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Mark Kelly on the new space race
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer delves into the modern space race and its role as a critical domain for global security with Arizona Senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly. They discuss China’s growing ambitions, the future of the International Space Station, and the evolving role of private companies like SpaceX in shaping US space policy.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Kelly is clear-eyed about China’s ambitious space goals, including lunar missions and collaboration with Russia to build a lunar base, sparking concerns over the militarization of space. “They [China] just returned a sample from the backside of the moon. Nobody’s done that.” Senator Kelly also discusses the International Space Station’s eventual decommissioning and the importance of international cooperation, particularly with allies such as Europe, Canada, and Japan. Yet, tensions, especially with adversaries like China and Russia, loom large in the space domain.
“We’ve got to make sure that we can counter their capability, but also… prevent them from using space as a domain in any future conflict,” Kelly tells Bremmer. A key concern is how space assets, such as spy satellites and anti-satellite weapons, could be used in future conflicts. The conversation also touches on private-sector involvement in space, with companies like SpaceX playing pivotal roles in both space exploration and geopolitical issues, including the role of Starlink in the war in Ukraine. “I would hope that US companies… align with us and our values,” Kelly tells Bremmer.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
The new space race: Sen. Mark Kelly on China's bold ambitions, America's policy & Russian threat
Listen: On this episode of the GZERO World podcast, Ian Bremmer takes a close look at the evolving US-China space race and its implications for global security, competition, and international collaboration. He is joined by Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot and NASA astronaut who offers firsthand insights into the future of US space policy.
Kelly also sheds light on China's ambitious space goals, including lunar missions and partnerships with Russia, raising concerns about the militarization of space. He emphasizes the need for the US to counter these developments and maintain space as a peaceful domain. Kelly discusses the eventual decommissioning of the International Space Station and highlights the importance of collaboration with allies like Europe, Canada, and Japan. The episode also covers the growing role of private companies like SpaceX, which are not only shaping space exploration but also playing crucial roles in geopolitical conflicts, including the war in Ukraine, through initiatives like Starlink.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Ian Explains: Who's winning the US-China space race?
Are we in a 21st-century space race with China? And if so, who’s winning? On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down China’s ambitious space program, which in the last few years has sent a rover to Mars, built a space station, and returned samples from the far side of the moon–something no country has done before. By 2035, it plans to build a lunar base with Russia on the moon’s south pole. However, intelligence experts are concerned China’s activity in space is more directly tied to its military than it’s letting on. A 1967 UN treaty bans military activity on the moon but not military activity in space altogether. The final frontier could be the next battleground. Can the US space program, boosted by private space companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, counter China’s lunar ambitions? Is this the end of the post-Soviet era of international space cooperation? Ian Bremmer breaks down the astronomical stakes of the next era of space exploration.
Look for the full episode, with an interview with former astronaut Senator Mark Kelly on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, airing on US public television (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaks to press after an incident at the Rainbow Bridge U.S. border crossing with Canada, in Niagara Falls, New York, U.S. November 22, 2023.
Hard Numbers: NYC congestion charge delayed, RSF’s deadly attack in Sudan, One heck of a Brazilian cow, South China Sea exercises, SpaceX rocket makes giant leap
15: Grab your keys, New Yorkers. Gov. Kathy Hochul has indefinitely postponed the $15-a-day congestion pricing plan that was set to begin June 30 for drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street. Hochul expressed concern that the plan, the first of its kind in the country, could affect the Big Apple’s post-pandemic economic recovery — echoing worries shared with her by very vocal business leaders, commuters, and … voters.
150: Over 150 people were killed after the Rapid Support Forces, a Sudanese paramilitary group, invaded a village in central Sudan this week. Fighting broke out last April between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, whose generals once worked together to overtake Khartoum. The war in Sudan is one of the worst modern humanitarian crises, with a death toll reportedly topping 150,000 and over 9 million people displaced.
4.2 million: Viatina-19 FIV Mara Movéis claimed the title of most expensive cow, fetching $4.2 million at an auction in Brazil (and access to her egg cells selling for another $250,000). The 2,400-pound cow doesn’t owe her size to genetics or greener pastures but to a years-long initiative in Brazil to breed meatier cows to combat rising greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation.
