America's Nuclear Missile Fields; Defending America's Satellites | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

The last time many of us thought about our nation's large land-based

nuclear

missile

s was probably during the Cold War, but today there are nearly 450 of these giant Minuteman threes, as they are called, hidden in underground silos, ready to be launched whenever the president orders them. They are part of the so-called Nuclear Triad that includes submarines and bombers, but it is the land-based part of the Triad that has been getting all the attention lately and it is not the kind of attention that top brass wants for the entire Air Force chain. . The command of a

missile

base responsible for a third of our land-based missiles was eliminated a few weeks ago due to a scandal involving drugs and test cheating.

We wanted to know what was happening and why so much turmoil in the missile core. Who cares?

nuclear

weapons and where these weapons of mass destruction are flying over the plains of Wyoming in an old Huey helicopter. We came to a small fenced lot that didn't look like much, so that's it, said Air Force Col. Carl Jones. We're told that under the concrete near that white post is a Minute Man 3 missile, it's one of the deadliest and most powerful weapons on the planet, so that particular missile is currently armed with a nuclear warhead. It is the warhead on each of these land-based missiles.

The missiles are 20 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and could kill millions if dropped on a major city. The Air Force still keeps nearly all of the 450s on constant alert ready to go. We thought the missiles would be hidden in a vast area. of federal lands we were surprised that the missiles were close to rural communities we saw bales of hay and herds of cattle grazing, it's a safe weapon, I mean, it won't do anything here on the ground by accident or deliberate act, one of those missiles. it was launched, is there a way to disarm it or bring it back?

We can only launch it with the direction of the President of the United States. Now, once that missile is gone, there is no way to remove it or disarm the warhead that is on the missile once it is gone. Gone, gone, the missiles are scattered over a wide area surrounding three Air Force bases. in five different states. A network of hardened and pressurized underground cables connects the missiles to buildings like this one, where the missiles are controlled remotely from miles away in capsules. Seventy feet underground, control rooms hang from shock absorbers within a protective layer of concrete and steel.

The system was designed in another era, in the 1960s, to survive a nuclear explosion. We took the elevator down and were escorted to a door that weighs eight tons. We were allowed. enter as long as we use an old Air Force camera and let security officials examine this footage. The so-called missile ears that monitor and control the missiles work in teams of two in 24-hour shifts known as alerts. They have everything down here. We need to survive, we expected to find paunchy veterans at the checkpoints, instead we found Chaz Demarath, who is 25 years old, just three years out of the Air Force Academy, and his deputy Dana Myers, 23.

This was only the fifth time who was on duty when they started this 24. hour shift they took custody of 10 nuclear weapons so I guess I have to ask you the inevitable question where is the button where is the big button yes ma'am there is no button there is no button there is no no button there are three switches and a key that is kept in this safe with two locks, demareth has one combination, Myers has the other, it is one of the many layers of safeguards built into the system, although we trust each other, we don't trust each other, we thought work would be It's tedious to just wait for something that will probably never happen, but from almost the moment we asked the question, this is incredibly boring, it's never born because we have so many actions we do every day , alarms started ringing and phones kept ringing.

Madam, I need to ask everyone to leave the spaces at this time. Is there a problem? There is nothing wrong at this time. We were politely asked to leave at least eight times so they could decode messages or deal with other classifieds. information, the officers may be young, if you can imagine their computer is, but the equipment is old, this, for example, is one of the computers that would receive a launch order from the president, it uses floppy disks, the really old and big ones before you arrived. here you've probably never seen one. I had never seen what it was like until I was done with missiles, so the reason the Air Force allowed us to visit the missile

fields

surrounding Warren Air Force Base is because they wanted to counteract all the bad press it gets. been receiving lately at the other two bases that also protect our land-based missiles last year 17 missile ears at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota were removed from service after poor performance in an inspection at the Base Malstrom Air Force in Montana three missile ears are under investigation for drug possession and 91 have been implicated in a scandal involving cheating on routine tests.

