The new space race: Sen. Mark Kelly on China's bold ambitions, America's policy & Russian threat

Transcript: The new space race: Sen. Mark Kelly on China's bold ambitions, America's policy & Russian threat

Ian Bremmer:

Hello, and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we are blasting off far into the great beyond. That's right. We're talking about space, a fascinating topic with out-sized implications for global security, international cooperation, and scientific discovery. Space has been in the news a lot recently. We've got the malfunctioning Boeing Starliner that stranded two NASA astronauts on the space station, can't get back. To China, returning samples from the far side of the moon. To Russia, possibly launching a counter space weapon. We are long overdue for a discussion about the future of US space policy.

So today, I am talking to a man who knows space and security better than anyone else in Congress and better than most in the country, Senator Mark Kelly. Late this summer, Kelly's name was floated as being on the short list for Kamala Harris's VP pick. But when I spoke with him, he was best known for a different kind of floating, logging more than 50 days in low Earth orbit. The former NASA astronaut and space shuttle commander currently sits on the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees. We talk about space defense, exploration, and the new space race with China. He's got a lot of thoughts on that 2023 spy balloon incident. And if you thought as a political scientist, I wouldn't ask him about aliens, well, put your tin foil hat on, my friends. It is a fun and far out conversation. Let's get to it.

Senator Mark Kelly, thanks so much for being on.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Great to be on. Thank you for the invitation.

Ian Bremmer:

You are an astronaut, or have been historically.

Senator Mark Kelly:

I was.

Ian Bremmer:

Can I still call you an astronaut? Is that okay?

Senator Mark Kelly:

You can call me pretty much anything except Scott, which is my twin brother's name.

Ian Bremmer:

Who also has been an astronaut.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Who was an astronaut as well. We each flew in space four times. I flew four times as the pilot or the commander of the space shuttle. My brother flew two missions on the space shuttle, once as the pilot, once as a commander of the space shuttle.

Ian Bremmer:

This is your identical twin brother.

Senator Mark Kelly:

My identical twin. And then he flew up to the International Space Station on the Soyuz, the Russian rocket and spacecraft. And he ultimately spent a year in space on the space station.

Ian Bremmer:

So he took the Soyuz up. Is that better or worse than taking a Boeing rocket up these days?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Well, I'm not going to comment on our good friends from Boeing. They've had some challenging times. I flew on the space shuttle, which in my view, I spent 15 years at NASA. Space Shuttle is by far the best spaceship ever built by any country. It is really remarkable. It's a great spaceship. It's a pretty decent rocket ship, though you're flying on the side of the rocket instead of the top of the rocket. And it also happens to be the worst airplane I've ever flown in my life.

Ian Bremmer:

Because?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Just has lousy flying qualities. I'm a former Navy test pilot. It's hard to fly, and it's a glider. And this thing glides from halfway around the planet, starting over the Indian Ocean, where you do the deorbit burn. Problem is it glides like a rock or a coke machine. And as you reenter, you're in this big, giant ball of fire, come screaming across the specific. And you have one opportunity to land on one runway. You can't go anywhere else. You've got to land at the Kennedy Space Center on a single runway in Florida.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. That doesn't sound very well planned.

Senator Mark Kelly:

We practice a lot to make sure you get this right on the one try that you get.

Ian Bremmer:

Now when you say it's the best spaceship, how much of that is value for money?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Well, that's a good question. It was rather expensive. I'm talking about it being the best spaceship from capability. It can carry seven crew members. In one mission, it carried eight. Has a large payload bay, has a pretty decent capacity to low Earth orbit. It has a robotic arm, has a great communication system, has an airlock that's external to the crew compartment, so you can send people outside to do repairs. Without the Space Shuttle we would not have been able to build the International Space Station, which is the size of a football field, weights a million pounds. It's now a national laboratory and has provided great, I think a great return on the investment. But you could not do that without the space shuttle.

Ian Bremmer:

Fair enough.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Having said that, Space Shuttle was very expensive to design, to build, and then to operate. What we've done over the last decade or so since I left NASA was we've transitioned to a commercial cargo and commercial crew program that has brought the cost down dramatically, saving billions and billions of dollars for the American taxpayer and giving us the ability to get to not only low Earth orbit, but higher, at a much reduced cost.

