SPACE FORCE: The Secret Orbit - Arms Race in Space | SpaceTime - WELT Documentary

foreign [Music] [Music] foreign the Earth's orbit a part of our economic infrastructure the information and financial flows of our globalized world travel through space mankind depends on the satellites in space since the dawn of the Space Age military systems have been deployed in Earth orbit too and the major powers are bolstering their capabilities near Earth space is being militarized [Music] military so what is the military's involvement in space about first what it isn't about it isn't about stationing bombs in space and then dropping them on the earth it's about protecting space-based assets such as Earth observation satellites navigation satellites and communication satellites because nowadays this is a critical infrastructure imagine if the GPS system went down quite a few things on Earth would cease to function too that's why the United States recently founded a new branch of the military the so-called space force they called their soldiers guardians but they don't work as astronauts guarding things in space but rather are based on Earth and observe what's going on up there from the ground they even have their own unmanned shuttle-like spacecraft the so-called X-37B May 17 2020 Cape Canaveral Florida and Atlas 5 is launched into Earth orbit for the United States space force the rocket is carrying an X-37B into space the spacecraft is designated as an OTV or orbital test vehicle and was originally developed by NASA at least two of these unmanned mini shuttles regularly travel into space on military or intelligence agency missions 20 minutes after launch the spacecraft enters Earth orbit the purpose of the mission top secret we can draw our own conclusions about what they actually intend to do and what's possible such as deploying various objects and conducting experiments under weightless conditions the United States is fairly transparent when it comes to providing a superficial description of their activities but we have no way of knowing what's going on up there exactly the X-37B is approximately 9 meters long weighs 5 tons and can transport a payload of up to 250 kilograms into Earth orbit or bring it back again experiments a small satellite or several mini satellites The Secret of spaceships can remain in space for over two years before autonomously returning to the Earth and we can only speculate about their missions as with nearly all military objects in space well you can threaten satellites you can shoot satellites down satellites can shoot each other down we're still a long way from being able to install something like a laser in space that can cause significant damage on earth like you may have seen in James Bond films safeguarding the domestic military and economic infrastructure this is one of the main missions of armed forces around the world today in 2019 the United States established a new branch of the military the United States space force the move also serves to underscore America's status as a space Power space force is space force sounds spectacular of course so it attracted a lot of attention but it was really just a logical development it is a space force this space force which was formed from the space command has the same basic duties as a branch or special unit of the military April 26 2021 a Delta IV heavy launches reconnaissance satellites into Polar orbit for the U.S military intelligence service nro the U.S intelligence Services operate their spy satellites independent of the recently established U.S space force but the space Force's tasks include protecting American Military Intelligence and civilian space-based infrastructure [Music] the commercialization of space flight has led to a huge increase in the number of objects in orbit satellites are easily acquired targets and communication with them is for the most part unsecured this is forcing Nations the world over to completely reconsider space security [Music] space security is becoming an increasingly important matter in light of how Reliant our society already is on what I would certainly consider critical infrastructure in spaceguarding the operation of this critical infrastructure must be a top priority this means ensuring that the services we use from or via space aren't compromised as a result of accidents unexpected events or even intentional acts by Third parties ever since we conquered space the Earth's orbit has been used by the military at the dawn of the Space Age this was primarily a matter for the two superpowers the Soviet Union and the USA the move into space was an aspect of the arms race during the Cold War up until the collapse of the Soviet Union the two blocks were responsible for 93 percent of all satellite lodges in the good third of them were military objects in civilian Earth observation satellites collected data for the military and also the various intelligence services and the same is still true to this day nowadays every modern Army is reliant on satellite data in March 2021 France conducted the world's first major military space exercise the U.S space force and German space command also took part in the simulated defense against an attack in space when we look back we can see that the 50s and 60s were marked by the construction of