip an army
brigade with newer tanks or something like that. Now, Okay,
there's politics and this and that, but really, what is
going to make the war end sooner? With fewer casualties,
I guess, or get your point across, you know. And
so the army they're very used to, you know, they
(05:17):
invented what's called operations research, so they're very used to
figuring that out, Like, well, if we take out this bridge,
it'll take them twelve hours to get bridge laying equipment,
and so we delay the forces, you know, maybe fourteen hours,
and we can calculate in general the war ends two
days early and there's you know, three percent fewer casually
(05:41):
something like that. I mean, something you could kind of say,
is that worth a hundred million maybe? You know, but
if you could say, oh, this crusty old general in
I don't know, North Korea or something like that, who
doesn't really believe in space, and you know, even if
he gets information from it, he's going to do what
(06:01):
he's going to do. He's mind to set. And so
is it worth one hundred million dollars for that space
weapon program to deny something he doesn't care about anyway?
You know, I'm being a wise guy here at this,
of course. You know. Let me tell you something a
very wise guy, and that is what is the biggest
threat from space, and that is something called fobs fractional
(06:26):
orbital bombardment system and that's something that the Russians invented
in the nineteen sixties. And you know, instead of sending
nuclear icbm's north you know, North Pole, they sent they
put it into space, the rocket and it comes from
the south and avoids American radars and all that stuff,
(06:48):
you know. And it was like two three years ago
the State Department or military I forget who said, well,
you know, China has fobs now the fractional orbital bombardments system,
And I'm thinking, okay, you have to again think the
bigger picture.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So we.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
If I don't know if any of our listeners have
heard of Mayhan the control of the sea. You know,
several hundred years ago you're saying about you know, great
Britain and controlling say, well, no one's that. I've been
able to control really the seas, you know, great Britain, Oh,
the English Channel, maybe the Mediterranean, maybe around Hong Kong
and India. I've been and all that. But let's theorize
(07:33):
and going back to Mayhean, the US is a sea power,
it is not a land power. Good luck marching one
hundred thousand soldiers across the Atlantic ocean to defend Europe,
and we've gotten kind of arrogant that, oh, we're just
going to do all these wars around the world and
they'll never affect us because we got these oceans, the barriers,
(07:56):
and no one could send landing craft that far, you know,
and all that, and so we you know, we can
get away with a lot. Let's say, now, let's theorize.
Let's say you take you know, I'm being facetious here,
but two tons of concrete in space and you drop
an all eleven American aircraft carriers around the world within
(08:19):
forty minutes it comes down mock, I think twenty four
Anything coming from space comes that fast, three times hotter
than the surface of the Sun. It holds the carrier.
There's gonna be you know, gleaming orange, jagged metal. It's
gonna hit the ocean, the cold ocean, and a huge
(08:42):
steam explosion. The think sinks in a matter of minutes.
Now I'm talking about nineteen sixties technology in order to
achieve this. And oh, by the way, some reason we
screwed up and we don't have hypersonic weapons, but the
Russian have been merrily using them in Ukraine, taking out
(09:03):
command centers four hundred feet underground, and China the only
reason they develop their own hypersonic weapons is, oh, guess what,
take out American aircraft carriers. Because it's a point target thing.
You know, if you use it on the ground and
(09:24):
forces attacking on the ground, oh maybe kill fifty hundred
people whatever, But you know, take out command centers aircraft carriers.
So I guess what I'm emphasizing is you better control
space or you suddenly become a second rate power. What
can we do if we no longer have our aircraft carriers,
(09:44):
we no longer control the sea. Let's say China controls
the sea. They you know, all that oil in the
Middle East is worthless if you can't ship it out,
And so China starts charging transit fees, you know, anti
piracy fees or something. If you don't pay it, we'll
sink your ship too. You know, it's real easy nineteen
(10:06):
sixties technology. You know, we're not actually talking about the future.
It could happen tonight. So China, you know, essentially controls
the world. Seems to me, I mean this theoretical, but
I don't I can't think of any holes in that
at the moment, and I actually I'm writing a novel,
a seventh book, and that it will be out in
a few months. So okay, that's something to worry about. Now,
(10:29):
getting back to the the domain of space, everyone I
know keeps in the space force, and you know this
has been true of the Air Force I worked with. See.
The trouble is, can you think of the last time
that the air war was in doubt for the Air Force?
(10:50):
And it's like, well, early World War two, not even
late World War two, Vietnam, no, you know, in the
Middle East. No. So I think there's a certain degree
of lazy thinking that goes on because quite frankly, you
learn more from defeat than from victory. I mean, we're
(11:11):
teaching Russia how to really fight worse nowadays. So probably
ninety five percent of space for US is Air Force.
So I talked to these generals and you know, lieutenants
or colonels and all that, and they keep thinking, tactically, oh,
we're kind to you know, slowly maneuver to this satellite
(11:33):
and observe it, or maybe shoot it with a pelggon
or the French are telling me they were putting up
a laser, you know, and all that. But they're not
thinking this strategic big picture and that is well, a
satellite is strategic. It covers the world. You know, you
think you're doing something tactical. Not only are you doing
something strategic. And oh, by the way, maybe you're fighting
(11:56):
in the Middle of East or Ukraine or something of that,
but you're going to attack that satellite in the South Atlantic,
you know, from a ship or something, you know, with
a laser or direct assent weapon. You have to think
the bigger picture global and then you have to think
political too, I mean wars, you know political. Unfortunately, we're
(12:17):
used to killing people on the ground during war. We're
not used to space war. Now. I've noticed this space
force the last few years is getting people used to
that concept. You know, they keep their marketing campaign getting
more and more severe or something like that. But if
you take out someone's satellite, you know, it has consequences.
(12:38):
Now there's a problem and a beauty with space too,
and that is conflict escalation letter and I go over
that in the book too. I've started learned that countries
are just like children. They'll do anything they want if
they can get away with it from their parents. Parents
being the United Nations, their own people or whatever. And
(12:59):
so you could think you could go to CIA headquarters
in Virginia. There's a wall with all the stars of
the agents who died in the line of duty. You know,
did any of those start a war? Do we even
know who they were? I heard I think it was
two years ago there was an incident between an American
(13:21):
and a Russian submarine in the Sea of Japan. You know,
I just read in the paper and that's all they say,
an incident because there's no news camera taking it. You know,
they don't know. So what I'm getting at is spy warfare,
undersea warfare, space warfare. You can get away with a lot,
and we have. There's been more intense space war since
(13:42):
the nineteen sixties. I can, you know, show you a
bunch of those. And like I said, this the war
that happened in twenty fourteen Ukraine. I could mathematically prove
that through the orbital dynamics. So you really have to
thank the bigger picture. You can't think, oh, this satellite
is going to come snuggle up to me and start,
(14:02):
you know, messing with me or something like that, because
that takes days and weeks to accomplish. Well, my simulations
have shown space wars over with in twenty four to
forty eight hours. You know, a real one. Oh, I've
got fifty space weapons going out right now, so you know,
I think in some sense we would self deter You know,
(14:25):
I've heard at least years ago that we wouldn't attack
a satellite that attacked us unless we knew who owned
this satellite, you know, And that's kind of hard to do.