I'm flying back. Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein took control of the three nuclear bases in December with a mandate to find out what ails a missile core and fix it. I guess you would call it an identity crisis with the mission as a whole, you have these nuclear weapons that no one thinks you will ever use, so do you consider that to be an issue that begs the question of what is the mission not because we use these weapons? every day protecting our nation deterrence has value has value to our nation has value to our allies General Weinstein commands a force of 9,600 including maintenance technicians who keep the missiles operational security forces who guard the weapons and They provide a heavily armed escort every time the WarHeads move and around 500 missile ears manning 45 control centers 24 hours a day, the vast majority, the general says, have not cheated in the tests, we are talking about one percent of the 9,600 people who work for me violated our core values, but when you say one percent it's not one percent of the miscellaneous, it's true, you're talking about everyone, right, it's a much higher percentage of the miscellaneous, right, it's about 20 percent. of the diverse ones, that is huge, it is huge and that is why we have assumed responsibility for those people.

Joe Weinstein also removed COOs on General Weinstein's recommendation, Air Force brass announced the Montana-based commander would resign and nine other officers under his command Weinstein told us investigators found no evidence of cheating at the other two missile bases, but that's not what our reports found. You know, it's interesting because we talk to a lot of former miscellaneous people and they just say that cheating happens everywhere and that this has been going on for quite a while, what we did was we looked at the evidence every time we saw a cell phone where there was a text message. or an email, we investigated that one of the people who told us that this deception was endemic was an instructor. on this base and I left last year, well, I will tell you that as a commander, if I have any indication that people are following our core values, I immediately attack the problem and we have not seen this problem at the other two bases, said the former missiles. "It tells us that the missile core has long been treated as the stepchild of the Air Force.

The pilots get all the glory. The missile ears have less chance of advancing. Let's review the monthly lesson plan and then We're going to do a test," he said. that the reason for cheating is a culture of perfection in which cheaters have felt they had to get 100 percent on tests they take three times a month or they will have no chance of promotion. We spoke to a group of current missile ears at Warren Air Force Base. including 26-year-old Daniel Sharp from Tennessee, why did people feel like they had to score 100 percent when I first got here?

The leadership that was on site told me that the minimum score to pass my exam was 90, but if I was getting 90, it was a student and I would be treated that way, but in reality you were here under that pressure of 100. I was , yes, and you felt the pressure and that caused stress. I'm absolutely sure about it, yes, but it also caused a lot of studying and a lot of efficiency, so no one cheated because they had to uh, they didn't know the material they cheated to get a hundred, that's gone, that's gone, so, what? what replaces that?

Well, right now, it passes, it fails, as long as so you know above 90, which is the standard wait, wait, wait, pass, it still passed, you failed at 90. Yeah, it's still at 90 right now. Wow, how does that improve things when you take away the pressure of getting a hundred on a test you have? people focus on what they need to know. I think it changes things. It's one of many things the general is doing to boost morale, which most say has been low for a long time, including at the top last year. Weinstein's predecessor, Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, was relieved of command for drunkenness and inappropriate behavior during an official trip to Moscow, according to an inspector general's report.

Carrie complained that her troops had the worst morale of all airmen in the military. Air Force How many of you chose being a missile launcher as your first choice for a military career, two of you, to tell the truth, the vast majority do not choose this job, this group was impressive, they majored in engineering physics and English and many are working In your advanced degrees, we've obviously heard a lot about moral problems, so I wonder what the moral problems come from. Well, it fluctuates and there are times when it just becomes a routine because you are doing a lot in a short period of time many times and you just have to adapt and work with the schedule that you have.

They are given for what can be more than 24 hours, of course the weather influences how long we can be down if we have bad weather, especially during the winter. At these northern bases, we may be there for 48 hours at a time or possibly 72. Has anyone been down for 72 no 48 44 yes yes 48 many of you told us that you feel things are getting better and you also assured us that there are many safeguards built into launch control center or lccs systems to prevent unauthorized launch are any of you partners? Yes ma'am, your partner is fine, just for the sake of this discussion, let's say you both go crazy and take out the key and turn it on.