intercontinental ballistic missiles then came the Cold War and even the civilian space agencies recruited their astronauts from the military then later in the 70s and 80s the focus turned more toward observing the adversary thought about the Russians built their military space station and the Americans their space shuttle which was also used for military purposes in summary you could also say that all these Technologies served as a demonstration of technological strengths the second world war transitioned seamlessly into a cold war between East and West the first man-made object to reach space was the German A4 rocket referred to as the V2 in Nazi propaganda the V stood for fegelton's or retaliation weapon from 1944 these Rockets brought death and destruction to London in particular but during test launches they also flew into space [Music] these rockets and German scientists formed the basis of the American post-war Space Program Nazi Germany's space-capable rocket was part of The Spoils of War along with its Constructors the American rocket program was led by Werner Von Brown Chief developer of the A4 Bunn Brown and his team worked primarily on the Saturn V the moon rocket the Soviet Union gathered German scientists and their knowledge following the War II its space program was run by the airplane designer Sergey corollife Corolla outsmarts The Americans on October the 4th 1957 the Soviets launched the first man-made satellite Sputnik 1 into Earth orbit this Sputnik shock marks the beginning of the Space Race and the arms build up in space too [Music] with both the United States and Russia launching their first icbms in the same year and so began the arms race the atom bomb defines the cold war between east and west the nuclear threat reaches New Heights with the development of sub-orbital Delivery Systems in the mid-1950s nuclear Annihilation suddenly becomes very tangible in both the East and the West the military aspect of the Space Race becomes increasingly evident foreign every time in advance was made by one side it meant the other side had to be concerned that their adversary may have gained a strategic Advantage as a result oh that's at the end of the day it was always about which ideology was Superior initially the U.S Navy Army and Air Force each worked on their own rocket projects thus splitting available resources in the prestigious Space Race the Americans were lagging far behind [Music] formation of the civilian space agency NASA and the military research and development agency DARPA that the USA finally pooled its resources in response to the shock waves sent through the political establishment by Sputnik an when the Americans formed NASA in 1958 they founded DARPA at the same time these two agencies collaborated on a lot of joint projects perhaps the most fascinating was the famous X-15 rocket-propelled aircraft it had so much power that it could carry its Pilots into space hanging beneath the wing of a converted B-52 bomber is probably the most spectacular machine that the U.S Air Force and NASA had ever flown the X-15 a rocket-powered experimental aircraft developed by the Aerospace Company North American Aviation the X-15 which was made from titanium was a top-secret technology Vanguard intended to fly to the edge of the atmosphere and Beyond [Music] X-15 was conceived as a manned Hypersonic missile which means it was designed to reach over five times the speed of sound it was no longer a true airplane and not quite a true rocket its job to break speed and altitude records and carry the first human an American into space North American Aviation was already designing the x-15b which was conceived as a pure spacecraft intended to enter Earth orbit but the Sputnik crisis upset the engineer's plans there was no time left for further development [Music] the Americans now wanted to use an existing rocket to put the first man into space as quickly as possible NASA was responsible for the project which was designated Mercury if the Soviets control space they can control the Earth was how John F Kennedy sought and time was of the essence for Science and Above All America Navy pilot and NASA astronaut Alan Shepard was to be the first person to reach space that was the plan at least but the American dream was shattered on April 12 1961. barely three weeks before the USA's first manned space flight Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin travels into space he makes one orbit of the Earth in his spaceship vostok one before returning safely to Russian soil a further defeat for the Americans in the space race [Music] Yuri gagarin's successful flight is a disaster for the capitalist West and a huge success with the Soviet Union thank you [Music] President Kennedy now announces a new and far more ambitious goal Landing the first human on the moon July 19 1963 Joe Walker squeezes into a spacesuit the Air Force pilot is officially attached to NASA and is assigned to the X-15 project unaffected by the developments surrounding NASA's Mercury space program the test pilots pushed the infernal machine to one record after the next the home of the X-15 program is the Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave desert in California Rogers dry lake with its smooth surface provided for ideal test conditions three of the