They're kind of arrogant too, and say, oh, we know
what satellites have been launched, and blah blah blah and
all that. And I say, well, you know, every two
(14:45):
weeks I download the official Air Force Satellite Orbital Catalog,
and forty percent of the objects there are considered unknowns.
We don't know who launched them, who owns them, and
what the mission is, so you know, you know of
what's really happening. And so the first step to defeat
in space is over confidence. Oh yeah, you know, we're
(15:08):
Air Force. We've won every single air war we've had,
and we'll win the space war. It doesn't take much.
The most popular method is cyber warfare. Any country on
Earth has clever young kids who can be hackers and
hack a satellite. Every country on Earth has university with
(15:30):
high powered lasers that you can kind of gin up
and make more accurate and or whatever and mess with satellites.
I mean, I have a laser I got on Amazon
seven want laser handheld that'll start my furniture on fire
across the room in a fraction of a second. You know,
we'll put that out of satellite or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
I don't think people are really thinking these big pictures
and getting at the popularity of cyber warfare. Let me
do a thought experiment, and that is let's say you're
in a trench in Ukraine and you can hear the
Russian tanks revving up, you know, ready to come attack you.
(16:11):
And some egghead scientists comes into your trench and he
has this black box with the big red button. He says, oh,
I've been developing this for years. It's a cyber weapon
that you know, if you push that red button, the
Russian tanks will stop. You'll mess with their computers or whatever,
you know. And you know, I haven't tested this in
(16:33):
the field, but it worked in the lab. Don't worry.
And and the poor soldiers there, well, what about a
bazookah I said, oh, sorreh, well, used up all your
funding on this, you know, cyber weapon. You know, so
the Russian tanks attack, Oh, they push that button, you know,
the tank stop and thirty seconds later they reboot and
squish you. You know. So I don't know about you,
but as a guy, I find it much more emotionally
(16:56):
satisfying to see a burning hole in the ground where
the tank used to be, you know, as I did
the job. And it's the same kind of with space. Now,
of course, I have a whole other briefing. I can
present sometime ninety four ways to attack satellites without creating debris.
You really don't have to do the debris thing, but
(17:18):
you're really not sure. You know, people when they're about
to die get very clever. So you're really not sure
if the satellite's faking its death, especially if you use
the cyber means. You know, you're not even sure exactly
who attacked you. I mean, let's say we're at war
in the Western Pacific, China, Taiwan, whatever, and you wake
(17:38):
up one morning and several of your satellites stopped working. Well,
you know, my computer stopped working last month. You know,
maybe that same thing happened. Maybe a solar flares irradiated
too much, maybe a micro meteorite hit it. Oh it's
human cause. Oh this you know, Romanian satellite came too
(17:59):
close accidentally you know, Oh, no human cause and intentional. Okay,
what is the intent now? Let's say, oh, it's the
Chinese attacking us where we were the Well, maybe it's
the Russians of the North Koreans messing with you and
starting to stir the pot. How do you know who's
doing it, what their intent is? Are they going against
(18:22):
command and control, decapitation, communication satellites, are the imagery satellites navigation?
Are they doing a demonstration attack, like, well, we're showing
we're really serious now kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
One of the things that I found really interesting in
the book was talking about these various ways, and I
believe these are a mix of proven technologies and maybe
some of them are more possible for the future, but
the ways that satellites can and will do battle with
one another. I believe you already mentioned grappling as a
(19:05):
mechanical grappling, but there are some other techniques in there,
and I thought you might discuss some of those.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Well, I've come up with some on my own head.
But you know, most of not all satellites have to
point very accurately at the Earth, their antennas, their imagery, whatever.
So they had what are called star sensors, you know,
in the back of satellite, look at the stars, and
they could orient themselves because there's no up so to speak,
(19:32):
in space. And I theorize, well, if you've got one
of these inspector maintenance satellites, whatever, and you float behind
it and present an upside down star chart to it
with the satellite flip over, because these are just dumb machines,
you know, So there's a lot of techniques. I don't know,
you know, if that would work. Certainly to my mind,
(19:57):
it's most effective weapon, not timeliness wise, but if someone
comes up there with the manipulator and you know China,
they gleefully told us about one of their supposedly dead
satellites and they used a satellite, came up close with
manipular arm and pulled it to what's called well sort
(20:20):
of graveyard orbit. It's very suspicious, but any rate, so
you can pull satellite out of orbit. But it's an
ideal weapon. A satellite coming up close to you, because
it's sort of like taking a satellite, putting in a wheelbarrow,
going in your garage and going at it. Well, let's
drill a hole, let's cut this wire, let's bend this,
let's all that. You know. Oh, let's paint the optics
(20:43):
with something that you know floats away a few weeks
later or something. You know. So you do a lot
of messing and there's a lot of people and unfortunately
one of them's Eline muss And I love Musk, but
who want to play the commercial entities who want to
play with army soldiers like children, And you know, Musk said, oh,
(21:07):
I'm going to give Ukraine these starlink terminals and all that.
And I'm pretty sure Russia attacked his systems for that,
but they don't really understand the consequences. And it's sort
of like Merchant Marine in World War Two. Well they
got sank two, you know. And I think I believe
there have been attacks on multiple satellite systems, not only
(21:32):
cyber attacks but others during the Ukrainian conflict. So this
thought that oh, I'm just going to play war and
the military is doing that too, that we're going to
take these satellites commercial statists and use them. And you know,
the commercial ones have really cool technology and probably cheaper
(21:52):
and so forth, But who pays for them when they
get attacked? I don't know how that works. And you know,
they live in what I consider Disney fantasy worlds like Starlink.
I don't know, ten fifteen thousand satellites, Well, you got
to attack each one. No, you know, I've seen cyber
(22:13):
warfare techniques like thirty five years ago, going through the
electrical plug into your computer and all. I mean, people
are very clever. They'll always find a way. And I've
you know, theorized well Elon's Starlink satellites have a they
can tell how close they're coming to each other and
have an algorithm to say, oh we're too close, let's
(22:33):
go away. Well, you do a cyber attack. You put
a negative sign in that algorithm, and when they get
too close to the satellites start moving even closer and
you kill them all at once. You know, I mean,
there's always a way on that. So I think it's
easy for us to lose a war in space due
to overconfidence, due to not thinking strategically. You know, what
(22:58):
exactly are the consequences, I guess militarily politically, and also
getting back to your teaching your adversary how to fight
you better ten years later or whatever. So maybe it
should withhold some weapons and shape not only the future
(23:20):
battlefield but the future political environment of well, oh gee,
look at this, we want that space war. Look at
all the junks flown around. Well, now all your allies
hate you. Now they are all these treaties restricting you.
Maybe you should have thought of that beforehand and said, well,
let's do it this way, maneuver this way, or whatever,
(23:41):
and so more improbable this new treaty won't be so
bad or something. I mean, think of the political now.
For years I've said, oh, look at this cool multi
billion dollar space weapons program, you know, And I said, well,
you know, we're starting to develop this now, why don't
we get the State Department in on this early on?