Ian Bremmer:

International Space Station, enormously exciting that we have that platform and that around the world, we have astronauts that are working together there. I've heard recently, they're in the news because Elon Musk has been asked to put together something that will allow it to be taken out of orbit and destroyed. It's towards the end of its natural lifespan.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Well, it's already beyond what we had planned. We've had crew members on board since 1998. The first crew member was Bill Shepherd and a Russian. And we have crew members on board today. We weren't planning to operate this continuously forever, and it's beyond its original life. And today, it takes more crew time to maintain it than it used to. That number's only going to increase. And if we want to do things beyond low-Earth orbit, like go back to the moon and go onto Mars one day, we need the money. NASA has a limited budget. I'm very much so in favor of supporting NASA and basic scientific research and exploration. I think it's a great investment for our country, but we have limited resources. So, we can't do both. We can't operate the space station continuously and go back to the moon and go onto Mars. So we're going to retire the space station at some point. And we need somebody to build de-orbit vehicle because you can't ... You just don't want to let the orbit decay over time.

Ian Bremmer:

You don't want this to be Skylab.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Yeah. It would come in uncontrolled. It weights over a million pounds. Big pieces would hit the ground. We need to make sure that it safely goes to the spaceship graveyard that we have in a certain part of the Pacific Ocean.

Ian Bremmer:

The ocean, yeah.

Senator Mark Kelly:

So we'll do that in around 2030 or so.

Ian Bremmer:

How does the space race look different today than you might've expected five, 10 years ago? I know that the private sector's incredibly involved in driving a lot of what we're doing. Also, of course, the Chinese.

Senator Mark Kelly:

That'll be the big part. I would say China's engagement in space, they now have a small space station. They've got crew members in orbit now. They just returned a sample from the backside of the moon.

Ian Bremmer:

The backside of the moon, which no one's done before.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Nobody's done, yeah. And it's hard to do.

Ian Bremmer:

Were we surprised?

Senator Mark Kelly:

No, we knew it was coming. But it's something we haven't tried to do. We are certainly capable of doing it, but it's challenging. And you've got to give them credit. I mean, they did something successful that we haven't done before. We're way ahead of China in any space endeavor. We need to make sure we stay ahead. So now I would say our competition is now more China focused than it was in the 1960s with the Soviet Union. Russia has spent a lot of time and effort in the militarization of space. China's doing the same thing. I sit on the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee. A big concern of mine is, you know, how is the space domain going to be used in any future conflict? And there are challenges we face. Chinese developed capability and we keep track of that. We've got to make sure that we can counter their capability, but also to the extent that we can, prevent them from using space as a domain in any future conflict.

Ian Bremmer:

How far behind the Americans are the Chinese? Do we have a decent sense of that at this point?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Well, they've got a goal of putting somebody on the surface of the moon. Right now, we haven't gotten the latest update to find out exactly where they are, but that's a goal of theirs. I expect will be successful with Artemis III, which is the second crewed flight to the moon that we're working on these right now. We had Artemis I couple years ago, went around the moon on crude.

Ian Bremmer:

Unmanned. Yeah.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Yeah. Orion is the spacecraft, SLS is the rocket ship. Artemis II hopefully will happen next year sending a crew of four around the moon. And then Artemis III down to the surface of the moon. I expect we'll be ahead of the Chinese. I don't feel like we're really in a race with them. What I'm generally more concerned about is some of the very, say, irresponsible actions that they've taken, not just recently, but in the past. When I was the commander of Space Shuttle Discovery in 2008, the Chinese had shot down one of their own satellites with an anti-satellite capability that they had developed.

Ian Bremmer:

To show that they could.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Show that they could do it, and to test that they were able to do it, for them to have some confidence in being able to do that. It created a big debris field. Then later, when I was in orbit at the space station, we had to maneuver to get out of the way of a piece of Chinese space junk from that test.