experimental aircraft are built they're powered by a controllable liquid-propelled rocket motor with around 300 tons thrust the X-15 cannot take off under its own steam though so converted B-52 bombers serve as launch planes [Music] foreign Joe Walker had already sent a speed record with the X-15 6605 kilometers per hour nearly six times the speed of sound this was beaten by Air Force pilot Pete Knight in October 1967. at 7274 kilometers per hour he and the X-15 still hold the speed record for a manned aircraft to this day the B-52 bomber carries the X-15 to an altitude of almost 14 000 meters then the aircraft is released and Joe Walker ignites the rocket motor the machine accelerates to almost six times the speed of sound the X-15 takes Joe Walker to an altitude of 106 000 meters crossing the boundary to outer space in the process with this flight Joe Walker becomes an astronaut the purpose of the test is to demonstrate that a piloted aircraft can reach space and return back to Earth the x-15b spacecraft was not the only casualty of Kennedy's Civil Moon program work on the dinosaur also known as x-20 was discontinued as well the x-20 was a military orbital glider being developed by the U.S Air Force to serve as a satellite transporter long distance reconnaissance plane and bomber the specifications of the planned military spacecraft also included the ability to Target and Destroy enemy satellites in 1963 the Americans canceled the x-20 project which NASA was also involved in for good the Soviets also conduct research on a military orbital space plane in the shape of the mig-105 Spiral but this project is discontinued at an early stage too in parallel with the civilians-based program the Americans work feverishly on a succession of new reconnaissance satellites their purpose is to provide a detailed Glimpse behind the Iron Curtain an orbital reconnaissance station based on the Saturn V rocket and Gemini capsule is also under development the manned orbital laboratory or mol was officially designated as a research laboratory in actual fact its purpose was to spy on the Soviet Union it was to be crewed by U.S military pilots who had been trained as astronauts then in 1969 this Air Force project was canceled as well the Spy lab never left the Earth [Music] only one test launch was carried out using a model the seven mol astronauts were transferred to NASA and later flew in the space shuttle program which was also used by the military the American moon landing in July 1969 marked the culmination and simultaneously the end of the space race [Music] the systems developed for the manned space program also serve as the basis for intercontinental ballistic missiles it's now possible to deliver nuclear warheads to the Enemy Within half an hour it was the doctrine of mutual assured destruction the idea is that if one side say Russia were to attack the United States the United States would still be capable of annihilating Russia put simply whoever shoots first dies second she stepped a spider even by the end of the 1950s it's clear to both superpowers that they each present an unprotected Target to the other side's nuclear Arsenal [Music] enormous radar stations are built in the east and west for a single purpose to detect a possible attack at an early stage the United States installs a space-based monitoring system the launch and trajectory of hostile intercontinental ballistic missiles should be detected by ground-based antennas and with satellites in space these systems cannot defend against an attack they serve merely to ensure that a Counter-Strike is launched as swiftly as possible the Americans had their icbms the Russians had theirs and they posed a mutual threat so what now someone had the idea of Simply using high tech to beat the Russians something to prevent them from taking any action and that they couldn't do anything about such as ground-based Hypersonic railguns or x-ray lasers in space what wasn't taken into consideration was that these projects cost so much money and didn't work effectively so they had to be canceled after a few years anxiety about the constantly growing nuclear threat prompted U.S president Ronald Reagan who came to office in 1981 to raise the stakes dramatically he increased the United States defense budget to dizzying new heights part of this went into an anti-missile defense program he conceived better known as SDI or Star Wars the former Hollywood actor proudly announces to the world his own personal vision for National Defense what if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S retaliation to deter a Soviet attack that we could intercept and Destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies system was intended to destroy incoming Soviet icbms and thus finally give the American people a feeling of security and their president to good night's sleep [Music] laser battle stations in space and anti-missile rayguns the vision of Cold War Warrior Reagan I signed basing our security on the principle of retaliation is not tenable I mean after we've been attacked and sustained substantial damage we retaliate it doesn't make sense it would be far more sensible and safer to be able to defend against the attack in the first place that was Ronald Reagan's logic Ronald Reagan's logic on the other side of the