(24:02):
Because they're going to be part of I don't know
what used to be called National command authorities, but they're
going to be in the room with the President's deciding
whether attack or not. And if the State Department got
on early, they could say, well, if you tweak it
slightly later on, there would be more probably will prove
it or something, you know. And I was always told, oh,
(24:23):
we can't truss the State Department. You know, they'll just reveal,
you know, what we got or whatever. And you know,
all governments are like that, each department hates each other
and all that. But I've got over twenty eight thousand
members in my space warfare discussion group on LinkedIn, and
one of them is a former assistant Secretary of State,
(24:43):
and he says, yeah, they're right. State Department never knew
a treaty. It didn't like for space, you know, restricting
something in space. You know. So we've got all these
kind of undercurrents and getting back to children playing with toys,
it's conceivable that let's say the Space for US attacks
the satellite. They're certainly not going to tell the State Department.
(25:05):
There's certainly probably not going to tell the Navy or
the army or whatever. You know, we all have our secrets,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
You know. When I first started reading about the various
like anti satellite strategies in the book, I was reminded,
almost vaguely of a childhood viewing of the nineteen sixty
seven James Bond film He only lived twice, in which
we see early on in the picture a mysterious orbital
spacecraft capturing essentially kind of consuming another.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Space clamshell, if I recall.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, so you know, I don't know how this roughly
relates to the idea of mechanical grappling, or if this
is like a snapshot of some you know, filtered through
fiction sort of, you know, nineteen sixties, late nineteen sixties
understanding of conflict between spacecraft.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Uh. Yeah, well it's certainly the Chinese did the grappling
the Urugo or something. Certainly, but though that was a
supposedly dead object. If the satellite's non cooperative, though, you
can certainly do the grappling, you know, over the South
(26:15):
Pacific where we don't have any radars or something. Maybe
you could do it fast enough before we understand or
we don't have any ground control stations to say tell
the satellite, oh, start spinning or something like that. You know,
so as soon as you're accomplishing a counter space thing
or something that you know is trying to defend yourself, Uh,
(26:37):
the enemy has won, because if you start spinning, you
can't do your mission anymore, you know, and he's probably
attacking at some critical time in the battlefield, and so
he's you know, he's done his job. You don't have
to necessarily kill the satellite. And quite frankly, there's three
major areas that we've talked about for years. I mean,
(26:59):
you go against satellite, you can go against the ground controller,
or you can go against the link between the two.
And that's all three ways to do it. So there's
multiple ways to skin a cat I guess or something
like that that doesn't necessarily involve debris generation. But the
(27:20):
James Bond thing, you know, capturing, yeah, you probably could
do that. As a matter of fact, you could look up.
I think NASA had some net to capture satellites they
were doing research on. I remember seeing that, and I
suppose the net might work if it's you know, spinning
or something. But I've had my own theories, like what
(27:41):
I call the porcupine defense, and that is, you know,
in the nineteen sixties, satellites used to have the long
antennas sticking out of the ball. You know, well, if
you had these long wires that you inferled out going
out I don't know, half a kilometer or something like that,
nobody could approach you they tangle up in the wires.
(28:03):
Maybe the wires you have them electrostatic, and they give
them a shock or maybe somehow acidic or I don't know.
I think some simple defenses like that. Maybe for close approaches.
People talk about, oh, well we'll start maneuvering out of
the way we see it coming. Oh. You know, first
of all, if you let's say you had a space
(28:27):
weapon where I called lagrange points, they're equal gravitational potential
to retain the Earth and the Moon, and so they
just sort of sit their way out, you know, I
don't know, hundreds of thousands of miles something like that,
and all it takes is just a little bit of
feel to you know, hit it and have it come
(28:48):
screaming back down the gravity. Well, and come attack your satellite.
And if your satellite, oh I see something coming, I'm
going to maneuver a kilometer or two away. Well, well,
just looking at the physics the geometry. If you're fifty
thousand miles away and you sell how removed a few kilometers, Well,
(29:09):
I change a micro radian or something of my trajectory,
and I'm coming in like really fast, And I don't
know if there's much you can do. I mean, everything
can be easily hypervelocity in space, and it's not like
you're going to have fifty feet of concrete on your
(29:31):
satellite trying to defend from something coming in. I don't
think you can defend anything. And you know, the Air
Force all, oh, we're going to defend these commercial satellites,
and I don't know what that really means. Maybe you
try to jam the weapon coming at you or something
like that. But I think a lot of people living
in fantasy world's when it comes to space warfare.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Now, speaking of fantasy and James Bond, science fiction, science
fiction in general has of course been long obsessed with
visions of space warfare. Can you think of any examples
that tackle the technology or just sort of the concept
of space warfare as we're discussing it now in a
way that lines up with the technologies and strategies we're
actually facing.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
I can't think of any at the moment. First of all,
you know, you have tie fighters. I don't think you
can be manned. Man. You have all this extra weight
of oxygen and all the warmth, and they couldn't take
the G forces. If again, you're doing this maneuvering. You know,
all these things seem to have aliens and all because
there's more exciting. I don't know if I know of
(30:44):
any thing. I think the expanse I think that got
the closest to some of those space battles, you know,
between opposing space cruisers or whatever. I suppose you'd still
have to have kinetic one way or the other, because oh,
you got these great lasers. Well if you had a
(31:06):
mirror like finish on their spacecraft and you know, if
you spin it, it'd be you know, depositing the radiation
all around. And it's like we have ground based lasers,
but they can't go out to geosynchronous orbit. It just
isn't powerful enough. So if you're talking about I don't
know if battles would be from fifty thousand kilometers apart
(31:28):
or something. I just don't know about how all that
would work. And you know, maybe we're really talking about
AI and the machines will be fighting the machines in
one way or the other, you know, getting back to
space war, and why would you rather have a bunch
(31:50):
of satellites broken in space, hopefully without debris, because you
don't have to use debris causing things, then a bunch
of broken Ukrainian cities, and you know you're not killing anyone.
There's no sense to attack the International Space Station though,
just as a funny aside, who knows, twenty five thirty
(32:10):
years ago it is as some space conference in coverall springs,
you know, Air Force and the general giving the presentation, who,
by the way, dressed up in a World War two
outfit and acted like patent, you know, with a big
American flag bearing. Anyway, I stopped him on the way
out and I says, well, you know, the Russia is
on the International Space Station and we are doing like
(32:34):
the left hook or whatever. And he had binocas the
Russian cosmonaut had binoculars on there. What would you do?
And his first response was I'll shoot him. You know, well,
I don't know about discharging a weapon in you know,
putting a hole through the sides letting oxygen out, and
even the political implications, but of course, you know, generals,
(32:55):
I guess sort of think that way on it. I
even had some if he used five point seven by
two to eight bullet, it can penetrate the was a
Lexan armored goggles of an astronaut and the what is
the bulletproof suits, but it can't penetrate the bulkheads, the
(33:21):
metal bulkheads, you know, oh, kevlar suits. So boarding space stations?
