{"id":550665,"date":"2026-07-20T14:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T14:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/550665\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T14:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T14:34:08","slug":"most-people-dont-know-weve-set-up-a-doomsday-system-physicist-laura-grego-on-satellites-nuclear-weapons-and-the-battle-for-our-skies-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/550665\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Most people don\u2019t know we\u2019ve set up a doomsday system\u2019: physicist Laura Grego on satellites, nuclear weapons and the battle for our skies | Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last time I saw Laura Grego was in a tent in a baking field on the Welsh borders in May. The conversation on stage ranged from the dangers of space debris<\/a> to how the law of the sea might pertain to outer space; from our sense of the sacred to our interplanetary futures. At one point Grego, a physicist, said intently, \u201cPeople have to be aware of what is happening in space. Public knowledge has to catch up.\u201d Three weeks later, SpaceX launched on the stock exchange, temporarily making Elon Musk the world\u2019s first trillionaire.<\/p>\n

So, I ask her now, what is it that we should all know? Well, she says, the average person\u2019s experience of space is about to change. If, so far, that has been \u201clooking at the stars and being full of wonder, full of connection with the universe\u201d, perhaps noticing the occasional streaking object that was not a shooting star, now \u201cthere are plans for tens of thousands more satellites, which would really change your relationship with what you see in the sky\u201d. SpaceX<\/a>, specifically, has just applied to a federal regulator for permission to launch up to 1m of them.<\/p>\n

Grego, who is now back in the US and speaking to me on screen from Cambridge, Massachusetts, has an unforced warmth and urgency, and a lack of self-aggrandisement in striking contrast to the gung-ho attitude that seems to accompany so much discussion of space. She became a physicist when she arrived at university and looked for the hardest thing she could find to study, so as to get her time\u2019s worth (\u201ca very midwestern perspective\u201d). Then she became an observational cosmologist, which she found she loved. This merged with her other life as an activist (\u201canti-war, workers\u2019 rights, racial justice \u2013 all the things important for a better society\u201d) when she became research director of the Global Security programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists.<\/p>\n

\u2018I happen to think Earth is a really nice place\u2019 \u2026 Laura Grego. Photograph: Lucy Lu\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The union, founded at the height of the Vietnam war by American scientists horrified by their government\u2019s misuse of science, aims to direct research energies toward solving environmental and social problems instead; Grego sees herself as working in the tradition of Leo Szilard, who tried to warn the US government against using an atomic bomb on Japan, and of \u201cscientists taking seriously the responsibility to illuminate the dangers\u201d. So she does research, she educates, sometimes she lobbies about specific issues: explaining to the George W Bush administration, for example, that no, their giddy visions of \u201cspace weapons, very much inspired by science fiction, maybe movies, things that would zip marines around in space and pew, pew, pew!\u201d would not work. The current administration, which appears to treat war like a video game for which they can make up the rules, is unsurprisingly proving trickier.<\/p>\n

There are in fact rules in space. Almost all countries are signed up to the Outer Space<\/a> Treaty of 1967, which requires that space be used for peaceful purposes only, that no one stations nuclear weapons in space, or any weapons on any celestial bodies, and that no one may claim ownership of any celestial body. It is silent on weapons transiting through space, or indeed being put into orbit.<\/p>\n

The truth is, Grego says, space has always been a military zone, insofar as the very first satellite, Sputnik 1, sent up in 1957 \u2013 \u201ca civilian object in that all it really did was go beep, beep, beep\u201d \u2013 was a geopolitical assertion: \u201cWho\u2019s better, who\u2019s on top technologically.\u201d Then there was how it got there. A rocket launcher is not so different from an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). \u201cAnd once you have a working ICBM, you could put a nuclear weapon on top of it and send it from the Soviet Union to the United States in half an hour, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

