Key Reflections
* Astropolitics refers to politics in space. Over time, what happens in space will shape human history as much as mountains, rivers, and seas have on Earth.
* Countries that adhere to the non-binding Artemis Accords are actively seeking to return humans to the Moon by 2025, with the ultimate goal of expanding space exploration to Mars and beyond.
* The UAE and Japan are both heavily invested in space exploration and dual-use technological development.
* China is seeking technological supremacy in space, aided by junior partner Russia. This can be thought of as a Space Race 2.0, which is primarily driven by economics and obtaining rare earth materials and metals embedded within the Moon.
* State sovereignty in space will become more contentious when political and military ties start to fray between countries. Scientific links could help bridge some divides.
* There will need to be cooperation between governments and private companies in space when it comes to exploration and financial imperatives.
Transcript:
SG: Dr. Sajjan Gohel
TM: Tim Marshall
SG: Welcome to the NATO DEEP Dive podcast, I’m your host Dr Sajjan Gohel and this is the second episode of our two-part discussion with the journalist, author, and broadcaster Tim Marshall.
In our conversation we look at Astropolitics, the politics in space. Potentially, what happens in space could shape human history the same way the geography of mountains, rivers, and seas have on Earth.
So, Tim, we’re going to talk to you about your new upcoming book, which is The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World. Can we describe this as the final part of your geography trilogy series? And how and when did you conceive the idea for this book?
TM: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I mean, obviously, it is marketing to call it The Future of Geography, so that it is a reminder of Prisoners of Geography and The Power of Geography and then yeah, this is part three in a trilogy of four as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would have it. The genesis in the beginning of it was when I was writing The Power of Geography, and I looked at Iran and Saudi Arabia and the UK, Turkey, the Sahel—and the previous book had had ten chapters, I thought, well okay, this needs ten chapters, and I was looking around for a tenth and thought, actually, you know, space—think of space as a geographic area with which we have a border. And so, I wrote the last chapter of that book about space, and I got to the end of it, and I thought, there is so much here, there’s a book in this—a book that is hopefully timely because we’re no longer talking about the future and “out there.” And I suppose that in a core, it’s about astropolitics. There’s more in it than that; there’s looking backwards took all the scientific and philosophical advances that got us to where we are. But it’s simply that we need to understand now that international relations now encompass outer space. They are not separate. And that all the power plays that are going on here are going on there as well now, and the blocs that we discussed in Part One that are emerging, whether it’s the American-led bloc or the Chinese-led bloc, or there will be probably a burgeoning Non-Aligned 2.0—that is also being repeated in space. So, you have the Artemis Accords, led by the Americans. And then on the other side, you have the Chinese space prowess with their junior partner, Russia, and a few others. So, it’s just time we stopped thinking about it as a separate place. And finally, I would also say the military aspect of it, again, the military people know you do not fight a modern war without thinking about what your assets are in space, notably, the satellites.
SG: There’s so many aspects to unpack in what you’ve been talking about. One thing, probably just for clarification, what is astropolitics?
TM: Astropolitics is politics in space. It is international relations in space. And it’s a good word because we know geopolitics, so it’s a good buzzword, “astropolitics.” There have been many thinkers and writers of it for many years. I particularly like a chap called Everett Dolman. He’s a professor at, I think, the US War College. And for me, he is the doyen of astropolitical thinkers. And, again, geopolitical thinkers are aware of Mackinder and the heartland theory, and Dolman—whom I should thank because he gave me a lot of help, because he’s a proper expert, in writing The Future of Geography—has come up with a sort of 21st century astropolitical version of the heartland theory, which is that he who dominates low Earth orbit dominates Earth. And behind that is the idea that if you did control the whole low Earth orbit, you would control all of the satellites, therefore you would see everything and nobody else would see anything, and that would give you control of the earth. And secondly, you would then be the only ones with access because you go through that space to get further out into space, to the Moon, etc., so you would control space travel. Now, obviously, no one country is going to dominate low Earth orbit or geosynchronous orbit or indeed the Moon. But just as on this planet, if your rival looks as if they might be moving there, you don’t give them free rein. And that’s why international relations is now being played out there, both in who’s got the satellites, what can they do, which are the threats, potential threats, and perhaps we could talk about the technology and dual-use. And then, further on from that, who will be on the Moon to get access to its precious metals? And the answer to that is the Artemis Accords countries, led by the States, and the Chinese and the Russians.