Would we ever board the Chinese one?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (33:30):
My book does that. But because it's a theoretical sort
of theoretical. There's a lot of things in the book
that have happened to me in the past, but I
won't say which.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Now we've been talking about space weaponry and the near
future of space warfare. But what does all of this
mean for say, the future of space exploration as well
as like planetary defense against near Earth objects.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Well, I remember there were something on YouTube that's saying, boy,
if NASA had the budget of the military, this is
what they could do. So you know, what's more important
to you self defense military wise, or well science and
oh this is kind of cool and maybe fifty years
(34:13):
from now will be on Mars or something, you know,
So it's all a matter priority. And you could say, well,
what about exploring under the sea and things like that.
So I don't know, it's you know, it's an emotional
decision for countries to say, well, what's more important to us?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Now?
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I think we're probably almost there or very soon that
if a country loses the war in space, they lose
the war in the ground. I mean, think of the
US again in the Western Pacific. Would they be able
to communicate to the carrier battle groups without satellites? I
(34:55):
don't know if they u tropal scatter calm anymore? You know,
would we have our aircraft flying when we don't even
know where we're flying, We don't have imagery, and we
don't know how to avoid the you know, the anti
aircraft and what targets to service and all. I mean,
you get to the point where war in space maybe
(35:15):
is morally better than war on the ground. So how
important is that to a society versus Oh, yeah, NASA,
we're exploring this and that. Now I could again be
a wise guy and say, boy, elon, the commercial world
sure did a better job of trying to get to
the Moon than NASA, did you know? They really seemed
(35:38):
to be failing there and all that. So yeah, they
pour money into NASA, and or maybe we should just
fund the commercial world to do that kind of thing,
or maybe we should just get contributions from people who
think it's really cool to go to the moon, or something.
I mean again, I might be an old fogy here,
(35:59):
but the Mars, you know, the dust is extremely poisonous
and the radiation is extremely bad, and so you're gonna
end up being underground ninety nine percent of the time.
You're gonna get really tired of that red not sing
blue and all that. So I can see, you know,
if I was younger, Oh yeah, you know, go, you know,
(36:22):
colonize Mars and all that. Yeah, someday maybe we put
atmosphere on that, but you're talking beyond our lifetimes. And
same with the Moon.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Now.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
The Moon is really weird. I remember when I first
started out in the seventies and someone telling me, oh, yeah,
NASA asked the Air Force, well do you want a
base on the Moon? You know, and the Air Force
sort of scratched his heads, like, I don't know, it's
kind of far away. I guess not, you know. And
no one in my entire career, no one's cared about
(36:51):
the Moon except the last five, six, seven years. And
they're all sorts of like here at Albuquerque, Oh, we're
gonna put cell phone service on the Moon. What the
hell you're talking about? You know, you're gonna pay ten
thousand dollars a minute for three astronauts, you know, and oh,
you're putting these surveillance sensors on the dark side of
(37:11):
the moon, you know, surveilling what. And everyone seems very
worried about the whole thing. Now, I could be a
conspiracy to alien this, and I don't think so, or
maybe am I I theorize that. You know, when China,
when they land their TAKEO knots on the Moon, they
(37:32):
plant the flag abrogate the outer space treaty that says
you can't own crestal bodies, abrogate that. Ten minutes where
they land on the Moon, say now we own the Moon,
you know, sort of like Spain and Portugal I guess
did for the Western hemisphere. Cour it's good luck defending
that kind of So I wonder if they're worried about
(37:55):
that in some sense. And I also point out we
have this nineteen sixty seven outer space treatise as you
can't own celestial bodies. Well there's over eighty countries that
never sign that. I theorize that Elon can take one
of his es. He was building some launch ships. I
don't know he gave up on that, but you ship
(38:17):
it out to the territorial waters of one of these
countries and launched the moon and say, and now we
own the moon, or that country Ecuador or whatever owns
the moon and leases it back to Eline for ninety
nine years, like Hong Kong. You know, I'm not a lawyer,
but sounds like you could do that.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Fascinating. Well, Paul, where can people follow you online? Obviously
the book again is The Battle Beyond Fighting and Winning
the Coming War in Space or this is one of
the books. This is the one that I looked at
for the interview that's out now. But if people just
want to follow you, keep up with your work, learn more,
where can they find you?
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Well, I'm mostly on LinkedIn, so you can, like say,
twenty eight thousand members of people who are interested in
space warfare, So you can communicate through there, you know,
just send me a request I guess or that and
tell me who you are or whatever. Also, if you
(39:16):
looked up The Battle Beyond How to Fight Win Space
Wars on Amazon, you'll see all six books, and there's
way I think they have ways of liking me there
and you know, communicating that way. I think there's even
a website associated with it and all that, and that's
that's probably the best way.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
All right. Well, thanks again for coming on the shows.
Has been very insightful.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Okay, thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
All right. Thanks again to Paul Samanski for coming on
the show and chatting with me again. The book, co
authored with Jerry Drew, is The Battle Beyond Fighting and
Winning the Coming War in Space and it is available now.
If you would like to reach out to Joe and myself,
well you can do so in a number of ways.
I'll share that email in just a second. But hey,
(40:05):
you can follow Stuff to Blow your Mind the podcast
feed anywhere to get your podcast core science and culture
episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, listener mail on Monday's short
form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays, we set aside
most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film
on Weird House Cinema. Thanks as always to the excellent
JJ Possway for producing the show. And if you want
(40:25):
to shoot us that email, you can do so at
contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Not the f
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb. Joe's out today, so I'm going
to present an interview here with Paul Samansky, co author
with Jerry Drew of the new book The Battle Beyond
Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space. Paul Smansky
has forty nine years of experience in all fields related
to space control, policy, strategy, simulation, surveillance, survivability, threat assessment,
(00:37):
long range strategic planning, and command and control. I do
want to advise listeners that this one gets a little
more into topics of contemporary and near future warfare. I
realize that is not everyone's cup of tea, so just
fair warning about that. But without further ado, let's get
right into this fascinating chat. Well, Paul, welcome to the show.
(01:04):
The new book is The Battle Beyond Fighting and Winning
the Coming War in Space, co authored with Jerry Drew.
It's a detailed breakdown of the emerging technologies and ideas
that are going to define war and warfare in space.
And you've certainly a great deal of expertise in this field.
How did you become interested in outer space and how
did your career end up moving into this domain of
(01:26):
space systems and space warfare.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, first of all, I actually have six books out.
They all begin with the title you know that you mentioned,
and then there's various details. One is about how to
fight and win space wars. Another one is on sun Zoo,
the ancient Chinese philosopher translated from two thousand years ago
(01:51):
to space. I always liked the bigger picture thought, and
so I've always worked at think tanks, you know, not
for fit semi government kinds of things. And the first
thing tank I worked at decades ago, I had the
option of either working nuclear war or space war. And
(02:14):
for a space war, you know, sounds like the what
do you call it? Star wars and sort of thing
you know from when I was growing up. So is
that sounds cooler? I guess I'll go that way. So
it was almost a random sequence of events.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Let's say the book does a great job of breaking
down a lot of the core concepts, you know, forcing
the reader to re examine basics that a lot of us,
especially general science faders like myself, probably take for granted.
