THE FINAL FRONTIER
A new and complex space race is happening — one that is being shaped by power and politics, writes Tim Marshall in The Future of Geography
Space connects all the grandiose dreams of individual people, science and technology, military strategy, global politics, human endeavour and courage, and the dark side of human nature.
Not being particularly interested in space or astronomy, I didn’t expect Tim Marshall’s new book, The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World, to be a revelatory pageturner. Still, the former BBC and Sky News current and foreign affairs journalist has an ability to explain and connect events and to plausibly project their outcomes.
This is Marshall’s third book themed around geography-aspolitics. Though nations extrapolate their geostrategies into the realm of space, do their actions involve geography as the discipline is understood?
The question adds intrigue, even wonderment to the book. To an extent, space is already mapped. We have defined the various levels of orbits around Earth, we have intricate knowledge of the passages into space, the distances within our solar system and other planetary systems, domains where intolerable radiation levels prevail, and the landscapes of neighbouring and faraway planets.
These understandings have been necessary not just for high-profile missions, but also to position infrastructure we
take for granted, such as weather and communication satellites, of which there are nearly 8,000.
There are also anti-satellites, or killer satellites. China, Russia and the US have them (India probably does too).
Predictably, the US, Russia and China dominate the current “space-scape”. This is partly attributable to the Cold War space race between the former two and, later, China’s ambition to catch up and overtake its rivals in at least some areas, whether exploration, weaponisation or technology to mine on the moon and elsewhere.
It’s also a function of budgets. Space programmes chew resources and enormous costs are involved in bringing together materials, an army of supremely qualified people, testing facilities and cuttingedge technologies. Spending on the US’s space programme, for example,
totalled $62bn in
2022 — 50% more than the combined total for all other nations.
A small detail illuminates the scale of this: to launch a rocket with adequate speed to power through gravity and reach beyond
Earth’s atmosphere requires an Olympic-size swimming pool of fuel. The launch process drains it in 25 seconds.
Readers may ponder whether the fulfilment of these space ambitions, and the pursuit of yet more, proves humankind’s stupidity: we already have a beautiful planet. Only, we’re destroying it because we prefer to live wastefully and with disregard for our home. Instead of prioritising solutions here on Earth, we look beyond, into the unknown and an unknowable future.
Elon Musk may bear some responsibility for this. The Starship programme of his company, SpaceX, is regularly in the news, most recently for a failed launch. It’s tied to his idea of establishing a city on Mars in the very near future.
Depending on one’s view of Musk, he is either a visionary genius or a megalomaniac.
An exercise of power
We shouldn’t be naive about what has driven — and still drives — new frontiers in space. Despite the commercialisation of the supply chain producing rockets and rovers, satellites, probes and equipment, and ventures such as SpaceX and space travel offerings by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, space is about geopolitical power. Hence, it is primarily an experimental playground for the military.
Everett Dolman, professor of military studies & strategy at the US Air Force Air Command, distils how the world’s three main military powers think about space: “Who controls low Earth orbit controls near Earth space.
Who controls near Earth space dominates Terra. Who dominates Terra determines the destiny of humankind.”
Still, those first early visions of space exploration have been fulfilled, so perhaps we can now dream of a new and improved mode of thinking about what all global citizens should surely share.
Initially it seems contradictory, given his role, that Dolman himself has proposed a “mutual assurance reliance” space strategy. But there’s a neat logic to this as a 180° pivot from the doctrine of “mutual assured destruction ”— who shoots first dies second — that has worked to diminish the risk of nuclear holocaust for the past 60 years.
“Rather than focus on the fear of losing space access, instead we should make all states party to the gains to be made from the exploitation of space to create a green future for all humankind,” Dolman says.
The sentiment makes sense. But as Marshall points out in multiple sections of the book, warm and fuzzy outlooks are not enough. The only genuinely international treaty regulating space is the
UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which is outdated and too vague in critical aspects.
The Artemis Accords, a multilateral agreement written by US space agency Nasa, has just 25 signatories.
China and
Russia are noticeably missing. These two powers ostensibly co-operate in space through their own Sino-Russian agreement though in reality, Marshall writes, there is neither trust nor information-sharing. And China, in any event, leads its own bloc via the Asia-Pacific Space Co-operation Organisation.
It’s disheartening that, as Marshall puts it, there will be no meaningful and effective treaty until the main space powers “get past the weapons testing, the killer satellites, the probable military space stations and bases”. How space should be explored and exploited, and how nations should interact in space itself, is still very much up in the air. Despite the sense of marvel that Marshall conveys, it’s to his credit that he regularly pulls us back to earth by pointing out enormous technological hurdles or resource gaps that have yet to be overcome to achieve expanded ambitions. Walking on Mars and mining on asteroids are many, many years away.
The biggest obstacle may lie in the usual place. Quoting the philosopher Raymond Aron, Marshall comes back to the fact that warfare capabilities are inevitably considered paramount: “Short of a revolution in the heart of man and the nature of states, by what miracle could interplanetary space be preserved from military use?”
The Future of Geography is a propulsive read. It’s also made me look at the night sky with renewed wonder. The book explains how far we’ve gone, and what we are doing up there. But it can’t answer a more emotive question: how far do we yet have to go? The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World, by Tim Marshall (published by Elliott & Thompson, 2023)
billionaire celebrity blows his trumpet? Marshall believes that “with the intersection of commerce, private enterprise, great powers’ rivalry and technology, it’s all come together quickly.