SG: Well, that certainly sounds like a very fascinating Space Race 2.0. I definitely do want to address that in a moment. I guess this is a big picture question then…
TM: Good. That’s the only thing I can do!
SG: What happens in space, will that shape human history as much as, say, the mountains, rivers and seas have on Earth, which your previous two books in many ways addressed?
TM: That’s a very good question. Yes, I think so, but I mean, that’s really long, long-term, because I do believe we are destined to live on other planets as a species, starting with the Moon. I mean, the Americans and the Chinese both say they will build Moon bases in the 2030s. And I think they will. And so that obviously has a massive effect on us as a people. But also, those mountains and geographies and the oceans, we’re already looking down at them from our satellites and learning so much. Our weather predictions, our modelling of climate change, are all predicated on what we learn from seeing from space. At a micro-level, there are, let’s say in Ghana, individual farmers, with an individual plot of land, perhaps half an acre, and the technology allows them to say, “In this part of that half acre at this time of year is the optimum time for you to be doing x, y and z.” So, it’s already shaping how we do that. And although this is not as much of an impact, but also the geography of Earth is very much connected insofar as…. You launch a rocket from west to east. Why? Because the earth turns west to east. And so obviously, you get a bit of a slingshot. That’s why you go in that direction. That’s geography. You launch as close to the equator as you can get, because the earth goes faster at the equator, so you’re getting even more speed, and that’s why the Americans launch from Florida, and the Russians launch in Kazakhstan, etc. So, all this geography is interrelated, which is why I thought it was legitimate to call it The Future of Geography —as well as marketing.
SG: Marketing aside, it’s definitely a very legitimate dynamic. Probably just for the benefit of our listeners, I’ll just quickly explain what the Artemis Accords are, because it is so important. So this is a non-binding, multilateral arrangement between the United States and other governments, some in Europe, some in Latin America, some in Asia, that are participating in what’s known as the Artemis program, which is an American-led effort to return humans to the Moon by 2025, with the ultimate goal of expanding space exploration to Mars and beyond. So, it is a very ambitious programme if you think about that. Who do you see, Tim, as being the key players in space? You mentioned the United States and China, so those are there. You describe Russia as a junior partner of China. Are there other countries that have specific skill sets that actually will be key to this?
TM: Yeah, I mean, it is the big three, China, USA, and then Russia—and they’re falling behind for many reasons, but you know, they have the incredible legacy of the Soyuz programme, and they are a world leader. On from that, the UAE has sent a probe to Mars. I mean, that’s impressive. And the UAE is a player, and they’ve actually just teamed up with the Israelis recently, which is another knock-on effect of the Abraham Accords. And they have big plans, those two countries, to work together. The Japanese, as befits an incredibly tidy nation—I don’t know if you’ve been to Japan, but there’s no litter—they are world leaders, well outer space leaders now, in space debris collection. And they are developing all sorts of satellites, which for example will throw a net over space debris, because it’s a big problem space debris, and they have satellites that have claws that reach out and grab, and the Japanese are brilliant at that. Satellites…lots of countries, to be honest with you, are now pretty good at satellites, including micro-satellites, they’ve got satellites the size of a Rubik’s Cube now, so of course you can get them up there a lot cheaper, and many more of them.
But I’m glad I mentioned the Japanese and the satellites that can grab things because that leads onto another thing which relates back to the Artemis Accords. If you have a satellite that can do that, in order to get rid of space debris, including old satellites, grab them, throw them into the atmosphere to be burnt up or throw them out into outer space…it can grab another satellite, it can grab my satellite, my satellite that is part of my nuclear early warning system. And we don’t have the laws. So the Artemis Accords have got all sorts of clauses in them, and what the Americans and the signatories are trying to do is establish the new norms and essential de facto laws of outer space, because the existing laws are no good—they were written 50-60 years ago, most of them are not ratified, they don’t take into account things like lasers, they don’t say how close one satellite can be to another. So, I can park my satellite right next to yours and at any moment reach out and grab it. And if that’s my early warning system, well, as you approach, I’m getting nervous. So, we don’t have the laws, and we very quickly need some internationally agreed proper 21st century laws. And I’ll give you an example. The Artemis Accords has a clause in it that talks about safety zones. Now this is eminently sensible. If I land on the moon and get out my shovel and spade and start digging for all the stuff that’s there that we need for 21st century technology, I don’t want you landing so close that you throw up dust or knock my spacecraft over or whatever. So, I have a safety zone, and I shall define how much it is, five square kilometres, whatever it is. But by what law do I prevent another country from landing as close as it wants to me? Especially once I found all the rare earth materials and spent millions finding them, “Oh, well, we’ll go there as well.” It’s the Klondike Gold Rush potential. So, we don’t have anything. And the problem with the safety zone is that it needs enforcing. So now I’m going to potentially have to put some defensive mechanisms around there in my sphere of interest, which is another word for a safety zone, I think. And yes, there are laws about not putting weapons of mass destruction in, but now I’m just going to put a few lasers there. So yeah, I know it sounds sci-fi, but we’re there now. This isn’t the distant future. And we so need some laws.