So getting down to brass tax as they say, could
you remind the listeners what we're talking about when we're
talking about the space domain from a military perspective.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, one thing, and you know, I'm on I've been
on the board of directors of Air Force Research Lab
with you know, retired general officers and vice admirals, and
one was an astronaut who has been up in space
five times, you know, and none of them understand how
to fight space wars. Really comes down to it when
(03:11):
you really think about it, You're not attacking a satellite,
You're attacking the mission. Oh, this satellite's providing imagery for
the battlefield. We're about to do a sneak attack. We
better take out the guy's imagery, you know, So you
need to take out the mission. Oh, by the way,
the commander in the particular theater is going to say,
(03:33):
deny the adversary imagery of the battlefield over these latitude
launch coronets and resolution over the next seventy two hours.
You know, you figure out how to do it within
the laws of armed conflict. So you not only have
to take out that satellite, you have to take out
(03:53):
the drones you know, doing the same mission, or the
guy on a camel with binoculars, So you have to
think that bigger picture. And you know, the guys I've
worked with, they love the technology. We love the technology
in this country. But the whole point of war, and
even the ancient Greeks understood this two thousand years ago.
(04:14):
The whole point of war is make the other side
change their mind, you know. So getting back to you're
not attacking the satelle attacking the mission, and you're not
even really attacking the mission. You're attacking the mind of
the adversary commander who's using that imagery information. So you know,
it's kind of information warfare, whatever you want to call it.
(04:35):
And that's kind of hard to figure. Like, you know,
how do you model human mind? Did he get this
information or not? Did he attack left or right? You know,
if you had like an extra one hundred million dollars
some fiscal year and he said, well, gee, should I
buy one of these fancy new space weapons that we've
(04:56):
never tried before? Or should I re equip an army
brigade with newer tanks or something like that. Now, Okay,
there's politics and this and that, but really, what is
going to make the war end sooner? With fewer casualties,
I guess, or get your point across, you know. And
so the army they're very used to, you know, they
(05:17):
invented what's called operations research, so they're very used to
figuring that out, Like, well, if we take out this bridge,
it'll take them twelve hours to get bridge laying equipment,
and so we delay the forces, you know, maybe fourteen hours,
and we can calculate in general the war ends two
days early and there's you know, three percent fewer casually
(05:41):
something like that. I mean, something you could kind of say,
is that worth a hundred million maybe? You know, but
if you could say, oh, this crusty old general in
I don't know, North Korea or something like that, who
doesn't really believe in space, and you know, even if
he gets information from it, he's going to do what
(06:01):
he's going to do. He's mind to set. And so
is it worth one hundred million dollars for that space
weapon program to deny something he doesn't care about anyway?
You know, I'm being a wise guy here at this,
of course. You know. Let me tell you something a
very wise guy, and that is what is the biggest
threat from space, and that is something called fobs fractional
(06:26):
orbital bombardment system and that's something that the Russians invented
in the nineteen sixties. And you know, instead of sending
nuclear icbm's north you know, North Pole, they sent they
put it into space, the rocket and it comes from
the south and avoids American radars and all that stuff,
(06:48):
you know. And it was like two three years ago
the State Department or military I forget who said, well,
you know, China has fobs now the fractional orbital bombardments system,
And I'm thinking, okay, you have to again think the
bigger picture.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So we.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
If I don't know if any of our listeners have
heard of Mayhan the control of the sea. You know,
several hundred years ago you're saying about you know, great
Britain and controlling say, well, no one's that. I've been
able to control really the seas, you know, great Britain, Oh,
the English Channel, maybe the Mediterranean, maybe around Hong Kong
and India. I've been and all that. But let's theorize
(07:33):
and going back to Mayhean, the US is a sea power,
it is not a land power. Good luck marching one
hundred thousand soldiers across the Atlantic ocean to defend Europe,
and we've gotten kind of arrogant that, oh, we're just
going to do all these wars around the world and
they'll never affect us because we got these oceans, the barriers,
(07:56):
and no one could send landing craft that far, you know,
and all that, and so we you know, we can
get away with a lot. Let's say, now, let's theorize.
Let's say you take you know, I'm being facetious here,
but two tons of concrete in space and you drop
an all eleven American aircraft carriers around the world within
(08:19):
forty minutes it comes down mock, I think twenty four
Anything coming from space comes that fast, three times hotter
than the surface of the Sun. It holds the carrier.
There's gonna be you know, gleaming orange, jagged metal. It's
gonna hit the ocean, the cold ocean, and a huge
(08:42):
steam explosion. The think sinks in a matter of minutes.
Now I'm talking about nineteen sixties technology in order to
achieve this. And oh, by the way, some reason we
screwed up and we don't have hypersonic weapons, but the
Russian have been merrily using them in Ukraine, taking out
(09:03):
command centers four hundred feet underground, and China the only
reason they develop their own hypersonic weapons is, oh, guess what,
take out American aircraft carriers. Because it's a point target thing.
You know, if you use it on the ground and
(09:24):
forces attacking on the ground, oh maybe kill fifty hundred
people whatever, But you know, take out command centers aircraft carriers.
So I guess what I'm emphasizing is you better control
space or you suddenly become a second rate power. What
can we do if we no longer have our aircraft carriers,
(09:44):
we no longer control the sea. Let's say China controls
the sea. They you know, all that oil in the
Middle East is worthless if you can't ship it out,
And so China starts charging transit fees, you know, anti
piracy fees or something. If you don't pay it, we'll
sink your ship too. You know, it's real easy nineteen
(10:06):
sixties technology. You know, we're not actually talking about the future.
It could happen tonight. So China, you know, essentially controls
the world. Seems to me, I mean this theoretical, but
I don't I can't think of any holes in that
at the moment, and I actually I'm writing a novel,
a seventh book, and that it will be out in
a few months. So okay, that's something to worry about. Now,
(10:29):
getting back to the the domain of space, everyone I
know keeps in the space force, and you know this
has been true of the Air Force I worked with. See.
The trouble is, can you think of the last time
that the air war was in doubt for the Air Force?
(10:50):
And it's like, well, early World War two, not even
late World War two, Vietnam, no, you know, in the
Middle East. No. So I think there's a certain degree
of lazy thinking that goes on because quite frankly, you
learn more from defeat than from victory. I mean, we're
(11:11):
teaching Russia how to really fight worse nowadays. So probably
ninety five percent of space for US is Air Force.
So I talked to these generals and you know, lieutenants
or colonels and all that, and they keep thinking, tactically, oh,
we're kind to you know, slowly maneuver to this satellite
(11:33):
and observe it, or maybe shoot it with a pelggon
or the French are telling me they were putting up
a laser, you know, and all that. But they're not
thinking this strategic big picture and that is well, a
satellite is strategic. It covers the world. You know, you
think you're doing something tactical. Not only are you doing
something strategic. And oh, by the way, maybe you're fighting
(11:56):
in the Middle of East or Ukraine or something of that,
but you're going to attack that satellite in the South Atlantic,
you know, from a ship or something, you know, with
a laser or direct assent weapon. You have to think
the bigger picture global and then you have to think
political too, I mean wars, you know political. Unfortunately, we're
(12:17):
used to killing people on the ground during war. We're
not used to space war. Now. I've noticed this space
force the last few years is getting people used to
that concept. You know, they keep their marketing campaign getting
more and more severe or something like that. But if
you take out someone's satellite, you know, it has consequences.