It’s ahead of public perception.
“Also, I don’t think we generally yet understand that space assets — satellites as the best example — are part of our critical infrastructure. When we don’t have a view of it, we kind of ignore it; out of sight, out of mind.”
I mutter that the book would translate into a riveting television documentary series. As it turns out, one of Marshall’s earlier works, Prisoners of Geography, is under negotiation for precisely that.
“But those wheels turn very slowly,” Marshall says.
Was he a geek as a child? “No.” He indulges me with a polite smile. “I wasn’t a sci-fi nerd. But I always had an interest in space, particularly after watching the moon landings as a 10-year-old.”
The idea for The Future of Geography came from Marshall connecting his main field of journalistic experience — international relations — with the geopolitical dimensions of our expanding space capabilities.
Is space geography, though? The merits of the book aside, the title seems a force-fit into the theme of Marshall’s most recent other works, The Power of Geography and Prisoners of Geography.
He partially accepts that it could mislead some readers — and that those interested in space may erroneously give it a pass. “But there are elements of [space] where you can stretch the interpretation of geography, and I wanted to give a framework for understanding what’s happening up there,” he says.
“It’s not just this sort of featureless expanse. And when you consider things like distances, the radiation belts, low Earth orbit, the south lunar pole, I think it is justifiable.”
His argument, too, is that geostrategies are a driving force behind how nations conduct their affairs both on Earth and in space. Pointedly, he says that it’s ultimately “a book about politics”.
Surprisingly, Marshall’s research took just six months. More amazing is the extent to which the book contains seemingly classified military material. How did he find out about some of this “right stuff”?
“Well, there were several people interviewed who did not wish to be quoted or credited in the acknowledgments,” he says. “And there are declassified documents that you can have access to. Also, a lot is open source.”
Space weaponry is at an advanced stage of development, epitomised by China’s 2007 experiment in blowing up one of its satellites using a land-based “kinetic kill vehicle” (KKV). Travelling at 7km-8km a second, the KKV hit its target 863km away.
Late in the book Marshall spins out a few scenarios in which war — superpower against superpower — is almost triggered by small conflicts in space. The hair-trigger scenarios — futuristic versions of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis — are awfully plausible, despite their imaginative playfulness. The potential for major conflicts is being ramped up.
“We want space to be different, but it won’t be,” he says, worldly-wise.
The alarming, depressing sections of the book are counterbalanced by humour, such as when Marshall points out that the far side of the moon is often bathed in sunlight, “but Pink Floyd were not going to let that stand in the way of their bestselling LP”.
I smile again when rereading this dog-eared page — confirmation, as Marshall says, that “even when we’re talking about serious things, there are moments of levity”.
The pull of the moon
From the militarisation of space our discussion shifts to mining on the moon as well as on other planets and asteroids. Marshall believes space mining isn’t too far in the future. “We will not be mining on the moon until early next decade. But everybody is trying to get there.”
The incentive is clear: the moon, for example, has enormous, identified areas of frozen water, and there are signs of helium-3. In fact, there may be 1Mt of the gas on the moon, against almost none on Earth. Leading scientists estimate that if helium-3’s power could be harnessed, it would generate humankind’s energy needs for 10,000 years.
Further, Marshall says, “we have landed on an asteroid, and Japan has developed machines that can mine on asteroids. But putting the two things together has not yet happened.”
One of the book’s chapters starts with a sad but spectacular Albert Einstein quote: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I’m not sure about the universe.”
I ask Marshall if he thinks Einstein was right — are we being stupid by not prioritising fixing things on Earth? “I think it is possible we can help mend the planet partially through space exploration,” he responds. “For instance, I’d rather be mining there than here, and the goal of helium-3 nuclear fusion energy, surely, is worth pursuing.”
There’s also potential for huge progression in combating climate change from space — using giant solar panels, for example, “to reflect the sun’s rays to Earth for energy”.
We agree that even if some ideas are overhyped or sheer fantasy, something intangible and romantic within the human spirit will push us on. “This restless spirit of ours will never stop,” Marshall says. “As long as we can, we will.”
Which segues neatly to the idea of colonising Mars — or at least laying literal foundations there — within the next 30 years. “Elon Musk is the foremost commercial entrepreneur in the future geography of space,” Marshall says. But he partly agrees with me that Musk is fantasising. “He said he’ll get a million people [to Mars] by 2050. Just do the math,” he points out.
Indeed. Assuming a hugely optimistic starting date of 2030, taking 100 people at a time, each trip taking a minimum of seven months — well, the numbers make the thought seem infinitely silly.
Besides, Marshall notes, there is still so much to do: plans, preparations, rethinking. “Do you go straight to Mars? Or do you go to the moon and use it as a launch pad?” he asks.
“That’s more viable, because you learn so much. The timeline to walk on the moon again is by 2032, which will probably slip back two to three years, but I do believe that in the 2030s we will have a permanent station on the moon. And then we’ll start to think further beyond.”
So, a settlement on Mars: will it happen? “Probably,” he smiles, breaking into laughter when I ask if he would go. Then he quietens: “I would volunteer to go into space. In a heartbeat.”