Will trigger? I do not win. It doesn't fire, why not? Because there are enabling codes that we need to get the missile ready for launch. Only the president of the United States could authorize the launch of nuclear weapons and a capsule alone cannot do it alone. and you would have to receive the codes to place them, you don't have them when you enter the LCC, well that's reassuring, an important part of their job is to monitor the status of the missiles if they receive a signal that something is wrong. They ask for a maintenance team to fix it.

Oh wow, maintenance teams train on this missile which is virtually identical to the real thing minus the rocket fuel and warhead. The systems are so complex that technicians work from detailed checklists, separating all the senses. We are constantly shouting two, two, two because the rules require that there will always be two people watching each other when working on a nuclear missile. The idea is to guarantee security and avoid sabotage. Sometimes these three Minutemen have to be removed from their silos. for repairs or for random test launches without the warhead, of course, to make sure the missiles continue to function.

These missiles were designed and built during the Cold War, when there was always the fear of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union, but it was everyone's second in command. US nuclear forces recently said they are more worried about an accident or human error than a Russian attack. When we return, we will tell you about some past mishaps that almost led to accidental nuclear detonations on American soil for more than 50 years. Nuclear missiles and long-range bombers have played a key role in the United States' strategy to deter other nations from using their nuclear weapons against us, but the age of the equipment is an issue and human error is always a concern.

Small mistakes like a plug. It can mean the difference between routine maintenance and a serious accident that we didn't realize until we started digging into the story. How many close calls have there been involving nuclear weapons, fires, plane crashes, fuel explosions, even a bomb that was accidentally dropped on the ground?United States. the seriousness of many. Of these incidents was not revealed at the time, but based on witness accounts and declassified government documents, today we have a much better understanding of how close we have come to a nuclear disaster. We came close on numerous occasions during the Cold War to having our own weapons. accidentally detonated on American soil Eric Schlosser spent six years investigating nuclear weapons accidents during the Cold War.

His book Command and Control describes a series of hair-raising incidents, such as the 1980 rocket fuel explosion in Damascus, Arkansas, which forced the evacuation of people living near a Titan II Missile Complex (someone dropped a shell casing in The Silo and the casing fell about 70 feet it pierced the missile it caused a fuel leak and then there was a big explosion if it exploded how come you say there was no detonation? They put safety mechanisms in the WarHeads. to make sure they only detonate on the target where they're supposed to and that's a testament to the engineering skill of Warhead's designers and good luck.

Schlosser says that's not the only time we got lucky a few days after John Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. An Air Force B-52 like this one had mechanical problems and accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb on Goldsboro, North Carolina. North, when it hit the ground, the firing signal was sent, but a safety switch prevented a large-scale detonation of a powerful hydrogen bomb in North Carolina. I'm a little surprised because I didn't hear the story, yes I did until you revealed that there was a real effort throughout the Cold War to deny it existed. Was there any chance that a nuclear weapon could be detonated by accident?

Today's Minuteman 3 missiles use more stable and more likely to explode rocket fuel and have also improved some key components, such as the guidance systems that direct the missiles towards their target, the nuclear weapons themselves, the warhead, the bombs are Much safer than 30 years ago, there's no doubt about it, but the infrastructure, the equipment that transports those weapons, the Minuteman itself dates back to the Nixon Administration. Look at it this way, if you have a beautiful sports car from the 1960s, it would drive very fast and it would be fun to drive properly, but a modern car will have many more safety mechanisms that are much more sophisticated and the architecture, the command architecture and control, it's complicated and old, how would you evaluate the risk of an accident occurring, human error, something like that, the probability is as close to zero as you can get.

Major General Jack Weinstein's first job when he was a young aviator was in charge of one of those launch control centers, today he is in charge of the 450 ground intercontinentals. ballistic missiles in the US you have said that you sleep well at night, that is a direct quote, some people would say that you should not sleep well at night, you should be constantly worried because you have a very complex system here and there are Many things that could go wrong, the people who designed this weapons system in the 1960s, even though we have made improvements, are really brilliant and there are a lot of safety mechanisms built into the system, but during our visit to the center underground control with Colonel Carl Jones.

