Air Force Secretary Troy Meink casually dropped the news that America had space-based weapons during the keynote address at a cyber conference. “We are increasing readiness against existing threats, and the United States has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” he said.

But what, exactly, are those space weapons? Why has space become so important for war? How do we fight up there and what are the consequences?

On this episode of Angry Planet, Bleddyn Bowen and Cameron Hunter return to the show to answer all my questions about war in space. Bowen is a professor of astropolitics at Durham University and Hunter is a researcher at the University of Copenhagen. Both are deeply knowledgeable about deterrence, lasers, missile defense systems, and the Fallout video game series.

• EMPs, jammers, and kinetics
• Why missile defense (mostly) doesn’t work
• GPS and GLONASS and BeiDou and Galileo
• Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance from Space
• Rumsfeld in space
• Can lasers work?
• What are we fighting for up there?
• The historic folly of Golden Dome
• Moscow and Beijing’s Perspective on U.S. Defense
• Some Fallout talk

SecAF announces on-orbit space control weapons

The ambivalent nuclear politics of Fallout video games

Original Sin: Power, Technology and War in Outer Space

War in Space: Strategy, Spacepower, Geopolitics

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