Ian Bremmer:

That could've blown up the ship?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Could have, yeah. It could have destroyed the space shuttle. We don't allow ourselves to get within about a half a mile of anything that can be a threat if we can detect it. Some things, you get smaller than about the size of a bolt. Starts to get hard for us to be able to get a state vector on it to know where it is and where it's going. But if we know something's going to be within a half a mile bubble around the space shuttle or the space station, we tend to maneuver it out of the way.

Ian Bremmer:

There has been some cooperation, right? I mean in the sense that, I mean, first of all-

Senator Mark Kelly:

With the Russians.

Ian Bremmer:

With the Russians. Also, in terms of we have the no militarization of the moon. Nobody gets to have sort of any claims on it, just like Antarctica. Right? Do you see-

Senator Mark Kelly:

So far on the moon, I would say.

Ian Bremmer:

So far, so far.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Yeah. I mean, we've seen-

Ian Bremmer:

And so far on Antarctica, which could also change in short order. Right?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I wouldn't put anything past the Russians or the Chinese with regards to their not complying with the treaty. It's 1967, I think it was, the Outer Space Treaty said we're not going to use the moon for military purposes, and nobody owns the moon. I wouldn't put it past our adversaries to change their minds.

Ian Bremmer:

But how much should we be trying to lean into science and the final frontier to facilitate international friendship in areas where, let's face it, there aren't many of them right now?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Well, we did that with the Russians starting in the 1990s. Well, actually before that Apollo-Soyuz.

Ian Bremmer:

Before that, yeah.

Senator Mark Kelly:

But then with the International Space Station and in the 1990s, hey, every space flight I went on, all four of them were up to the space station. Sometimes I had Russian crew members on board the space shuttle with me. But there were always Russians on board the space station, every flight. And that cooperation worked really well. We got along in space. Teams got along on the ground. This tried to help further a good relationship between those two countries. Unfortunately, what Putin did in Ukraine is I'd say indicative of well, did that even matter? I mean, he attacked one of our allies illegally, murdering women, children, old people, intentionally, by the way, committing war crimes.

Ian Bremmer:

They are targeting civilians.

Senator Mark Kelly:

So yeah, I've become a little skeptical of... I mean, did we get the results we want? Clearly, we did not. But I would say just in general, when we can find ways to cooperate with other countries, especially if it benefits us and if we could share the cost certainly with our European partners, with Canada, with Japan, having them as partners in this endeavor has been a huge success for us. They can share some of the burden of the cost. We can help them become space faring nations. That part has been a really big success.

Ian Bremmer:

So get a little closer to Earth, talk about low-Earth orbit. I see there's an area where the Americans are doing an incredible job, but a lot of it is dominated by the private sector.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Yeah, which is good.

Ian Bremmer:

Which is good if the American government is aligned with those companies.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Sure, which is not always the case.

Ian Bremmer:

Which is not always the case. So there's been a lot of stories about the fact that during the war in Ukraine, as you just mentioned, that Starlink decisions on Starlink's operability was being made by their corporate headquarters. Not necessarily in alignment with what the US or Ukraine would want. How can the Americans deal with that going forward?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Let me start with saying Starlink has been a tremendous increase in capability, not only for the Ukrainians, I mean to help them in this war against Russia. I mean, it's really been a huge advantage. And without it, they would be in a different place than they are today. It's also helped us, and it's something that we're going to continue to work with SpaceX and Starlink on further developing that capability.

I'd say in the beginning, there was some challenges. I mean, how do you prevent another country from getting access to the dishes and the terminals? And they do it through unsanctioned methods. I wouldn't say they're necessarily illegal. They're buying a private product and they're shipping it to Russia and they're using it. That's been a challenge. And I've talked to Elon Musk about this and they have responded, I think in a very positive way, to do what they can to prevent the Russian government, the Russian military from using Starlink. Not always successful, but they're doing what they can to mitigate the effects.

Ian Bremmer:

First of all, that's constructive and I'm glad to hear that. What would you say about Taiwan, a place again aligned with the United States? US provides a lot of military support. If they don't have fiber capabilities linking them up, then they need communications.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Right.