We got a glimpse of what the core of the missile is dealing with. Take this huge exterior door designed to protect the corridor leading to the capsule. They can't close it due to a broken part, so it is pried open and marked with a danger tag. We were told the gate has been disabled this way for years. Many things on the board in the equipment building are already manufactured, so we have to find a way to manufacture that part and see if the new part will work on a missile. We visited Silo once and the freezing weather had clearly taken its toll.

The missile was being removed from the Silo for repair because water had leaked. It is probably the worst case of loose nuclear weapons in US military history. The problems with nuclear weapons occurred as recently as 2007. Six nuclear weapons. Spiked cruise missiles were mistakenly loaded onto a B-52 that flew cross-country and left unattended on the runway without anyone noticing for 36 hours, prompting then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates to to ask the secretary of the Air Force and the chief of staff to resign in 2010. Due to a technical problem a missile squadron at the base we visited in Wyoming stopped receiving electronic messages from the missiles it was in charge of monitoring what happened was that we lost status monitoring of 50 missiles 50 missiles 50 was a squadron for an hour a little less an hour but an hour what word would you use to describe that?

It's bad? Was it dangerous? I don't see it as dangerous at all because of the security of the weapons system. I would call it serious when you lose control of the state during that period. Being able to communicate with the missileers and other people on the base for a long time is essential to a miscellir's job, so we were surprised to learn that they had trouble hearing what was being said on their phones. Can you see what's up with the phones that are there? horrible yeah what's not good about them is the hearing or you can't connect when you make a call or both.

I mean, you can't hear the other person on the other end of the line, sometimes you can. It doesn't dial, which makes it very difficult if you're trying to do your job just to make it clear that the president isn't going to get them on the phone with orders to launch him. They have other, more secure systems for that, but it's still an analog. system and when you have an analog system there are problems we are considering upgrading that in the next years years in the next years not years and they are using really very old computers.

I saw a floppy disk and not a floppy disk does that. The size was gigantic. I will tell you that those older systems give us great security when it comes to some of the cyber problems that we have in the world today. Now explain that a few years ago we did a complete analysis of our entire system. Cyber ​​network engineers found that the system is extremely secure and extremely secure in the way it was developed, which means that you are not connected to the Internet, they are not connected to the Internet, so the Cyber ​​​​people ​​​He recommended that he keep it as is.

For now, yes, a terrorist attack is also a major concern. The optical security team is constantly training to recapture a missile silo from the bad guys if they ever break in, once the team enters the complex and secures the site they lower themselves into the Silo using quick ropes. and pulling out their weapons faster than most of us can tie a shoe land-based ICBMs the ICBMs we saw are just one part of the Nuclear Triad that includes missiles on submarines and bombers the Congressional Budget Office estimates It will cost at least $355 billion to operate and improve all three legs of the Triad over the next 10 years.

Do we need the three legs of the Triad? I think the leg of the Triad that may be least useful in our missiles, the ground base, The ground missiles are targets that the Russians know exactly where they are. It puts the states where they are based at risk, whereas with submarines they are hidden. One of the things about a bomber is if the bomber takes off with nuclear weapons. weapons and you change your mind, you can have the bomber return to base and you can't do that with a ground missile, the ground leg of the Triad, do we need to have that?

I think it is extremely important to have a nuclear capability on alert 24/7 to protect our nation when I think we need to look at the problems that sometimes in the eyes of other nations, when other nations are upgrading their strength of ICBMs, are modernizing their ICBM force. I think it's extremely important that we provide the American public with that daily deterrent value that ICBMs provide and that's the mission and that's the mission hands on the keys and the switches we were watching missile ears practicing their procedures in a simulator do you I like the way the key turns when one One of the instructors offered us the opportunity to do a practice throw.

It was pretty easy to flip the switches. Okay, let go. Look, how many missiles did I really launch? One or ten. You rolled 50. I rolled 50 50. The number everyone here would say. You would remember your first alert, you go down the elevator, you walk through those first two massive blast doors and you are looking at the same console that you have been training on for so long, but this one is connected directly to 10 nuclear weapons with status monitoring. for an additional 40. and that absolutely weighs on him, it weighs on him. We leave the base more aware of the pressures these young officers are under and hoping that their superiors will decide to fix those broken phones and doors.

