Commercial rocket ships, a lunar outpost, expeditions to Venus and Mars, the Second Golden Age of space is upon us. Space is that intimate frontier. Dozens of nations are looking to the stars, but one in particular is gaining ground on what has been US preeminence. Before 2003, China had yet to put a human in space. A lot has changed. A potential trillion market is now up for grabs. And Beijing's ambitions are growing. We should be very afraid of a US China space competition and its consequences for all of us, as are those of private entrepreneurs, just like we are Facebook and Google. Now, the powerhouses in the future are going to be huge space companies. Perhaps a new space race will kick start with JFK once called the best of our energies and skills. But there are dangers, competition between great powers could unleash new military posturing with grave consequences. It'll escalate, of course, to a potential nuclear confrontation. So is a US China space race. Good for humanity? Join us for that, that's debatable, presented by Bloomberg and intelligence squared. From Washington, d.c., I'm John donvan, your host and moderator, welcome to that's debatable. An interactive series on today's most pressing issues. We have four space luminaries to debate. This resolution is a US China space race. Good for humanity? They take questions from me and our global audience, which votes to choose the winner. The team arguing against miccio kaku, a best selling author, theoretical physicist and a co-founder of string field theory, and rajai rajagopalan, a distinguished fellow and head of the nuclear and space policy initiative at the observer research foundation, one of India's leading think tanks. Their opponents, Avi Loeb, a physicist who was the longest serving astronomy chair at Harvard, and badush Bhattacharya, a former Nasa scientist turned entrepreneur. She oversees global businesses and space education and startup incubation. Let's go to their opening statements. The development of outer space is inevitable, not just in the United States. And China, but in nations that have a per capita GDP. That's just 3% that of the US. They are becoming space leaders. This is not just governments around the world. It's also private companies and startups. The price tag for space tech has dropped by a factor of up to 1,000. Access to outer space is indeed democratized. Space based goods and services are exponentially growing, and it's a global sector. Let's figure out how to cooperatively manage its development. A cooperative alliance that pulls expertise from around the world would allow the United States to access goods and services that we can work on this alone. Let's be clear about this space being democratized and exponential change is inevitable. Would a US China space race be good for humanity, or would it necessarily lead to the rapid misallocation of resources for possible militarization of space? I don't think the latter will happen. I believe any space race will very quickly move into military competition and US China space competition will now be no different. Second point, I think the US China space race cannot be limited to just the two players. This will spread. This will have cascading effects. Third point, which is we are already facing serious problems in space, crowded, congested, and the space race, it's already distrustful and the usable areas and outer space is fairly limited. And we need, therefore, restraint in our activities, the kind of activities that we engage in. This means we also need to bring about multilateral governance, global rules, global rules of the road, global agreements. But this would require, first and foremost, multilateral negotiations and the key negotiating body. The conference on disarmament, based in Geneva, has been stalemated for more than two decades. In fact, the last negotiations happened in 1996. And I think even though we do have a few treaties in place, we need updating some of the existing measures, such as the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. We need to change the rules of the road for global governance. Otherwise we will be essentially making space sustainability a serious threat. In the coming years. In general. Competition is good both for science, technology and humanity more generally. Now, the competition between nations started in the oceans. Imagine forbidding ships to leave Europe in fear of the use of ships for military purposes. Where will you be today? The other point to keep in mind is that it's impossible to enforce space laws, especially in the private sector. Since the private sector is outside the boundary of countries. Space is the ultimate frontier and it's also important for national security. We cannot assume cooperation by other nations. And we must protect our national interests. There is a strategic advantage operating from space for surveillance satellites, Warning systems for ballistic missiles, monitoring and cleaning up space debris, and monitoring existential risks, such as climate change, pollution or weather patterns. Anyone arguing against competition signals an inferiority complex, and I do believe that the US and its partners will and should win the competition as we did with the Soviet Union. And obviously, there are concerns, but we should move forward with our aspirations. I'm a professor of theoretical physics, but I. They also realized the physics can be used for peace as well as warfare. We're talking about the fact that our missiles travel at 18,000 miles per hour. Within a matter of minutes, you can knock off the enemy's satellites, communication systems, power systems and create havoc and paralyze and blind the enemy, which gives incentive for a first strike. Because if you strike first, you can blind the enemy if you strike. Second, you may not survive the strike second. Second of all, it will escalate, of course, to a potential nuclear confrontation. But there's a wild card. The wild card is the electromagnetic pulse. Back in the 1960s, the United States sent Hathor missile over the Pacific, detonated a hydrogen bomb in outer space, and was shocked at the electromagnetic pulse, which paralyzed communications between San Francisco and Tokyo. Set up burglar alarms all over Hawaii. A small country like North Korea being outgunned can shoot a warhead over Kansas and potentially knock out a good fraction of our satellites and power systems in the United States. That's the great equalizer. And who's the most vulnerable if it goes to a first strike? We are over 50% of the satellites in orbit are tied to the US military or the US economy. And remember, a new arms race is brewing now. Hypersonic weapons, that's the name of the next round of competition, destabilizing weapons that are maneuverable, that travel up to 20 times the speed of sound. Let's not be naive. The Russians are working on it. The Chinese are working on it. We are working on hypersonic drone vehicles and a whole new arms race could start. So the window of opportunity is now. Now is the time for a treaty before hypersonic weapons destroy our chance for a piece in outer space.