(12:38):
Now there's a problem and a beauty with space too,
and that is conflict escalation letter and I go over
that in the book too. I've started learned that countries
are just like children. They'll do anything they want if
they can get away with it from their parents. Parents
being the United Nations, their own people or whatever. And
(12:59):
so you could think you could go to CIA headquarters
in Virginia. There's a wall with all the stars of
the agents who died in the line of duty. You know,
did any of those start a war? Do we even
know who they were? I heard I think it was
two years ago there was an incident between an American
(13:21):
and a Russian submarine in the Sea of Japan. You know,
I just read in the paper and that's all they say,
an incident because there's no news camera taking it. You know,
they don't know. So what I'm getting at is spy warfare,
undersea warfare, space warfare. You can get away with a lot,
and we have. There's been more intense space war since
(13:42):
the nineteen sixties. I can, you know, show you a
bunch of those. And like I said, this the war
that happened in twenty fourteen Ukraine. I could mathematically prove
that through the orbital dynamics. So you really have to
thank the bigger picture. You can't think, oh, this satellite
is going to come snuggle up to me and start,
(14:02):
you know, messing with me or something like that, because
that takes days and weeks to accomplish. Well, my simulations
have shown space wars over with in twenty four to
forty eight hours. You know, a real one. Oh, I've
got fifty space weapons going out right now, so you know,
I think in some sense we would self deter You know,
(14:25):
I've heard at least years ago that we wouldn't attack
a satellite that attacked us unless we knew who owned
this satellite, you know, And that's kind of hard to do.
They're kind of arrogant too, and say, oh, we know
what satellites have been launched, and blah blah blah and
all that. And I say, well, you know, every two
(14:45):
weeks I download the official Air Force Satellite Orbital Catalog,
and forty percent of the objects there are considered unknowns.
We don't know who launched them, who owns them, and
what the mission is, so you know, you know of
what's really happening. And so the first step to defeat
in space is over confidence. Oh yeah, you know, we're
(15:08):
Air Force. We've won every single air war we've had,
and we'll win the space war. It doesn't take much.
The most popular method is cyber warfare. Any country on
Earth has clever young kids who can be hackers and
hack a satellite. Every country on Earth has university with
(15:30):
high powered lasers that you can kind of gin up
and make more accurate and or whatever and mess with satellites.
I mean, I have a laser I got on Amazon
seven want laser handheld that'll start my furniture on fire
across the room in a fraction of a second. You know,
we'll put that out of satellite or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
I don't think people are really thinking these big pictures
and getting at the popularity of cyber warfare. Let me
do a thought experiment, and that is let's say you're
in a trench in Ukraine and you can hear the
Russian tanks revving up, you know, ready to come attack you.
(16:11):
And some egghead scientists comes into your trench and he
has this black box with the big red button. He says, oh,
I've been developing this for years. It's a cyber weapon
that you know, if you push that red button, the
Russian tanks will stop. You'll mess with their computers or whatever,
you know. And you know, I haven't tested this in
(16:33):
the field, but it worked in the lab. Don't worry.
And and the poor soldiers there, well, what about a
bazookah I said, oh, sorreh, well, used up all your
funding on this, you know, cyber weapon. You know, so
the Russian tanks attack, Oh, they push that button, you know,
the tank stop and thirty seconds later they reboot and
squish you. You know. So I don't know about you,
but as a guy, I find it much more emotionally
(16:56):
satisfying to see a burning hole in the ground where
the tank used to be, you know, as I did
the job. And it's the same kind of with space. Now,
of course, I have a whole other briefing. I can
present sometime ninety four ways to attack satellites without creating debris.
You really don't have to do the debris thing, but
(17:18):
you're really not sure. You know, people when they're about
to die get very clever. So you're really not sure
if the satellite's faking its death, especially if you use
the cyber means. You know, you're not even sure exactly
who attacked you. I mean, let's say we're at war
in the Western Pacific, China, Taiwan, whatever, and you wake
(17:38):
up one morning and several of your satellites stopped working. Well,
you know, my computer stopped working last month. You know,
maybe that same thing happened. Maybe a solar flares irradiated
too much, maybe a micro meteorite hit it. Oh it's
human cause. Oh this you know, Romanian satellite came too
(17:59):
close accidentally you know, Oh, no human cause and intentional. Okay,
what is the intent now? Let's say, oh, it's the
Chinese attacking us where we were the Well, maybe it's
the Russians of the North Koreans messing with you and
starting to stir the pot. How do you know who's
doing it, what their intent is? Are they going against
(18:22):
command and control, decapitation, communication satellites, are the imagery satellites navigation?
Are they doing a demonstration attack, like, well, we're showing
we're really serious now kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
One of the things that I found really interesting in
the book was talking about these various ways, and I
believe these are a mix of proven technologies and maybe
some of them are more possible for the future, but
the ways that satellites can and will do battle with
one another. I believe you already mentioned grappling as a
(19:05):
mechanical grappling, but there are some other techniques in there,
and I thought you might discuss some of those.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Well, I've come up with some on my own head.
But you know, most of not all satellites have to
point very accurately at the Earth, their antennas, their imagery, whatever.
So they had what are called star sensors, you know,
in the back of satellite, look at the stars, and
they could orient themselves because there's no up so to speak,
(19:32):
in space. And I theorize, well, if you've got one
of these inspector maintenance satellites, whatever, and you float behind
it and present an upside down star chart to it
with the satellite flip over, because these are just dumb machines,
you know, So there's a lot of techniques. I don't know,
you know, if that would work. Certainly to my mind,
(19:57):
it's most effective weapon, not timeliness wise, but if someone
comes up there with the manipulator and you know China,
they gleefully told us about one of their supposedly dead
satellites and they used a satellite, came up close with
manipular arm and pulled it to what's called well sort
(20:20):
of graveyard orbit. It's very suspicious, but any rate, so
you can pull satellite out of orbit. But it's an
ideal weapon. A satellite coming up close to you, because
it's sort of like taking a satellite, putting in a wheelbarrow,
going in your garage and going at it. Well, let's
drill a hole, let's cut this wire, let's bend this,
let's all that. You know. Oh, let's paint the optics
(20:43):
with something that you know floats away a few weeks
later or something. You know. So you do a lot
of messing and there's a lot of people and unfortunately
one of them's Eline muss And I love Musk, but
who want to play the commercial entities who want to
play with army soldiers like children, And you know, Musk said, oh,
(21:07):
I'm going to give Ukraine these starlink terminals and all that.