Iron Curtain the reaction was one of shock and outrage Yuri on dropoff who was Kremlin boss at the time calls the program insane the European allies aren't pleased about the unilateral American decision either [Music] due to the geography of NATO at the time as it was before the fall of the Berlin wall and the iron curtains it's extremely difficult to develop a defense concept that affords the same security to all NATO partners [Music] the missile defense Shield would have meant an end to the Strategic nuclear balance and Reagan's allies in Europe wouldn't be protected by anything the program comprised a host of complex research projects the idea was to intercept the Soviet icbms using a combination of land sea air and space-based Weapons Systems [Music] you have to bear in mind what it was like at the time he presented the initial ideas in 1983. I think people were still influenced by the Star Wars films and I suspect they thought that that sort of Technology wasn't too far off it was utterly unrealistic back then in terms of the laser power available and logistical capabilities it was really just a pipe dream today however it certainly is possible to destroy metal at a certain distance using lasers that's possible so theoretically we could do this today but the biggest problem has yet to be solved you have to get an energy source into orbit that's capable of powering the laser so it's capable of causing really significant damage in response to the American missile Shield the Soviets developed polius a 77-ton space battle station intended to destroy American missiles using a laser not only that polius was to be capable of deploying nuclear warheads too the project fails the unarmed prototype falls short of orbit and burns up over the Pacific in May 1987. Nicole Gorbachev who came to power two years earlier sees the costly arms race in space as yet another reason to fundamentally reform the economically struggling Soviet Union a policy that eventually leads to the implosion of the Soviet Empire space Force's Central tasks is maintaining a satellite catalog to begin the work began in the 1960s as a response to the Russian icbms and in this context satellite doesn't just mean all the functioning satellites up there but all the fragments orbiting the Earth too including space junk understand what's nice is that everyone can look at it it doesn't list the American secret objects of course and that in turn is why every space-faring nation plus Giza maintains its own catalog food every entry in these catalogs means that we know the precise trajectory of a piece of debris and that means we can work out in advance the chances of a collision with real satellites so these catalogs play a key role in protecting the International Space infrastructure [Music] geospace is highly commercialized and down on Earth the struggle for economic power and political influence between east and west escalates private Global corporations join The Fray and all rely on the data streams from the satellites in space [Music] I think many people are unaware of how much we rely on precise time signals nowadays which by the way are propagated by a navigation system that also depends on these time signals and are used globally for such things as making bank transfers and controlling the carefully balanced electricity grades you need a very precise time signal for this and it's provided by the GPS Galileo or another navigation system without it we would have major problems Germany has its own space command stationed at udem in North Rhine Westphalia it's tasked with safeguarding Germany's operational capacity in Earth orbit basket what's going on in the part of space that's interesting to us who's operating there what's the situation in terms of space junk for instance what satellites belonging to which actors are orbiting there and what is their purpose their mission and how can we best protect our own satellites and of course the military considerations should a conflict or crisis situation development foreign is monitored constantly the multitude of objects in Earth orbit presents an enormous space security Challenge and it isn't just about the military considerations [Music] one of the biggest threats is junk orbiting the Earth there are around twenty thousand objects larger than 10 centimeters in Earth orbit [Music] most of it is space debris inactive satellites remnants of rockets and debris from collisions all of this and more is monitored by the German space command center space surveillance is one aspect first we determine the position of an object then the space intelligence unit identifies it what is it is it an active satellite what's its likely purpose and how is it behaving the third major complication we have here is space weather that is the influence of the sun on this architecture here a phenomenon we cannot control but whose effects we still have to take into account during solar flares our sun ejects vast quantities of particles into space protons that hurdle toward Earth this high energy radiation can damage satellites in the event of a potential Hazard The Operators are forewarned so that they can reposition their satellites in such a way that they present as small a Target as possible so-called re-entry events are monitored too and a warning issued as