DTN 042: Pentagon Fears Chinese Space Nukes

The Big Picture

The new space race with China

“Beijing has vastly upgraded its space program over the past decade, closing the gap with American capabilities in orbit and drawing concern from officials and experts alike. China’s space efforts continue “to mature rapidly and Beijing has devoted significant resources to growing all aspects of its space program,” the Pentagon’s 2023 China Military Power Report reads. As the name of that report suggests, one major worry is that China’s space program is directly tied to its military — and is building technology to prepare for battles in orbit, such as anti-satellite weapons and space nukes. (Yes, you read that correctly.) A recent wave of reports and warnings from top U.S. officials have cast a new spotlight on the threat. The Pentagon’s report was published in October. On Tuesday, a 721-page report released by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressional advisory body, concluded that China’s longrunning effort to build a space-based nuclear weapon “has the potential to threaten the U.S. homeland with a new global strike capability.” (It’s widely believed that Beijing has been developing a vehicle for such a weapon for years.) Other concerning technology China has put into orbit, or may develop soon, includes ground-launched missiles that can hit satellites in low-Earth orbit, spacecraft that can pull satellites out of orbit and a laser capable of paralyzing U.S. satellites.” (Politico)

Solar geoengineering is becoming a respectable idea

“What a difference a decade makes. That, roughly, is how often the Open Science Conference, run by the World Climate Research Programme (wcrp), comes along. At the previous get-together in 2011, says Jim Hurrell, a climate scientist and wcrp member, almost no one was talking about geoengineering. This is the idea of deliberately meddling with the Earth’s climate to try to make it cooler, and thus to offset the worst effects of another type of climatic meddling—namely greenhouse-gas-driven global warming. At this year’s event, held in Rwanda, Dr Hurrell gave a keynote address on the subject. There were “hundreds of papers and talks and posters”, he says. That reflects a broader shift in thinking. Although geoengineering has for many years been the subject of serious, albeit small-scale, scientific interest, it has been largely shunned by environmental NGOs, and politicians. Now that is starting to change. Since the start of this year, solar geoengineering, sometimes known as solar radiation modification (srm), has been the whole or partial focus of reports published by the European Commission and Parliament, America’s government, the Climate Overshoot Commission (coc; a collection of global bigwigs and worthies), and four separate bits of the un. A common thread in all of them was that, given the world’s failure to cut greenhouse-gas emissions fast enough, the risks and benefits of srm should be properly examined.” (The Economist)

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Deep Tech News

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JPEG of the Week

Four plants grow in a lab, two showing normal coloration while two produce a green glow that indicates the presence of gamma radiation. — **When exposed to gamma radiation, the distinct green glow of bioengineered potato plants provide rapid and accurate warnings about the presence of hazardous gamma radiation from nuclear facilities.** Ph.D. student Rob Sears engineered the plant, also known as a phytosensor, as part of a research project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). When exposed to gamma radiation, the plant's leaves produce a green fluorescent glow, allowing for accurate warnings that are visible across long distances. Since potatoes are grown across the world in both hospitable and adverse climates, they are the ideal plant for the research as well as for the eventual mass implementation of the developed varieties. (University of Tennessee)

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