Recently, the Air Force announced it would spend $19 million this year to upgrade launch control centers and silos and is asking for more than $600 million next year to make more improvements without most of us even realizing our activities. everyday things, from withdrawing cash from an ATM to watching this program that depends on

satellites

in space. and for the US military it's not just about everyday activities, the way it fights depends on space,

satellites

are used to communicate with troops, they gather intelligence, they fly drones and Target weapons, but top military leaders and intelligence agencies are now concerned that those satellites are vulnerable to attack, they say, China in particular has been actively testing anti-satellite weapons that could actually destroy the eyes and ears of the United States.

Nobody wants a war in space, but it's the job of a branch of the Air Force called Space Command to prepare for one, if you've never heard. Because most of what you do happens hundreds or even thousands of miles above Earth or deep within highly secure command centers, you might be as surprised as we are to discover how it plays. what is at stake in the control of space, according to the investigation. What is being done at Starfire Optical in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was kept secret for many years and for good reason that only becomes apparent at night: first, the roof of a building is open to the stars, then the Walls retract and an object appears directly from the star.

Wars appears by putting a laser in the sky. The laser beam helps a high-powered telescope focus on objects in space so the Air Force can better see satellites of potential adversaries like China, whizzing by at 17,000 miles per hour. of a complex and largely secret battle for what the military considers the ultimate high ground, there is no day without space, that is the mantra of General John, exalt, the head of the Air Force Space Command, think about what it used to be like life and everything. the things we have today in warfare that would not exist without space all-weather remotely piloted aircraft precision guided munitions did not exist before space now we can attack any target on the planet at any time, anywhere and in any weather, What would the US military do without him? space, what happens is you go back to World War II, you go back to the Industrial Age War and your job is to make sure that there is no date without space at all and you have to think from the beginning that this is a contested environment and intense drills. to their troops that American satellites are no longer safe from Attack 11.

Countries including Iran and North Korea now have the ability to launch objects into orbit and Russia and China have been testing new anti-satellite technologies, that's a competition that I wish wasn't happening. but it is and if we are threatened in space we have the right of self-defense and we will make sure that we can execute that right and use the Force if necessary, that's why we have an army, you know, I'm not a NASA spaceman. The command has 38,000 Airmen at 134 locations around the world. If you look at one of its most visible missions, it is to make sure that American satellites can always reach space from launch pads like this one at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

This is where Space begins if you can't get the satellite into space it is worthless. I'm a satellite guy, so I get very nervous about rockets because the most valuable thing in the rocket is the top, it's the satellite, because when you have 500,000 pounds of thrust. if something goes wrong, it's an explosion, it's dangerous and you lose the capabilities that are at the top T minus 15 seconds, the US has more satellites in space than any other nation, over 500 and counting over 30 military and civil launches will take placeout this year to space command bases in Florida and California, the Pentagon told us it spends $10 billion a year on space, but we found a White House report that estimates the real cost is much higher: $25 billion dollars if you count spy satellites and other classified spending, which is more than NASA or any other space agency in the world, some of those satellites provide the GPS signals that guide the smart bombs now attacking Isis targets in Iraq and Syria, but many people don't realize that those same GPS satellites provide the signals your smartphone uses to navigate.

It is a service that the Air Force provides free of charge not only here in the United States but around the world. It is a global utility and there are many people who depend on this and we understand that we have a Boeing plant in Los Angeles, Colonel Bill Cooley showed. us, a GPS satellite that was being tested in a special chamber to make sure it was ready for launch, when these things go into orbit, there is no tank, you can't drive back to the maintenance shop, it's kind of like trying design a car that is It's going to run for 12 to 15 years and you can't take it to the store, you can't take it to refuel but it has to run 24/7.

In orbit, the satellite will extend its solar panels. By facing antennas toward the Earth and transmitting their location along with a time signal with nanosecond precision, a GPS receiver needs signals from four of these satellites to determine its location. Colonel Cooley told us that it costs a quarter of a billion dollars to design and build each one. and put it in space, how much does it cost? That's pretty much the same thing, so you're spending half a billion dollars to get that into space. That's right, the United States has 31 active GPS satellites in space right now and many more than smart bombs. and smartphones depend on them.