Ian Bremmer:

And whether or not that would be provided by Starlink would be an open question. Taiwan has had difficulties with the idea that they would do that because of the relationship between Tesla and China, and Mainland China. Should these technologies be fundamentally aligned with, controlled by the US government? Or is it okay to have some of them fundamentally decided?

Senator Mark Kelly:

I would hope that US companies would be making decisions that are certainly in the best interest of the company and their shareholders, but also leaning into the fact that these are US companies and there should be some level of patriotism there, and aligning with us and our values. Our adversaries don't have the same ethical and moral compass. And I hope that companies, all companies here in the United States would recognize that. Taiwan, yeah, obviously in a challenging situation. At times, I hope one of my goals sitting on the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee is to make sure that we don't get into conflict with China. We don't want that. I don't think they want it. That's going to be a situation where none of us win. I think I also think the best way for us to stay out of that kind of conflict is to make sure that the Chinese realize that they're not going to win.

Ian Bremmer:

Even closer to Earth, that balloon that was transiting.

Senator Mark Kelly:

The Chinese balloon, yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

Alaska and Canada, the United States, eventually knocked down by the US. Hotline was attempted to be used. The Chinese didn't pick up.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Right. They often don't.

Ian Bremmer:

Tell me a little bit about how you thought about that, responded to it, when it was happening.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Well, I mean, it's like any other ISR asset. In this case, much closer to home and much more provocative. Right? Flying into our airspace, maybe they would make an argument it's above our airspace. But they're over the continental United States. It's a pretty provocative thing to do. And they should've realized we were going to figure it out. And what they should've expected to happen-

Ian Bremmer:

People can actually see it with their eyes.

Senator Mark Kelly:

You could actually see it from the ground. We detected it and we ultimately shot it down. They can get sort of the same kind of data from satellites, not entirely. Right? They did that for a reason. There was some collection that they received from that balloon that they would not have been otherwise be able to get from something in LEO or high Earth.That's why they did it, and we shot it down. And then we shot down another one. We can't get in the habit of shooting down every balloon that flies over the United States. I mean, a Sidewinder costs $400,000. An ANRAAM is over a million. This can get very expensive very quickly.

Ian Bremmer:

We're seeing that in the Red Sea right now.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Right. It gets very expensive. And by the way, this stuff in the Red Sea are threats to international shipping, to threats to our supply chain, threats to US forces. We have to shoot that stuff down. So I've got some legislation, bipartisan legislation, to make sure that at least the balloons that we're launching here from the continental United States and flying over US territory has a transponder on it, very simple. So NORAD could say, "Hey, we don't need to focus on that one. And we don't need to focus on that one. That's a university. That's a company somewhere, US company. We don't need to focus on that. We need to focus on the ones that we really have no information on."

Ian Bremmer:

Do we think that the Chines got that message? I mean, in terms of-

Senator Mark Kelly:

I think they did.

Ian Bremmer:

Because there's certainly been a much greater level of military-to-military communication between the US and China.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Well also, you see, they haven't flown a high-altitude balloon over the United States since we shot that one down.

Ian Bremmer:

Let me ask a little bit of a silly question, which is, I've seen a number of folks in respected media respond pretty alarmist to the UFO testimony. And so I am sure that you found that amusing. You're going to see conspiracy theory of course. But why is there so much excitement about this supposed intelligence?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Well, I mean, our galaxy's a big place. The universe is two trillion galaxies, and we've got hundreds of billions of stars and planets in our own. And it's something people often think about. Is there life out there somewhere else? What is that life like? Does that life visit here, does it visit Earth? I get these questions all the time. People think because I've been to space, maybe I have this special insight, or maybe I've seen something while I've spent time orbiting the Earth. I haven't. I don't think we've got visitors from other places. Having said that, I've seen some compelling testimony, you know, from Navy fighter pilots who often in one case, in a position of leadership in a squadron that's seen something very compelling. It's our obligation on the Armed Services Committee-

Ian Bremmer:

Something compelling, something that he is convinced is technologically not possible by the US or adversaries.

Senator Mark Kelly:

In one case, that is true.