necessary they pose little direct threat to one's own troops or facilities but the site of objects burning up in the sky could lead to the wrong conclusions being drawn on the ground one of the most important tasks is preventing collisions in space satellites regularly find themselves on a collision course debris and dead satellites racing around the Earth are an ever-present Danger attacks on one's own satellites need to be detected and foreign space activities monitored and evaluated to this is an illustrative depiction of such an encounter between two objects in geospace with the corresponding mathematical probability of where the two objects may be located based on the data we were provided earlier with diminishing probability moving outwards which means both objects could be relatively far apart in which case there would be no risk of collision but it's also possible for both objects to be located precisely here so we're in an area of mathematical certainty or uncertainty and risk management where at some stage a decision has to be taken as to whether an evasive maneuver is necessary another system tasked with increasing safety in orbit is the German space radar gestra having a national system like this ensures independence from other nations the highly sophisticated radar surveys geospace up to a height of around three thousand kilometers and gathers data to create a picture of the current situation in space the data acquired by gestra are collected and evaluated by the German space command center in udem they are incorporated into the daily space situational awareness assessment the most powerful space surveillance radar systems is located near Bond Tyra an acronym for tracking and imaging radar originally constructed as an early warning system Tyra is especially good at observing individual objects in space the radar is being constantly upgraded and is state of the art Tyra is used when we want to scrutinize something in details basically it allows you to study the shape of a satellite how big is the solar array what structures are identifiable on the surface of the satellite what antennas does it have where are they pointing these are all things that can be incorporated into the evaluation and can be distinguished by a highly sophisticated radar system gesture was developed and constructed for the German Aerospace Center DLR by The fraunhofer Institute for high frequency physics and radar technology consists of 256 individually controllable antennas and receiver units we're using new technologies here and attempting to miniaturize the whole system and we already have long-term plans to expand this system to one with several transmitters and receivers so we can make multi-static measurements here multistatic means we're not just observing space and the orbits of objects from one perspective but from a number of perspectives the German bundesffer uses reconnaissance satellites in Earth orbit for defense and operational planning fives are Looper radar satellites scan the Earth's surface for the military even at night and through a blanket of cloud the bundesfest satellites can resolve objects as small as roughly half a meter maybe even less its successor system Zara which uses three satellites is expected to provide even more precise data the Einstein military satellites are deployed depends entirely on what you want to observe Vince for icbms you need an overview of the Earth this is best achieved from so-called geostationary orbit at an altitude of 36 000 kilometers but if you want to get a detailed picture that is operate a reconnaissance satellite you need to be very close to the Earth at an altitude of say four to five hundred kilometers the American spy satellites have been referred to as Keyhole satellites since their Inception and are now in their 13th generation in September 2019 U.S president Donald Trump tweeted an image taken by one of these Keyhole satellites the photo shows in incredible detail a facility in Iran destroyed by an unsuccessful missile launch such images are normally top secret it was released intentionally of course and seemingly with the intention of showing off America's capabilities it was very impressive and even the experts queried whether it really was a satellite photo was it a drone or maybe a high-flying airplane that took this image it demonstrates how remarkable the optical reconnaissance capabilities of the American Military satellites are foreign Trump's photo probably originated from a kh-11 Canon series reconnaissance satellite a high-resolution optical telescope similar to the Hubble Space Telescope but pointing at the Earth being able to observe the presumed enemy from Earth orbit is probably the crowning achievement of the space age as far as the military is concerned the first dedicated U.S reconnaissance satellites were launched into space starting from 1959. they all used Optical cameras the largest of these early spy satellites was Keyhole 9 hexagon also known as Big Bird its cameras achieved a ground resolution of 60 centimeters back then it was not yet possible to transmit the images to the ground wirelessly so there were several re-entry capsules on board that were used to send the exposed films back to Earth [Music] following re-entry over the Pacific the capsules were suspended from