3: The US, South Korea, and Japanese coast guards entered choppy waters on Thursday to kick off their first three-way drill in response to escalating Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. China claims sovereignty over a majority of the sea, resulting in territorial disputes between China and the Philippines, Taiwan, and other close US allies. Regular standoffs have stoked fears these tensions may boil over into an armed conflict between the US and China.
4: 4, 3, 2, 1, blastoff! On its fourth flight test, SpaceX on Thursday launched Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket, in Boca Chica, Texas. The megarocket completed its mission, successfully traveling to the outer world and returning to Earth, where it made a soft landing in the Indian Ocean. This marks a giant leap for mankind as Starship’s fully reusable design brings us closer to settlements on Mars and the moon.
SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket lifts off on its third launch from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S. March 14, 2024.
Hard Numbers: SpaceX has a rocky reentry, Norway to hit NATO target early, British MPs are OOO, Somalia debt is canceled, Berlin techno is protected
2: Norway announced that the country intends to meet its NATO defense spending target of 2% this year — two years ahead of schedule — citing a “serious” security situation. Sweden, the alliance’s newest member, says it will do the same. The two Nordic states can now rest assured that at least Donald Trump would protect them from a Russian invasion.
49: A new analysis found the workday for members of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s parliament is 49 minutes shorter than the 1997-2023 average, clocking in at only seven hours and nine minutes long. With all that extra time on their hands, Kate Middleton should be found in no time.
99: This week, 99% of Somalia’s debt was canceled by the Paris Club — a group of officials from major creditor countries including the United States, Japan, and Russia. Somalia’s information minister, Daud Aweis, called the move a “big milestone in the country’s journey to financial recovery.”
150: The number of UNESCO heritage sites in Germany rose to 150, with six entities being added this week. Notably, an Intangible Cultural Heritage designation was given to Berlin’s techno scene for its contribution to German culture. Oonts Oonts.Photo of Israeli forces operating in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday Nov 5, 2023, in an area from which many attempts to attack the Israeli forces through tunnel shafts and military compounds were detected.
Hard Numbers: Half of Hamas, Hunter Biden's new charges, SpaceX’s stratospheric valuation, George Santos talks for a price, China charges for “deception”
50: How effective has Israel been at killing Hamas fighters? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that the IDF has eliminated around 50% of Hamas’s mid-level battalion commanders after two months of fighting. Israel has so far failed to assassinate senior leaders like Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas’ armed wing. According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, the overall death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 17,000.
9: Hunter Biden was charged on Thursday by a California grand jury with nine tax charges — three felonies and six misdemeanors that include failing to file and pay taxes, tax evasion, and filing false tax returns. This is in addition to the federal firearms charges the president’s son faces in Delaware, where he’s accused of breaking laws against drug users having guns.
400: George Santos may have been expelled from the US Congress, but a hustler’s gonna hustle. Blazing new trails post-politician life, he’s now offering pay-to-play personalized video messages to the world on the video-sharing website Cameo. For a mere $400, you too can have a personalized message from the disgraced ex-congressman. Sen. John Fetterman has already had Santos troll his scandal-plagued colleague from New Jersey. In just a few days, Santos’ earnings on the platform eclipsed his $174,000/year congressional salary. On the other hand, Cameo is a lot less risqué than that other pay-to-play video site Santos was accused of spending campaign donations on.
175,000,000,000: Elon Musk’s SpaceX is looking to sell shares at a price that values the company at a whopping $175 billion. That would rank the company above media juggernauts like Comcast and Disney, but still well behind the trillion-dollar club that includes Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. Still, this is good news for Musk: The valuation of his other company, X (the artist formerly known as Twitter), has dropped to $19 billion, less than half the $44 billion he paid for it last year.
100,000: The popular Taiwanese rock band Mayday faces a 100,000 yuan (more than $14,000) fine for something that would cripple some of your favorite Western acts (be careful out there Ashlee Simpson). A viral video on Weibo accuses the band of lip-syncing at least five songs at a concert in China in November. A rarely enforced law in China actually bans artists from lip-syncing before paying audiences since it is “deceptive.”