Ian Bremmer:

And what do you think about that?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Well, I think it's our responsibility to look into it and maybe put some more resources behind studying these phenomenon. We don't call them UFOs anymore. We call them UAPs. We changed the name.

Ian Bremmer:

Unidentified aerial-

Senator Mark Kelly:

Phenomenon.

Ian Bremmer:

Phenomenon, okay. Fair enough.

Senator Mark Kelly:

So yeah, it's the same thing.

Ian Bremmer:

That should make it easier.

Senator Mark Kelly:

It's a UFO.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Senator Mark Kelly:

It's basically-

Ian Bremmer:

And is the answer, we don't know? At this point, we haven't devoted enough resource to be credible in a response to that?

Senator Mark Kelly:

I don't know if it's a resource issue, but I think it's fair to say we don't know.

Ian Bremmer:

Can I turn just to Washington for a moment?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Right.

Ian Bremmer:

This is a very interesting, to say the least, time, lot of pressure right now.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Washington is always interesting. I've been in Washington in the United States Senate for three and a half years. It does not get boring. So I was elected in 2020, and that's the same year President Biden and Vice-President Harris were elected as well. I've overlapped exactly with the administration and the stuff that they have accomplished with us is pretty remarkable. Brought down the cost of healthcare for seniors, $35 insulin, CHIPS and Science Act, which I was one of the lead negotiators on and got that through. Bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States, climate change, you know, biggest investment in trying to fix our climate in possibly our country's history. Addressing this warming climate issue, and bipartisan gun safety legislation, so accomplishment after accomplishment. Prior president, Donald Trump, wants to take us back, and Arizona, even back to the 1860s when you consider women's-

Ian Bremmer:

In terms of the women's reproductive.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Reproductive rights, yeah. Wants to take us backwards, is a threat to our democracy, is now a convicted criminal, is a grifter. I mean, there is one issue after another. I mean, I think the contrast is just remarkable.

Ian Bremmer:

You've got a race coming up in your state as well, an interesting one with Lake-

Senator Mark Kelly:

Interesting Senate race.

Ian Bremmer:

Absolutely.

Senator Mark Kelly:

I've done a lot of Senate races. 2018, maybe even 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, now 2024.

Ian Bremmer:

And this one, getting a lot more attention in part because of disinformation and claims of rigging and all of these things.

Senator Mark Kelly:

Yeah. Ruben's opponent, Kari Lake, also claiming that she is still possibly the governor of Arizona. She's still fighting the 2022 election, still denying the results of the presidential election in 2020, and is just an incredibly divisive figure in Arizona, in our politics.

Ian Bremmer:

This is the state that John McCain came from. Right?

Senator Mark Kelly:

Yes. We are the state of Republicans like John McCain. And I can't imagine that the state of Arizona would elect Kari Lake to the United States Senate, wants to take away people's rights, voting rights, reproductive rights. She's made that very clear.

Ian Bremmer:

And how does politics in your state feel different as a senator today than it did when you came in?

Senator Mark Kelly:

I mean, certainly, the Dobbs decision has changed things significantly politically, women especially, but men who support women and their right to make this decision. This has become a big political issue. We've got choice on the ballot in November. I expect it's going to drive voter turnout significantly. By the way, Ruben Gallego, House member, Marine, fought in Iraq, combat-

Ian Bremmer:

[inaudible 00:25:01].

Senator Mark Kelly:

Guy lived in a cave with his rifle in Iraq, lived in a cave, fought valiantly for this country. A guy I've worked with very closely, he's on the Armed Services Committee in the House. I'm on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate. We've worked very closely together to accomplish a lot for service members in the state of Arizona. We've got a big military footprint, mostly Army and Air Force, a lot of bases, lot of service members. He's been a great partner of mine. He is the right guy for this job, and for that reason, he's going to win.

Ian Bremmer:

Senator Mark Kelly, thanks so much for joining us.

Senator Mark Kelly:

It's been great to talk to you. Thank you.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course you do. Why not make it official? Why don't you rate and review GZERO World five stars? Only five stars, otherwise, don't do it, on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tell your friends.