SG: Where is Superman when you need him? I’m just reminded by the fourth movie when, I think it was called The Quest for Peace or something, he somehow took out all the nuclear missiles around the world.
TM: Please, come back Superman.
SG: It was very interesting what you were saying, Tim, on so many different aspects. The one thing that I thought was really curious was the cultural dimension that can come into play in space. You mentioned Japan. I have been there many times, and you’re absolutely right, it is a very organised and clean country. And, for example, in the World Cup in Qatar, you saw Japanese supporters cleaning up rubbish after the matches. It’s interesting that what you’re describing that what they want to do in space is get rid of all the space junk. So, in many ways they are bringing their cultural dimension to space.
TM: Yeah…I mean, I don’t buy this but…there’s a film called The Wandering Earth, big blockbuster Chinese sci-fi film, it’s pretty good, Chinese director Chinese actors, and it’s an interesting dynamic in that all those usual Hollywood films, where it’s the Americans who are leading the way and yeah, it’s all good, we’ve got some Russian and Chinese help, but we’re in charge, and they flipped that, and it’s the Chinese. The basic premise is, the Sun is expanding, we need to get out of here. And the director says, “If the Americans made this film, it would be about thousands of American-made rockets taking hundreds of thousands of people off the planet, because that’s how they view things. We view taking care of the earth, this is the Chinese way.” So, in this film, one side of the earth has gone dark, and it’s got rocket boosters on it, and is actually propelling the wandering Earth across the solar system to reach a new sun. And he says that’s a cultural thing, that the Chinese tried to look after the planet. Okay, fair enough. It’s also that this venture is led by China with America as the junior partner…. Oh, and by the way, the Politburo in Beijing fully backed this. There was a press conference in the foreign ministry when it was released. And it was just a normal press conference about China-Indonesia relations or whatever it was, and apropos to nothing, the foreign ministry spokeswoman just said, “Oh, by the way, have you seen The Wandering Earth? It’s brilliant, you should really go and see it,” because it fits with the Chinese narrative, A) of their technological supremacy, which they will achieve, and B) their care for the world. So…you just reminded me when you talked about these cultural differences, because, yes, just like the previous Space Race, this one is also about proving to the world your technical prowess, and therefore your system is best, which the Americans won last time. The biggest difference this time, though, is that that really was to prove you were superior—your culture, your technology. That is an aspect of the current space race, but the real driver is economics. The real driver is getting the rare earth materials, the metals, potentially the helium-3 off the ice in the Moon. That’s the driver. But just as the flag has always followed the trade here, the flag will follow the trade out there as well.
SG: Well, let’s talk about those precious metals now and also the dual-use technology that you were talking about. This all sounds like we’re heading into tensions and problems down the road, especially when it comes to resources that can strengthen a country and give a country strategic advantage. And then you have this notion of the Space Race 2.0 occurring. How do you see this unfolding?
TM: With some cooperation. Not all the links have been cut, although the International Space Station is going to be put out of service, and we are not cooperating with the Russians once that happens, in space. And I’m afraid that the Wolf Amendment, I think it was called, bans NASA from cooperating with China, which I think is a mistake. They’re worried about them stealing intellectual property and stuff. So, we’re already seeing those tensions. The direct-ascent anti-satellite, ASATs they’re called…India, China, Russia, and America have all tested firing a missile from the earth at a satellite— and one of their own satellites, I hasten to add—and blowing it into a thousand pieces, so the Japanese can come along and try to clear it up. So those tensions are there because that creates more space debris, and the Chinese one when they did it created, I think, more debris in that one explosion than the whole history of space exploration. So those tensions are there.