Elon Musk's Starlink cutoff controversy
I think it's a fascinating question. And it gets to a point of what I call a technopolar world, not unipolar, not bipolar, not multipolar, technopolar. In other words, for all of our lives, we've talked about a world where nation states, where governments are the principal actors with sovereignty over outcomes that matter critically for national security. Now, here you have the Russians invading Ukraine. One of the biggest challenges to the geopolitical order since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. And yet, a core decision about whether or not Ukraine will be able to defend itself is being made not by the United States or NATO providing the military support, but by a technology company. Now, the Ukrainian government is being quite critical of some of the decisions that Elon Musk has made in restricting the use for Starlink, for the Ukrainians.
I don't think that's fair criticism by itself. I think we need to recognize that Starlink's availability to the Ukrainians was absolutely essential in helping the government and the military leaders actually communicate with their soldiers on the front lines. And if it wasn't for Starlink, and if it wasn't for the role of many other technology companies, largely in the United States, not at all clear to me that Zelensky would still be in power today. Certainly the Ukrainians would have lost a lot more territory and they'd be in much worse position than they are. So I think that the Ukrainians still owe Elon a significant debt. But I also raise a much bigger question, which is, should an individual CEO, should an individual centibillionaire be making these decisions about outcomes of life and death for 44 million Ukrainians?
And they're the answer is much more concerning. Because, of course, Elon and all of these technology companies, they're not treaty signatories with NATO. They don't have any obligation to do anything other than Netflix and chill. And yet they're absolutely indispensable for national security in these countries as increasingly national security becomes a matter of not just what happens with bombs and rockets, but also what happens in the digital world, what happens in cyberspace, what happens in communications, in the collection of intelligence. As Elon and others become principal actors in a military industrial technological complex, accountability for those decisions is very deeply concerning if it's only in the hands of those individuals. Now, I think it's a little easier with SpaceX, because SpaceX is, after all, a company that is overwhelmingly funded by the US government, by the Pentagon and by NASA. And so ultimately, either legally through regulation or informally through pressure on the basis of providing those contracts, there is certainly a level of influence that the US government would be able to have over a SpaceX to ensure that Starlink is made available fully to the Ukrainians as US. and NATO's allies see fit.
Just as the American government would take vigorous exception if SpaceX and Starlink were suddenly having their technologies made available to American adversaries. Having said that, keep in mind that there is no other viable technology that is presently available. So, if it's not Starlink, it's nothing for the Ukrainians. And what about a country like Taiwan? Very concerned increasingly that we see the status quo on Taiwan eroding from the United States, as Biden says that he would defend Taiwan and as the Americans put export controls on TSMC, the semiconductor company, and from the Chinese side, as the Chinese keep sending over drones and aircraft to invade Taiwanese airspace. Well, if there were cyber attacks from mainland China into Taiwan, would Starlink be made available in Taiwan the way it has been in Ukraine, even though imperfectly in Ukraine? And the answer to that, I suspect, would be absolutely not, because it would prevent Elon Musk from doing effective business in mainland China, including Tesla. Would the Chinese use that leverage against Elon in a way that the American government had not been against SpaceX?
Absolutely they would. And so what does that mean? Does it mean that that just means Taiwan doesn't get that ability to defend itself? Or does the US government have to somehow, through force majeure, nationalize the technology and take it away from SpaceX or force SpaceX to provide Starlink to Taiwan? Or does the US government have to build its own alternative, where it has direct ownership of such a company and technology. Look, the fact is this is a very, very messy piece of geopolitical power where increasingly technology companies are acting as sovereigns. And until and unless those questions are answered, we are increasingly living in a technopolar world.
That's it for me. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
Starlink logo seen on a mobile device with Ukraine on a map in the background.
Is Musk hedging his bets on Ukraine?
Elon Musk’s Starlink is the most prominent of a new generation of low-Earth orbit satellite networks making a name for themselves this year by providing internet service in conflict zones and other geopolitical hotspots. Instead of using a handful of expensive-to-launch high-altitude satellites, these networks deploy thousands of cheaper low-orbit systems. This type of network may still be more expensive to use than terrestrial cables, but it allows operators to beam the internet into places with limited infrastructure on the ground to support it.
We asked Eurasia Group expert Scott Bade to explain how these networks are being used and what the implications are.
Where are these companies taking their services?