parachutes they were then recovered in the air by a special Air Force Squadron stationed in Hawaii a complicated and time-consuming procedure that was still in use until 1986. [Music] the roles of film were then developed and analyzed in Washington by a team of specialists the millions of photos gave the American intelligence Services a detailed glimpse into enemy territory well aware that the Soviet Union was doing the same [Music] from a purely military perspective they're used to gather information on the military capacity of potential adversaries they also allow the various types of terrain to be examined and classified and then there's the pure intelligence gathering side that provides a rapid targeted response to various threat scenarios or developments in foreign countries whose activities we consider critical or militarily relevantage satellites are also deployed as so-called dual use objects their data are used for both military and civilian purposes one example of this is the American GPS navigation system the data from this military project are used by numerous civilian service providers for their applications similarly the military gathers and evaluates data from civilian Earth observation satellites in this case it's less about current situational awareness but rather building a detailed picture of terrain soil composition and even long-term topographical changes [Music] there are also private companies nowadays that collect and sell such data [Music] there are restrictions in terms of resolution however above a certain level of detail these data are no longer freely accessible [Music] the different types of satellites the military operates in Earth orbit are top secret too space weapons really do exist and there are two different kinds on the one hand there are so-called space to space weapons that is one satellite has a laser gun that it uses to destroy an enemy satellite this works very well in space because there's no atmosphere up there so these laser weapons are highly accurate on the other hand there are so-called earth-to-space weapons where a ground-based missile is used to destroy an orbiting satellite this sounds fairly straightforward but you have to bear in mind that such satellites travel at speeds of around 30 000 kilometers per hour so intercepting them is no easy task some countries have now mastered these Technologies but at some stage they have to be tested in November 2021 Russia uses a new Dole anti-satellite missile to shoot down one of its own obsolete reconnaissance satellites the Russian show of force generates at least 1 500 trackable fragments and endangers the International Space Station orbiting only about 50 kilometers beneath the blast altitude as a result The Cloud of debris created by the anti-satellite weapon test prompted NASA to take precautionary measures [Music] the ISS crew prepared to evacuate and entered the docked capsule I consider it a serious infringement of space security the fact is where there used to be just one object there's suddenly a whole host of objects and they aren't just polluting the immediate orbit as it was previously but are now creating a hazard in space for other satellites as well every Collision in Earth orbit generates additional clouds of debris a domino effect castellans I imagine everyone was astonished that anyone would do such a thing after all being able to use the shared space we have available to us as sustainably as possible is something that should concern us all such actions can only be viewed as thoroughly irresponsible the Russian test is similar to one conducted by the Chinese that provoked outrage in 2007. China destroyed one of its own meteorological satellites using a ground-based missile the target was located at an altitude of 850 kilometers the shooting down left behind roughly 3 000 detectable pieces of debris which will present a hazard in Earth orbit for a long time to come in the spring of 2019 India also demonstrated its ability to shoot down satellites at 300 kilometers above Earth the test took place at low altitude the debris burned up in the atmosphere within just a few weeks the Soviet era Cosmos 1408 which was shot down by the Russian noodle missile was orbiting at an altitude of around 490 kilometers above Earth why Russia deliberately increased the space debris Problem by conducting a test in this orbit defies Logic the United States has practiced shooting down satellites too in 2008 it destroyed the spy satellite USA 193 that was slowly falling out of orbit the debris burned up within a month an sm-3 was used for this it can intercept short and medium range missiles and Destroy satellites beyond the Earth's atmosphere a kinetic Warhead separates from the launch vehicle and heads on a collision course need on impact with usa-193 was 37 800 kilometers per hour [Music] we're actually involved in an arms race in space various Powers want to view space as a theater of conflict conflict ought a place for settling military disputes through Force of Arms and that's what they're currently aiming for right arming in the sense of increasing their capacities for disrupting and even destroying their adversary space-based assets Russia in particular sees space as a potential Battleground in July 2020 U.S reconnaissance stations registered