And I'm pretty sure Russia attacked his systems for that,
but they don't really understand the consequences. And it's sort
of like Merchant Marine in World War Two. Well they
got sank two, you know. And I think I believe
there have been attacks on multiple satellite systems, not only
(21:32):
cyber attacks but others during the Ukrainian conflict. So this
thought that oh, I'm just going to play war and
the military is doing that too, that we're going to
take these satellites commercial statists and use them. And you know,
the commercial ones have really cool technology and probably cheaper
(21:52):
and so forth, But who pays for them when they
get attacked? I don't know how that works. And you know,
they live in what I consider Disney fantasy worlds like Starlink.
I don't know, ten fifteen thousand satellites, Well, you got
to attack each one. No, you know, I've seen cyber
(22:13):
warfare techniques like thirty five years ago, going through the
electrical plug into your computer and all. I mean, people
are very clever. They'll always find a way. And I've
you know, theorized well Elon's Starlink satellites have a they
can tell how close they're coming to each other and
have an algorithm to say, oh we're too close, let's
(22:33):
go away. Well, you do a cyber attack. You put
a negative sign in that algorithm, and when they get
too close to the satellites start moving even closer and
you kill them all at once. You know, I mean,
there's always a way on that. So I think it's
easy for us to lose a war in space due
to overconfidence, due to not thinking strategically. You know, what
(22:58):
exactly are the consequences, I guess militarily politically, and also
getting back to your teaching your adversary how to fight
you better ten years later or whatever. So maybe it
should withhold some weapons and shape not only the future
(23:20):
battlefield but the future political environment of well, oh gee,
look at this, we want that space war. Look at
all the junks flown around. Well, now all your allies
hate you. Now they are all these treaties restricting you.
Maybe you should have thought of that beforehand and said, well,
let's do it this way, maneuver this way, or whatever,
(23:41):
and so more improbable this new treaty won't be so
bad or something. I mean, think of the political now.
For years I've said, oh, look at this cool multi
billion dollar space weapons program, you know, And I said, well,
you know, we're starting to develop this now, why don't
we get the State Department in on this early on?
(24:02):
Because they're going to be part of I don't know
what used to be called National command authorities, but they're
going to be in the room with the President's deciding
whether attack or not. And if the State Department got
on early, they could say, well, if you tweak it
slightly later on, there would be more probably will prove
it or something, you know. And I was always told, oh,
(24:23):
we can't truss the State Department. You know, they'll just reveal,
you know, what we got or whatever. And you know,
all governments are like that, each department hates each other
and all that. But I've got over twenty eight thousand
members in my space warfare discussion group on LinkedIn, and
one of them is a former assistant Secretary of State,
(24:43):
and he says, yeah, they're right. State Department never knew
a treaty. It didn't like for space, you know, restricting
something in space. You know. So we've got all these
kind of undercurrents and getting back to children playing with toys,
it's conceivable that let's say the Space for US attacks
the satellite. They're certainly not going to tell the State Department.
(25:05):
There's certainly probably not going to tell the Navy or
the army or whatever. You know, we all have our secrets,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
You know. When I first started reading about the various
like anti satellite strategies in the book, I was reminded,
almost vaguely of a childhood viewing of the nineteen sixty
seven James Bond film He only lived twice, in which
we see early on in the picture a mysterious orbital
spacecraft capturing essentially kind of consuming another.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Space clamshell, if I recall.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, so you know, I don't know how this roughly
relates to the idea of mechanical grappling, or if this
is like a snapshot of some you know, filtered through
fiction sort of, you know, nineteen sixties, late nineteen sixties
understanding of conflict between spacecraft.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Uh. Yeah, well it's certainly the Chinese did the grappling
the Urugo or something. Certainly, but though that was a
supposedly dead object. If the satellite's non cooperative, though, you
can certainly do the grappling, you know, over the South
(26:15):
Pacific where we don't have any radars or something. Maybe
you could do it fast enough before we understand or
we don't have any ground control stations to say tell
the satellite, oh, start spinning or something like that. You know,
so as soon as you're accomplishing a counter space thing
or something that you know is trying to defend yourself, Uh,
(26:37):
the enemy has won, because if you start spinning, you
can't do your mission anymore, you know, and he's probably
attacking at some critical time in the battlefield, and so
he's you know, he's done his job. You don't have
to necessarily kill the satellite. And quite frankly, there's three
major areas that we've talked about for years. I mean,
(26:59):
you go against satellite, you can go against the ground controller,
or you can go against the link between the two.
And that's all three ways to do it. So there's
multiple ways to skin a cat I guess or something
like that that doesn't necessarily involve debris generation. But the
(27:20):
James Bond thing, you know, capturing, yeah, you probably could
do that. As a matter of fact, you could look up.
I think NASA had some net to capture satellites they
were doing research on. I remember seeing that, and I
suppose the net might work if it's you know, spinning
or something. But I've had my own theories, like what
(27:41):
I call the porcupine defense, and that is, you know,
in the nineteen sixties, satellites used to have the long
antennas sticking out of the ball. You know, well, if
you had these long wires that you inferled out going
out I don't know, half a kilometer or something like that,
nobody could approach you they tangle up in the wires.
(28:03):
Maybe the wires you have them electrostatic, and they give
them a shock or maybe somehow acidic or I don't know.
I think some simple defenses like that. Maybe for close approaches.
People talk about, oh, well we'll start maneuvering out of
the way we see it coming. Oh. You know, first
of all, if you let's say you had a space
(28:27):
weapon where I called lagrange points, they're equal gravitational potential
to retain the Earth and the Moon, and so they
just sort of sit their way out, you know, I
don't know, hundreds of thousands of miles something like that,
and all it takes is just a little bit of
feel to you know, hit it and have it come
(28:48):
screaming back down the gravity. Well, and come attack your satellite.
And if your satellite, oh I see something coming, I'm
going to maneuver a kilometer or two away. Well, well,
just looking at the physics the geometry. If you're fifty
thousand miles away and you sell how removed a few kilometers, Well,
(29:09):
I change a micro radian or something of my trajectory,
and I'm coming in like really fast, And I don't
know if there's much you can do. I mean, everything
can be easily hypervelocity in space, and it's not like
you're going to have fifty feet of concrete on your
(29:31):
satellite trying to defend from something coming in. I don't
think you can defend anything. And you know, the Air
Force all, oh, we're going to defend these commercial satellites,
and I don't know what that really means. Maybe you
try to jam the weapon coming at you or something
like that. But I think a lot of people living
in fantasy world's when it comes to space warfare.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Now, speaking of fantasy and James Bond, science fiction, science
fiction in general has of course been long obsessed with
visions of space warfare. Can you think of any examples
that tackle the technology or just sort of the concept
of space warfare as we're discussing it now in a
way that lines up with the technologies and strategies we're
actually facing.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
I can't think of any at the moment. First of all,
you know, you have tie fighters. I don't think you
can be manned. Man. You have all this extra weight
of oxygen and all the warmth, and they couldn't take
the G forces. If again, you're doing this maneuvering. You know,
all these things seem to have aliens and all because
there's more exciting. I don't know if I know of
(30:44):
any thing. I think the expanse I think that got
the closest to some of those space battles, you know,
between opposing space cruisers or whatever. I suppose you'd still
have to have kinetic one way or the other, because oh,
you got these great lasers. Well if you had a
(31:06):
mirror like finish on their spacecraft and you know, if
you spin it, it'd be you know, depositing the radiation
all around. And it's like we have ground based lasers,
but they can't go out to geosynchronous orbit. It just
isn't powerful enough. So if you're talking about I don't
know if battles would be from fifty thousand kilometers apart
(31:28):
or something. I just don't know about how all that
would work. And you know, maybe we're really talking about
AI and the machines will be fighting the machines in
one way or the other, you know, getting back to
space war, and why would you rather have a bunch
(31:50):
of satellites broken in space, hopefully without debris, because you
don't have to use debris causing things, then a bunch
of broken Ukrainian cities, and you know you're not killing anyone.
