Russia Just Demonstrated Why We Need the Space Force

Seeking shelter on the International Space Station looks a little different.

On board the ISS yesterday, as well as the Chinese Tiangong space station, astronauts, cosmonauts and taikonauts alike scrambled to implement emergency protocols. They weren’t facing a solar storm, or a fire. They were facing a deadly swarm of debris on a path that could have meant their imminent demise.

So, with the assistance of mission control, they battened down the hatches. For a brief time, they even took shelter in their space capsules, ready to use them as emergency lifeboats for a return to Earth.

If you’ve seen the 2013 film Gravity, then you’ve seen this nightmare scenario conceptualized. In the film, the Russians attempt to shoot down a defunct spy satellite. The resulting explosion sends an ever expanding debris cloud hurtling along the satellite’s orbital path (because physics) and ultimately ripping through more and more space craft – including the ISS and Chinese space station. It’s a great film. And a horrible reality we almost faced yesterday.

You guessed it, the Russians shot a missile at a defunct satellite. It expanded to a cloud of debris. And that cloud of debris came dangerously close to killing the crews of both space stations.

Imagine being startled awake at 2AM to be told hunks of metal are on a path to slam into your bedroom at 17,500 miles per hour. Not great. Oh and by the way, if it happens, you’ll suffer an incredibly unique death. Take this excerpt from a Business Insider piece earlier this year:

The vacuum of space will pull the air from your body. So if there’s air left in your lungs, they will rupture. Oxygen in the rest of your body will also expand. You’ll balloon up to twice your normal size, but you won’t explode. Your skin is elastic enough to hold you together. Any exposed liquid on your body will begin to vaporize. So the surfaces of your tongue and eyes will boil. Without air in your lungs, blood will stop sending oxygen to your brain. You’ll pass out after about 15 seconds. 90 seconds after exposure, you’ll die from asphyxiation. It’s also very cold in space. You’ll eventually freeze solid.

How long humans could survive in space without a spacesuit, Business Insider,
May 13, 2021

Personally, this is not my ideal choice for an eternal exit strategy. But it wasn’t just our astronauts endangered yesterday. This cloud of debris will continue falling around the earth for as long as it takes an orbital decay to allow all the little pieces to burn up in the atmosphere on re-entry. And that could take years. Which means other satellites, and future missions, are that much more dangerous. And if you’re wondering why this matters, it touches all of us – communications satellites that power our modern economy just became that much more difficult to service.

As I’m writing this, it’s still unclear whether the Russian space agency was provided advance notice that this anti-satellite mission was happening. So far, the international community is decrying the event in unison, calling the Russian action reckless and unthinkable. Unfortunately, we already had a movie on the books demonstrating it was entirely thinkable.

It’s also precisely why we needed a new branch of the armed forces focused entirely on the asymmetric threats of space based warfare. An action like this holds the potential to wreck the global economy on a larger scale, and lower cost, than nuclear warfare.

We’ve seen the ongoing disruptions caused by pandemic related shipping delays. Now imagine a scenario where maritime vessels can neither communicate nor navigate – instantaneously. Imagine every stock trading app crashing simultaneously. Imagine not being able to swipe your bank card for your morning Starbucks.

It’s the little things in life that we come to depend upon. The simple things, made readily available through technology that we take for granted. Those little things, evaporating in a single moment, would spell disaster on a scale we’ve not fully imagined before. And what if the cost of all that was a single, measly surface to orbit rocket?

Launching the Space Force may have been the single smartest decision of the Trump presidency. Ridicule over the branch’s name aside, this new theater of conflict is fraught with peril. Yesterday’s brush with disaster is exhibit A. Regardless of political affiliation, we all have a vested interest in the success of that particular branch’s success. Even if we’re not the ones seeking shelter on the ISS.