an unusual event in Earth orbit the Russian satellite Cosmos 2543 apparently fired some sort of projectile the Americans described the event as a weapons test Moscow immediately denies the allegation it's certainly plausible that a weapons test was carried out considering how Russia's military program has developed testing and then possibly deploying space weapons is unfortunately a logical consequence that manifests itself and those weapons being tested and eventually being put into position there but considering we are talking about outer space you can't just go up there and take a look you have to rely on the data you have collected and then interpret that data the satellite that fired the object into space is no stranger on November 26 2019 a soyuz rocket launches with an unknown payload and unknown purpose having arrived in space a satellite separates from the launch vehicle 11 days later this satellite suddenly becomes two just a few days after this these two objects approach a U.S spy satellite the two Russian objects followed the U.S spy satellite in a perfect orbit and there's little the Americans can do about it satellites have fundamentally changed Warfare the ability to precisely control drones and cruise missiles anywhere in the world is just as dependent on satellites as the coordination of military missions and the acquisition of Target data the arms race in space is being accompanied by a kind of cyber War destabilization through the dissemination of fake news and subtle propaganda spread via the internet all wrapped up in an information war with targeted attacks on computer and communication systems to be it is it goes without saying that all the satellites flying around up there need to be controlled from the earth in effect they're being automatically controlled from some control center somewhere and someone could hack them but rather than demanding money to release the data again like your run-of-the-mill hacker they could try and take control of the satellites and misuse them for their own purposes U.S satellites are not the only ones to get uninvited guests the Americans are working with systems that can approach the satellites of other countries examine them and possibly even destroy them an attack overt or covert on the economic infrastructure and space would have disastrous consequences on Earth you could for example disable the railroad control center that Roots all the rail traffic which would bring all the goods or passenger trains to a standstill yeah the order or knock out the power grid in hamburgers you could switch it off without notice or disrupt the water supply all of the critical infrastructure depends on it systems nowadays to protect their own infrastructure in a crisis situation the world's militaries are developing new strategies communication navigation and reconnaissance tasks should no longer be performed by a few large satellites but by many small ones systems that are redundant thus making them less vulnerable this in dead set of Adam we are currently going down a very dangerous path in Space the major powers are actively jeopardizing the stability we'd achieved over the past few decades we cannot afford to do this we have to avoid Anarchy in space at all costs which is why all nations must stick to the rules and preserve space as a peaceful dimension in the event of a global conflict the enemy infrastructure in space is a prime and vulnerable Target satellites are clearly visible and their orbits well known they cannot be simply hidden in Earth orbit you don't need an Army in space to do this even if guns in space are nothing new the first weapon in space was the pistol carried by Yuri Gagarin not for use up there but down on the ground after landing he could have touched down somewhere in the taiga forest and have needed to protect himself against a brown bear and that's why there's a pistol on board every soyuz mission to this day despite the rumors American astronauts have never carried a pistol so to summarize why the military is in space we know that the Chinese Russians and Americans possess satellites capable of destroying other satellites thus All Nations need to protect their infrastructure in space especially their communication and navigation satellites that's the reason for military involvement in space in order to protect their satellites the major powers are militarizing space guarding the infrastructure in Earth orbit and being able to attack it is becoming a military priority an escalation in space would have disastrous consequences destroying satellites creates more and more debris a chain reaction as such a conflict played out in space could mean the end of space travel as well [Music]

Channel: WELT Documentary

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Keywords: full documentary, full documentaries, hd documentary, hd documentaries, free documentary, welt documentary, welt documentaries, full length documentaries, documentary film, top documentaries, reports, factual film, space force, orbit, secret orbit, space, arms race, documentary, x 37b, space command, ulrich walter, astronaut, military, war, satellites, nasa, esa, x 15, moon, us air force, bomber, arms

Id: urIOxlz6U3o

Length: 50min 45sec (3045 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 25 2022