There's no sense to attack the International Space Station though,
just as a funny aside, who knows, twenty five thirty
(32:10):
years ago it is as some space conference in coverall springs,
you know, Air Force and the general giving the presentation, who,
by the way, dressed up in a World War two
outfit and acted like patent, you know, with a big
American flag bearing. Anyway, I stopped him on the way
out and I says, well, you know, the Russia is
on the International Space Station and we are doing like
(32:34):
the left hook or whatever. And he had binocas the
Russian cosmonaut had binoculars on there. What would you do?
And his first response was I'll shoot him. You know, well,
I don't know about discharging a weapon in you know,
putting a hole through the sides letting oxygen out, and
even the political implications, but of course, you know, generals,
(32:55):
I guess sort of think that way on it. I
even had some if he used five point seven by
two to eight bullet, it can penetrate the was a
Lexan armored goggles of an astronaut and the what is
the bulletproof suits, but it can't penetrate the bulkheads, the
(33:21):
metal bulkheads, you know, oh, kevlar suits. So boarding space stations?
Would we ever board the Chinese one?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (33:30):
My book does that. But because it's a theoretical sort
of theoretical. There's a lot of things in the book
that have happened to me in the past, but I
won't say which.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Now we've been talking about space weaponry and the near
future of space warfare. But what does all of this
mean for say, the future of space exploration as well
as like planetary defense against near Earth objects.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Well, I remember there were something on YouTube that's saying, boy,
if NASA had the budget of the military, this is
what they could do. So you know, what's more important
to you self defense military wise, or well science and
oh this is kind of cool and maybe fifty years
(34:13):
from now will be on Mars or something, you know,
So it's all a matter priority. And you could say, well,
what about exploring under the sea and things like that.
So I don't know, it's you know, it's an emotional
decision for countries to say, well, what's more important to us?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Now?
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I think we're probably almost there or very soon that
if a country loses the war in space, they lose
the war in the ground. I mean, think of the
US again in the Western Pacific. Would they be able
to communicate to the carrier battle groups without satellites? I
(34:55):
don't know if they u tropal scatter calm anymore? You know,
would we have our aircraft flying when we don't even
know where we're flying, We don't have imagery, and we
don't know how to avoid the you know, the anti
aircraft and what targets to service and all. I mean,
you get to the point where war in space maybe
(35:15):
is morally better than war on the ground. So how
important is that to a society versus Oh, yeah, NASA,
we're exploring this and that. Now I could again be
a wise guy and say, boy, elon, the commercial world
sure did a better job of trying to get to
the Moon than NASA, did you know? They really seemed
(35:38):
to be failing there and all that. So yeah, they
pour money into NASA, and or maybe we should just
fund the commercial world to do that kind of thing,
or maybe we should just get contributions from people who
think it's really cool to go to the moon, or something.
I mean again, I might be an old fogy here,
(35:59):
but the Mars, you know, the dust is extremely poisonous
and the radiation is extremely bad, and so you're gonna
end up being underground ninety nine percent of the time.
You're gonna get really tired of that red not sing
blue and all that. So I can see, you know,
if I was younger, Oh yeah, you know, go, you know,
(36:22):
colonize Mars and all that. Yeah, someday maybe we put
atmosphere on that, but you're talking beyond our lifetimes. And
same with the Moon.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Now.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
The Moon is really weird. I remember when I first
started out in the seventies and someone telling me, oh, yeah,
NASA asked the Air Force, well do you want a
base on the Moon? You know, and the Air Force
sort of scratched his heads, like, I don't know, it's
kind of far away. I guess not, you know. And
no one in my entire career, no one's cared about
(36:51):
the Moon except the last five, six, seven years. And
they're all sorts of like here at Albuquerque, Oh, we're
gonna put cell phone service on the Moon. What the
hell you're talking about? You know, you're gonna pay ten
thousand dollars a minute for three astronauts, you know, and oh,
you're putting these surveillance sensors on the dark side of
(37:11):
the moon, you know, surveilling what. And everyone seems very
worried about the whole thing. Now, I could be a
conspiracy to alien this, and I don't think so, or
maybe am I I theorize that. You know, when China,
when they land their TAKEO knots on the Moon, they
(37:32):
plant the flag abrogate the outer space treaty that says
you can't own crestal bodies, abrogate that. Ten minutes where
they land on the Moon, say now we own the Moon,
you know, sort of like Spain and Portugal I guess
did for the Western hemisphere. Cour it's good luck defending
that kind of So I wonder if they're worried about
(37:55):
that in some sense. And I also point out we
have this nineteen sixty seven outer space treatise as you
can't own celestial bodies. Well there's over eighty countries that
never sign that. I theorize that Elon can take one
of his es. He was building some launch ships. I
don't know he gave up on that, but you ship
(38:17):
it out to the territorial waters of one of these
countries and launched the moon and say, and now we
own the moon, or that country Ecuador or whatever owns
the moon and leases it back to Eline for ninety
nine years, like Hong Kong. You know, I'm not a lawyer,
but sounds like you could do that.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Fascinating. Well, Paul, where can people follow you online? Obviously
the book again is The Battle Beyond Fighting and Winning
the Coming War in Space or this is one of
the books. This is the one that I looked at
for the interview that's out now. But if people just
want to follow you, keep up with your work, learn more,
where can they find you?
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Well, I'm mostly on LinkedIn, so you can, like say,
twenty eight thousand members of people who are interested in
space warfare, So you can communicate through there, you know,
just send me a request I guess or that and
tell me who you are or whatever. Also, if you
(39:16):
looked up The Battle Beyond How to Fight Win Space
Wars on Amazon, you'll see all six books, and there's
way I think they have ways of liking me there
and you know, communicating that way. I think there's even
a website associated with it and all that, and that's
that's probably the best way.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
All right. Well, thanks again for coming on the shows.
Has been very insightful.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Okay, thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
All right. Thanks again to Paul Samanski for coming on
the show and chatting with me again. The book, co
authored with Jerry Drew, is The Battle Beyond Fighting and
Winning the Coming War in Space and it is available now.
If you would like to reach out to Joe and myself,
well you can do so in a number of ways.
I'll share that email in just a second. But hey,
(40:05):
you can follow Stuff to Blow your Mind the podcast
feed anywhere to get your podcast core science and culture
episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, listener mail on Monday's short
form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays, we set aside
most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film
on Weird House Cinema. Thanks as always to the excellent
JJ Possway for producing the show. And if you want
(40:25):
to shoot us that email, you can do so at
contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
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