Bank ATMs, cell towers, and power grids use their signals. Farmers use GPS to work their

fields

, so in your active time you will simply activate. The GPS satellite system that everyone depends on is operated from this room at Schreiber Air Force Base in Colorado by Lt. Col. Todd Benson and his SP #34 prepass team. We were a little surprised at how many people were needed eight Staff eight people yes sir for everyone yes sir are these technological experts yes sir but they are as young as 19 years old, isn't there a minimum age to drive satellites? Another thing that surprised us is that there is no way to effectively shield an important satellite like this or hide its location so that it can't be attacked.

Not hiding in space, that's true and we, in fact, are the ones who tell you where it is. This is a system that everyone depends on. It costs a small fortune to put it there and it's a sitting duck. Well, this is one of the challenges facing space. command of which we are well awareToday, can a US military satellite maneuver out of the path of an upcoming anti-satellite weapon? It depends on a lot of variables, so the answer is maybe, so you have these satellites that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and they may be able to get out of Harm's Way depends on the satellite depends on the mission depends on when it was built It depends on how old it is.

It depends on when we know the threat is coming with the territory you are responsible for. One trillion space command maintains a global network of radars, telescopes, and satellite communications antennas like this one. You can see the magnetic lines, yes, they are going around everywhere. All information enters the joint space operations center, J-Spock for short, at Vandenberg Air. Force Base, this is the command center for space, yes sir, it is maintained 24/7, 365 days a year, if the American satellite were attacked, Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond would use this phone to alert a chain of command leading to the White House if there is an attack on an American satellite. an active war that has been a line of debate for as long as I have been in this business, if there is an attempt to attack or interfere with the US all of a sudden, who makes the decision on what we do about it, that will be the president of the United States and it is not only the anti-satellite weapon that worries them, there are other dangers as well.

Today we track about 23,000 objects, how many of them are working satellites, about 1,300 of them are active satellites, the rest are junk, yes sir. trash Florida makes no effort to confirm visual contact with debris debris comes from a BSE sat the movie Gravity dramatized the devastating effect that artificial debris traveling at 17,000 miles per hour could have on the International Space Station footprints of j -spock dead satellites old rocket boosters even stray space clubs and alert satellite operators and astronauts if a collision is likely last year in 2014 the International Space Station was maneuvered three times to avoid colliding with a piece of debris, much of the debris that threaten the space station were created in 2007, when the Chinese tested an anti-Earth satellite weapon, crashed into one of their old weather satellites 530 miles above Earth, breaking it into pieces.

This is the debris that resulted from the 2007 Chinese rise, so it's about 3,000 pieces of debris just from that event that arose just from that collision just from that collision debris aside from how important that test was in terms of revealing the capabilities Chinese spacecraft, it was a major wake-up call for our entire military until that singular event. I don't think the military in general realized that that's something we're going to have to worry about. Have you done similar tests? Since they continued to carry out tests. The tests they are doing are to make sure that if they ever get in.

In the event of a conflict with us or any other spacefaring nation, they would have the ability to destroy satellites and that is a bad thing for the United States, a bad thing for the planet, a bad thing for sure, but is the United States doing it too and is China ? recently raised the stakes by testifying a weapon deeper into space than ever before and threatening some of this country's most valuable satellites, that part of our history when we return tonight we've been giving you a rare look at how a branch of The US Air Force's so-called space command is preparing for a battle, most of us have never thought of one high above the Earth

defending

the satellites from which our daily lives and national security have come. to depend Few of those satellites are more important to the U.S. military than those providing early warning of a long-range nuclear missile attack, even at the height of the Cold War, those satellites stationed in the depths of space about 20,000 miles above Earth were considered safe from attack, but deep space is no longer the sanctuary it once was The space command official told us that two years ago the Chinese tested an anti-satellite weapon that was higher that anyone previously reported and got too close to the area where those missile warning satellites are located, if those satellites are now at risk, that's something.