Another…this is not theory, this is fact. Russian invasion of Ukraine—obviously many of the munitions are guided by the satellites, but they knocked out part of the Ukrainian internet. Elon Musk and SpaceX flew in several thousand Starlink terminals and distributed them around the parts of Ukraine where the internet had gone off. Within a few days, they had the internet back up and running. Lovely, thank you very much. But those terminals were also used by the Ukrainian military to target Russian soldiers and kill them. So, it’s an open question: does that make Starlink a military target for the Russians? It’s been used to kill Russian soldiers. Now, they tried to dazzle it; that technology is also here, you can dazzle and blind satellites from the earth. So, all those things are adding to the tension. But these can all be done through bilateral talks, and we can solve this.
I think the bigger problem is the one I alluded to earlier. Toyota have spent hundreds of millions developing a new space buggy, a rover for the Moon. These are going to be sealed, you’ll be able to take your suit off inside them, it’s not like the 60s or 70s versions. So, they’ve spent all that, and let’s say there was another Japanese company that is developing mining equipment. Let’s say they partner with somebody else. And they’ve gone to the Moon, and they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars finding the best place in the South Pole to mine. And let’s say they go with the Brits because we have lots of cooperation with them, and we start. And then three or four years later, another country, let’s say Russia, rocks up and lands near them and starts mining, but they’ve declared their safety zone. And given that those two countries have spent those hundreds of millions of dollars developing that, does Russia have any right to come in and just take advantage of all that? Well, morally, no, but legally? So that’s that sort of future scenario, which I don’t see why it wouldn’t happen, given that we’re going after these resources because it’s your tungsten, your helium-3, which theoretically you can use for nuclear energy, and everything else that we need, the lithium—it’s all supposed to be there. And given that we need that, and there’s a finite amount here, it’s first-come, first-served because it’s a finite amount there. So, we need to start thinking and talking about this now and getting in the rules and regulations now, not when an event happens in 10, 15 years’ time.
SG: Well, that leads me to my next question actually, which is how does state sovereignty in space work? Can it work, and is it possible to have multilateralism in space? Or is it as you just said, first-come, first-served?
TM: Well, we’ve proved that it is possible, haven’t we, with notably the International Space Station, and also there’s wonderful things like the Apollo docking with the Soyuz and the handshake in space and all that. And the Wolf Amendment that I mentioned that forbids cooperation with China from NASA. Every now and again, there are little loopholes…from memory, I think when the Chinese landed a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon, I think the Americans and NASA helped them with some of the logistics of getting it down there, and then they both shared data with the world. So, there are these openings. And we really need them because they are links between us—that when the political and military links start to fray, if you can keep the scientific links, you have these bridges you can go across. So, there is that aspect of it. But yeah, we both mentioned law now. I just don’t think that the laws are there. There is the Moon Treaty; it says no one nation will appropriate the Moon. Yes, they will. And the Outer Space Treaty. So, we need new ones. I mean, there’s so many of them, there’s different aspects, and this one’s more—if you regard murder as fun, which I don’t—but this is more sort of fun speculative. At the moment on the space station, if in the Japanese module, a new experiment is carried out and something new is invented, it is considered legally to have taken place in Japan, and therefore is Japanese intellectual property. If a Japanese astronaut would unfortunately kill another Japanese astronaut in that module, Japanese law applies. If it happens in the airlock, and they kill an American, it’s less clear. What happens if one astronaut kills another one during a spacewalk outside of the space station? I know this is all fun stuff to talk about, especially for lawyers, but yet we don’t have that sort of law. And I thought it was very interesting, and people don’t follow this stuff because it’s too not here and now. I think it was last year, the Canadian parliament amended its laws and said that Canadian law will extend to the surface of the Moon, because it’s trying to be ahead of the game, that—I’m pretty sure they’re a signatory to the Artemis [Accords]—if something happens in one of their modules in the Moon, in the lunar base, they want to be ready that their law can take care of that. But as far as I know, they’re the only ones so far.
SG: Yes, and I do believe that Canada is part of the Artemis Accords. I guess the angle that then comes into play here is that—you touched upon it when it came to private companies and their satellite technology—do you see an effective cooperation between governments and private companies in space, or are companies going to almost be competition to countries when it comes to space exploration and their own financial ambitions?