It is probably helpful, here, to remember that space is not that far away: the atmosphere begins to peter out about 100km up \u2013 roughly the distance from London to Portsmouth, say. \u201cAnd ICBMs, if you\u2019re sending them 10,000km from one country to another, they pop up above the atmosphere within a few minutes and then they spend most of their time where the lower satellites are. So they spend most of their time in space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because it is so close, and has none of the airspace restrictions we have within the atmosphere, there was quickly another military use to space, which was \u201coverflights of each other\u2019s countries to see what they\u2019re doing. How many nuclear missiles do they have? What are they doing with their troops?\u201d This is an important aspect of enforcing arms control agreements: \u201cTaking pictures every day to see, are you keeping your word?\u201d<\/p>\n

But with such range and sophistication comes vulnerability. There is standard military vulnerability: \u201cFor a military like the US, which is global, extremely modern, space is the backbone. Space provides long-distance communications, targeting, battle-assessment, weather prediction \u2013 even drone warfare runs off satellite signals in some cases.\u201d But satellites themselves are very valuable, and largely undefended, which has been \u201can uncomfortable position for militaries to be in\u201d.<\/p>\n

Then, given that we now use satellites to find our way from A to B, to order a cab or check the weather \u2013 not to mention the infinite commercial uses, from airlines to inventory management \u2013 there is the economic vulnerability. \u201cYou can jam them, you can spoof them, you could cyber-attack them. And that\u2019s not totally uncommon.\u201d In fact, earlier this month Russia was reported<\/a> to have tried to jam Musk\u2019s Starlink satellites, so as to impede Ukrainian drones.<\/p>\n

No country has yet destroyed another country\u2019s satellite intentionally, Grego continues: \u201cThat\u2019s been a line we haven\u2019t crossed. But most of the big spacefaring countries, which also happen to be nuclear countries, are testing weapons that you could use against other satellites.\u201d Avant-garde space defence now looks for ways to sidle up to opposition satellites. \u201cIf you get that close, you could set your adversary\u2019s satellite spinning. You could spray-paint it. You could blast it with radiation\u201d \u2013 effectively, make it \u201cstop working without blasting it into little pieces\u201d. This is an important consideration when all of this stuff is circling the world every 90 minutes, at a speed at which a rogue fragment the size of a marble could take out any satellite in its way.<\/p>\n

And finally, there is the nuclear vulnerability. When, last autumn, Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s Netflix thriller A House of Dynamite had 22m views within three days<\/a> of its release, Pete Hegseth\u2019s Pentagon circulated an internal memo that was obtained by Bloomberg<\/a>. The movie\u2019s depiction of a US system with under 60% accuracy was, they insisted to their staff, untrue; Trump\u2019s $1.2tn Golden Dome system would be 100% effective.<\/p>\n

Grego was asked about the memo live on BBC TV. The movie is in fact correct, she said; just over half of tests have failed. Though actually, she says now, A House of Dynamite \u2013 which was well researched, just without asking the Pentagon \u2013 portrayed \u201ca strange, very unrealistic case where an adversary might have launched a single weapon without any countermeasures, or any real attempt to disguise it. It\u2019s hard to imagine why a country would do that unless it was an accidental launch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pentagon complained about the depiction of the US defence system in A House of Dynamite. Photograph: Eros Hoagland\/PA<\/p>\n

But where it was realistic, she adds, was in the timelines. The standard way of protecting ICBMs is to put them in silos \u2013 \u201cdig a big hole, pour the concrete, put a shield on top.\u201d But everyone knows where they are because there have been satellites flying over for decades. \u201cAnd the worry is somebody will pre-emptively attack those ICBMs and leave you without them to retaliate, which would upset the balance of mutually assured destruction. And so a key reason you have these satellites looking is that once you see anything headed in, you can quickly launch those missiles before they\u2019re destroyed on the ground. It\u2019s kind of: use them or lose them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thing is, the whole ICBM trajectory only lasts half an hour, and \u201cyou\u2019re compressed by detection, communication. So a president would have less than 10 minutes to decide whether to launch ICBMs or to wait it out \u2026 the system is built so that question gets asked right away. And it creates this intense time-pressure\u201d \u2013 and on imperfect people, with incomplete information.<\/p>\n

