Space Warfare and the Weaponization of Outer Space | Joan Johnson-Freese

In Episode 6 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joan Johnson-Freese about space warfare and the weaponization of outer space. Joan Freese is a professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College. She's been a faculty member at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies and the Air War College, which emphasizes the employment of air, space, and cyberspace in joint operations. Professor Freese has also served on the Space Studies Board of the National Academies of Science and has often testified before Congress on matters of space warfare and space security. She is the author of multiple books on space warfare and space security, among them, Heavenly Ambitions: America's Quest to Dominate Space, The Chinese Space Program: A Mystery Within a Maze, and her latest book, Space Warfare in the 21st Century.

In this episode, we go into outer space. We don't just stay in the low earth orbit (LEO) of the international space station, but move all the way to high (HEO), geostationary orbits (GEO) more than twenty-six thousand miles (35,786 km) above the Earth's equator, where some of our most valuable and vulnerable satellites operate. We look at what the United States, China, and Russia are doing in the area of space warfare. We look at what our militaries are doing to weaponization outer space. We learn about ASAT's, Kinetic Orbital Strikes, and Kinetic Kill Vehicles. We learn that any significant use of anti-satellite technologies could create a wall of space debris around earth orbit so thick, that we would be unable to launch anything into space including satellites, our space station, and any space missions to Mars and beyond for generations. Any and all satellite communications would go dark. Global distribution networks – including our food supplies, energy, and transportation – would grind to a halt. The global banking and financial system would collapse. Our communication infrastructure would be devastated. The implications of space warfare are catastrophic, and yet, the public is largely unaware of the dangers orbiting right above our heads. It's high time we take notice.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

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