That, from the point of view of the US military, is new because it was always believed that those Satellites did not really represent a significant threat to those capabilities. Brian Whedon served as an officer at the Air Force Base Command until 2007. He is now a technical advisor to the Safe World Foundation. which promotes the peaceful use of space the topic of today's discussion Whedon says the Chinese have tested up to six ground-based anti-satellite weapons, only one in 2007 hit a satellite and created debris, but one of the others rose to new heights. At altitude there was a test in May 2013 that could have gone up to 30,000 kilometers and I think that is something that is really causing quite a bit of concern on the American side.

The Space Station orbits about 200 miles above Earth, and the GPS satellites we show you are believed to orbit at 12,000 miles (the 2013 test launch that Whedon talks about) reached eighteen thousand six hundred miles, just shy of what It's known as geosynchronous or geostationary orbit, and that's where the U.S. military has placed some of its most valuable missile warning sensors and top-secret communications devices that serve as eyes and ears in times of war. I think what keeps many American military planners up at night is whether China has anti-Semitic capabilities. When do they use them in a conflict?

Did they use them at first to try to blind the US? They sound like the crown jewels of American satellites there in geosynchronous orbit. Absolutely those satellites were developed in an environment where the US assumed there would be no reason to attack them, so you end up with a small number of very expensive satellites that have a lot of capacity in each one and the result is juicy targets. A spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry admitted to testing an anti-satellite weapon in 2007, but China denied further testing and told us it is committed to the peaceful uses of outer space.

He said the 2013 launch into deep space was simply a science experiment, but it used skills he honed as a space command officer. Brian Whedon analyzed commercial satellite photographs and other publicly available data about the launch and concluded that the scientific experiment was likely launched into space by a military missile launcher like this one. This building was built in General John Hayden, the head of the Air Force Base command has seen the classified intelligence about that launch these Chinese follow-up tests at what height do they reach quite well? How is that? I will not characterize what Chinese capabilities are.

I'll just tell you that we know what they are. read reports about the congressional committee saying that in the next five to ten years China will likely be able to keep US national security satellites at risk in all orbital regimes. Do you agree with this statement from the commission? I think they could threaten all the orbital regimes in which we operate now we have to figure out how to defend those satellites and we are going to the space command is making its new satellites more maneuverable to evade attacks and also more resistant to interference is building a new radar system that will allow the space operations center to track objects in space as small as a baseball and has deployed two highly maneuverable surveillance satellites to monitor what other countries are doing high in geostationary orbit satellites watching others satellites satellites observing other satellites and how they do it improve your knowledge because they are close normally the capabilities of spy satellites are kept top secret, but the space command published this fact sheet about its new assets in geosynchronous orbit we want people to understand that We are observing that there will be no surprises in Geo and we want everyone in the world to know that there will be no surprises in that orbit.

It is too valuable to us to be surprised. Deterrence in the nuclear world was based on weapons, and deterrence in the space world has to be built on a slightly different construct is the ability to convince an adversary that if they attack us they will fail. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told us the Pentagon plans to spend an additional $5 billion over the next five years to protect its satellites. What do you consider to be the biggest threat to US satellites? An anti-satellite weapon would certainly be a major threat. A laser would be a threat. Jamming capabilities are also a threat.

Do China and Russia have lasers that could blind the US satellites they are testing? and invest, and that is worrying for the United States, very well, good morning, Bravo team, we are going to start with Intel tests and investments in sometimes mysterious ways. Russia will launch a two-day Soyuz last year. Aviators in the set. The space operations center oversaw the apparently routine launch of three Russian communications satellites. Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond and his team spotted what they assumed was just an ordinary piece of launch debris. About a week later, a young Air Force captain spotted that debris starting to move. move as if in maneuver near the body of the rocket that had launched it into space, so what is that object that continues to maneuver in space?

David, I'm not going to speculate, but I can tell you what it's not, it's not a piece of rubble, that type of maneuver is what's called a close encounter operation and it's actually something that the US has been involved in. been working duringrecent years, if not longer, satellites that can meet other satellites. They may one day be used to refuel or make repairs, but there are also potential weapons if you can get close enough to inspect or service another satellite, close enough to disable it completely, and there are a wide range of ways in which you can do it, like breaking a solar panel or even some of the theories.