In Ukraine, earth imaging companies such as Maxar and Planet Labs have been taking detailed pictures of what’s happening on the ground. Some of that has been made available to the public — that’s how we saw the famous images of the Russian convoy stalled on a road leading into Kyiv, for example. But these companies are also feeding intelligence directly to the Ukrainian government, US authorities, and NATO.
Starlink, the satellite service of Musk’s SpaceX company, has played a more active role recently by helping Ukraine maintain internet connectivity since the Russian invasion. It has protected access to a uncensored internet in occupied areas, thwarting Russian disinformation efforts. Perhaps more importantly, Starlink has provided the Ukrainian military command with the means to communicate with its troops even behind enemy lines. This has led to more effective artillery targeting, for example.
The other place Starlink has been in the news is Iran after a Twitter user asked Musk to deploy Starlink over the Islamic Republic to keep Iranians online after mass protests prompted the government to restrict internet access. Musk responded by adding his voice to activists’ calls for an exemption to US sanctions for telecom companies, which the government granted. Musk has said Starlink is now active over Iran, but we don’t really have any evidence that it’s been used.
How big of a challenge do these services pose to authoritarian regimes?
Though they’ve proven effective at thwarting Russian efforts to control communications in a conflict zone, it will be more difficult for them to challenge authoritarian regimes on their home turf. Their main limitation is that they still require physical terminals on the ground. In Ukraine, Starlink is working in conjunction with the government, which is doing all it can to get the service into the country. In Iran, on the other hand, the regime is doing everything it can to keep the service out.
But if you can overcome that obstacle – somehow sneak terminals into the country, for example – satellite systems represent a potential threat to regimes that restrict access to the internet.
How have these regimes reacted so far?
Iran called the US’ decision to provide operating licenses for internet services a violation of its sovereignty. It blocked Starlink’s website and said it will not allow any terminals into the country.
A more serious risk comes from Russia and China, which are very wary of Starlink’s potential military uses. Russia has repeatedly threatened Starlink and recently tested an anti-satellite missile. And it has other ways to disrupt satellites. It launched a cyber operation against Viasat, another satellite network, right before it invaded Ukraine. Some voices in the Chinese military have also called for the development of anti-satellite capabilities that would allow it to attack Starlink.
The US and NATO have pointedly declined to clarify if satellites are covered by the alliance’s Article 5 collective defense clause. That ambiguity is likely enough to deter any attempt to shoot them down for now, but further cyberattacks wouldn’t be surprising.
How comfortable do these companies feel with their new geopolitical role?
Many Western satellite companies – and technology companies more broadly – have enthusiastically supported Ukraine in its struggle against Russia. SpaceX has played a particularly prominent role, and Musk has at times seemed too comfortable dabbling in geopolitics. He’s garnered some attention for tweeting out a peace proposal for Ukraine (which suspiciously resembled Putin’s) and a suggestion to resolve China-Taiwan tensions that was friendlier to China than to Taiwan.
Yet these and other actions have also raised suspicions that Musk is wary of angering Moscow and Beijing. In recent days, some Ukrainian officials have complained that Starlink wasn’t being activated quickly enough in recaptured areas, hindering the army’s advance. There was another report that Musk blocked the use of Starlink over Crimea because that could help trigger an escalation in the war. And Musk has publicly said that SpaceX can’t go on supporting the Ukrainians indefinitely without more US government support.
It’s obviously hard to know exactly what is going on for certain – there is a war raging – and Starlink is still in use by the Ukrainians. But Musk seems to be simultaneously embracing the potential to play a geopolitical role while also hedging his bets a bit. Russia has been threatening SpaceX, and China is a major market for Musk’s Tesla. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to start finding ways to be less involved in Ukraine.
What does the US government think about the actions of these companies?
Until recently, SpaceX and satellite companies seemed fully aligned with the US government on the Ukraine conflict. Even when they were acting on their own volition in the context of the war, they were doing so with the blessing of Washington – in fact the United States Agency for International Development has paid for some of the Starlink service provided to Ukraine.
That may no longer be the case. SpaceX has appeared to make some recent decisions on coverage independently of the US government. It appears that the firm is now again on the same page with US and Ukrainian officials – Musk and the Ukrainian foreign minister have exchanged complimentary tweets – and Musk wouldn’t want to intentionally undercut US policy. But he should be careful in the future to avoid giving the impression of deference to Russia and China to avoid angering US officials.
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