TM: I think they inevitably will be interlinked because politics gets involved. For example, SpaceX, they are ahead of NASA, certainly in the reusable technology. It is Elon Musk’s SpaceX that has pioneered a rocket being able to go up and in the first stage come back down and land. I mean, it’s incredible. Therefore, that massively reduces your costs. It means so many more people can now have entry to space. Nigeria makes its own mini-satellites and can get lots of them up on a SpaceX rocket for example, Falcon 9, I think it is. But if SpaceX does something that the American government fundamentally disagreed with, well, it is launching from American soil, and there are laws and regulations, just as there are laws and regulations for an airplane taking off from American soil. And so, there is inevitably these connections between them. His [Elon Musk’s] Mars Shot 2050, a million people, that simply was not going to happen, but he said, “By 2050, I want a million people on Mars,” including himself for his birthday. Again, you’re going to need NASA’s help. So, I just think it’s inevitable that there will be the connection. And when it comes to China, of course, as you know, there is no company that is actually separate from the state, not in reality. All Chinese companies report to the Communist Party. So, there’s no separation really there. So, it’s inevitable that there will be, as I said, the flag following the trade. And the example we have down here is the East India Company; it had its own private army and went out there and eventually it became so important to the British state that it was pretty much amalgamated into the British state, the soldiers, and they were one and the same. I just think that sort of behaviour, that pattern will be repeated, I suspect.
SG: A couple of final questions to throw at you, Tim. So, aside from our mutual obsession with football, both you and I love maps, cartography. People can’t see it right now, but you’re talking to me from your office with lots of maps in the background. Will you have some in your book of some kind?
TM: Yes, they’re pretty basic. There’s a map of the different orbits: low Earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit, where the moon is. There’s another one of the Lagrange points. These are L1, L2, L3, L4, L5. These are places where two bodies hanging in space, the gravity between them, there’s a sweet spot, the Lagrange point, where you can place a spacecraft, and it’ll stay there without needing fuel. So theoretically, you could park all your rare earth metals and know that when you got back after a year, they’d still be there, that sort of thing, so there’s a map of that. I think there’s a map of who has launched sites around the world, but mostly it’s like pictures of the space shuttle, Musk’s, the Chinese space station they’re building. It’s things like that. I wish there could be more maps, but A) it’s expensive, B) they’re not in colour because that’s even more expensive. One day perhaps we’ll do a big space map. I mean, it’s hard to map space, isn’t it, because there’s no up and down, and there’s no real left and right or east and west, you know, it just is. But it’s a work in progress.
SG: It’s still going to be very important to get a kind of idea, and, I think, forgive the pun, you’ve mapped it out.
TM: Yeah, I am keen, but again, it’s hard to depict this. Actually, perhaps we should have put in the Van Allen radiation belts, which is like two donuts around the world. But I am keen…to talk about that it does have its own geography, such as low Earth orbit, geosynchronous. These are areas that you want. You don’t care about the Van Allen belt, other than go through it as quickly as possible because it’s full of radiation or avoid it altogether. There’s a geography to the Moon in that the poles are where the water is, which is almost certainly where we will have the first bases. And I thought it was important to let us understand that we’re not just talking about this featureless expanse. It has its own geography.
SG: Very much so. I think I’ve actually thought of a fourth idea for your geography series, but I’ll tell you that offline, so no one steals it.
TM: I did say it’s a trilogy in four parts.
SG: Well, Tim, as always, it is so fascinating to talk to you. I’m very fortunate to have known you for a number of years, and your experience and wealth of knowledge is incomparable to anyone else.
TM: Yes, in its paucity. Now, listen, you were kind enough to say earlier about my primary research and all the rest of it…I am a generalist. I hopefully have some ability in putting relatively complex ideas across in an understandable way. But I get the information from real experts. But, you know, a generalist, it’s not such a terrible thing to be.
SG: Again, very humble as always. And just to remind everyone, Tim’s new book is The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World. And it’s certainly going to be one of the most important books in 2023 and no doubt will be read around the world like his previous ones have. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been in airports, in conferences, and someone has a copy of one of your books. So, this will probably now add to the growing list of that.
TM: Music to my ears. Thank you, Sajjan.
SG: Thank you, Tim, for joining us on NATO DEEP Dive and once again, hope to have you back again.
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This transcript has been edited for clarity.