You know, spray paint over the optics so the satellite can't see anything, so if you thought space was a peaceful haven, think again, this is a new kind of space race, a cosmic game of hide-and-seek with the The same technology that allows this telescope to see more clearly in space could potentially be used to help a laser weapon focus more power

full

y on a target. The Bush administration wanted to develop such a weapon here in 2006, but met resistance from Congress. Is there any work being done on lasers that could be used to blind satellites? There is no such work at this time.

Does the United States have weapons in space? No no. I'm thinking about satellites that maneuver alongside another satellite and then take some action to disable it without exploding. We have satellites that maneuver that look at things in space but not what you just described. Do you think the Chinese believe that I don't know what they believe? When the Chinese look at US space operations, they see a program that, by most estimates, spends 10 times more than they do. make and has tested anti-satellite weapons from its own Space Command told us that a US F-15 fired a missile into space five times in the 1980s and that one of those times it destroyed a US satellite, creating debris that remained in space for decades. , one of the officers involved in that test was General Heightn.

I think most people on that show were surprised by the amount of debris we created, so where would we get away with lecturing the Chinese about testing anti-satellite weapons if we were first and if we created the debris right? It was because we learned our lesson and told the world and Congress said they would not test that weapon again, but when a US intelligence satellite containing dangerous fuel failed in 2008. The Navy's Aegis defense system designed to defeat missiles starters were used for shooting. The Chinese must also think we have anti-satellite capability. I think they certainly have come to that conclusion or not.

If the United States doesn't have a capability there, it could certainly deploy one very quickly. What you just described is the formula. for an arms race they see a capability we have a capability they react to that capability they react we react and that's it I think it could certainly turn out that way one of the great dangers is that a problem in space could inflame a conflict here on Earth, For example, if a nation suddenly lost its early warning satellites in the middle of a crisis, it might assume it was the start of an attack;

Now, actually, it could have been a simple manufacturing fault, it could have been a piece of space junk, but at the time of the crisis, I think that's the kind of situation that could aggravate something that might otherwise have been maintained. partially contained. General Heighten told us that space commanders are currently only developing non-debris weapons like this Mobile Jammer that can be used to disable satellites. We have a capability called a countercommunication system that is designed to deny an adversary the use of space. Communications. All I can say is that it's an ability that exists on land and doesn't create debris in any way, the only two things you have.

He told me about the US's ability to fight in space, the ability to maneuver its satellites and jam other satellites. It's not that, but that's all I can tell you. A secret project is hiding in plain sight: it is the X-37B space plane. the small remotely piloted vehicle that can fly in space for 20 months straight this is a model of space a model hanging in the headquarters in Colorado, so this is your chance to end all the speculation about what the plane is really for space. really for interesting things, for example, it goes to space, but unlike other satellites, it actually comes back.

Whatever we put in the payload bay that we take into space, we can now bring it back and we can learn from that, can you tell me whether or not the spaceplane will one day become a weapons system? The intent is, eh, I can't answer that question, but if you're determined not to create more debris in space, why can't you say so? that this might not become a weapons system. I'm not going to say what it will become because we are experimenting. Hayden told us there are bound to be conflicts in space. The important thing is to avoid a shooting war that could create so many things. debris and it could be impossible to put satellites or astronauts into orbit.

The Chinese, of course, look at everything they're doing and so they're looking at this and saying that they're developing the ability to threaten them and that all those satellites are a direct threat to their national security, so why not Would they create the ability to eliminate those satellites? You know the Chinese are also building a very robust exploration program to go to the Moon and explore the stars. They could destroy their entire program by going to the Moon. As it stands, there isn't a shooting war, but there appears to be a high-stakes competition in space. There is a lot at stake, a lot at stake with very few rules.

A 1967 UN treaty requires peaceful use. of space which sounds good, but leaves a lot of room for countries to do what they want at the moment. Is there a code of conduct for space operations? There is no agreed code of conduct, so it is each country for itself.