She adds: \u201cIf the president decided to launch a counterattack, even if the initial attack was launched by accident, certainly the adversary is going to retaliate. That\u2019s a civilisation-ending day \u2013 or an afternoon.\u201d I\u2019m so taken aback I laugh out loud. \u201cI know,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I\u2019ve had many years to acclimate to this. But most people haven\u2019t. Most people don\u2019t know we\u2019ve set up a system that is essentially a doomsday system. And we can dismantle it. We just have not.\u201d<\/p>\n

And not only that, Grego says, but we are upping the ante. \u201cAll of the nuclear-armed countries are investing in improving or modernising or expanding their nuclear arsenals.\u201d China tested an ICBM in early July; the US is accusing Russia of building (though not yet deploying) a nuclear weapon that would be based in space and target satellites, \u201cwhich would be totally counter to the Outer Space Treaty\u201d. Not to mention the possibility of AI autonomous systems that are likely to speed up decision-making times, and have less accountability. \u201cMost of the nuclear-armed countries are involved in some kind of conflict somewhere,\u201d she says. All arms-control treaties have expired, and if countries have learned anything from the Iran war, where the US bombed them in the middle of diplomatic negotiations, it\u2019s that \u201cif you don\u2019t have a weapon right now, you might want to get one so this doesn\u2019t happen to you.\u201d As for the Golden Dome, \u201cit\u2019s a fool\u2019s errand. It\u2019s expensive. It\u2019s strategically unwise, and technically just unachievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, the other great expansion is, of course, in the commercial use of space, both current and projected. Much of the excitement of the SpaceX IPO was predicated on Musk\u2019s stated intention of launching AI datacentres into space \u2013 even though no one has yet made one work, not least because cooling things in a vacuum is not at all straightforward. The main value of the company is currently in Starlink, which already provides internet in more than 160 countries<\/a> and territories (though not yet in South Africa, which Musk has claimed is \u201cbecause I\u2019m not black\u201d; South Africa replied he was welcome, provided it could see \u201ccompliance with local laws\u201d, which require 30% ownership by local historically disadvantaged communities. Musk\u2019s company has 9,532 satellites in orbit (there are about 17,600 active satellites in total); if permission is granted for the new constellation he wants to build, this will vastly increase. Then there is his stated aim of a colony on Mars.<\/p>\n

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off in California on 13 July. Photograph: Erick Madrid\/Zuma Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

So one person, with questionable views, is aiming not only to rewrite the night sky but in the process gain unfettered control of our heavens? Grego initially responds quite carefully. \u201cYou know, there\u2019s a legal discussion about at what point does that become appropriation, if you\u2019ve put so many satellites in a space? Have you essentially claimed it? I don\u2019t know where that line is.\u201d<\/p>\n

What she does know is, \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re talking enough about it in the right places. We\u2019re racing ahead with technical capabilities beyond our legal and normative structures and where the conversation is on Earth\u201d \u2013 which clearly has more than a few other things to contend with. A recent opinion piece in this paper<\/a> noted that even the Artemis mission, with all its wonder and its joy, was in essence a civilisational move, in which the vast majority of people had been relegated to the status of audience, as opposed to active participants in deciding how we would relate to a universe we all share \u2013 or even whether we should be leaving Earth in the first place.<\/p>\n

Rather like the race for generative AI, or in fact mutually assured destruction, the companies themselves have a momentum that creates facts before anyone has properly thought about what those facts will entail. \u201cCommercial companies are bumping up against what they see are the restrictions on them. Like, \u2018If I can\u2019t appropriate, it\u2019s not clear what I can do. But do we all interpret this the same way?\u2019 And that does engender a bit of a race to the moon. You don\u2019t want to be second. You\u2019re not clear that you\u2019re ready to be first, but nobody wants to be second, because there are some places on the moon which are particularly useful, that have near-perpetual sunlight and access to water, like near the south pole. You\u2019re not allowed to claim it for your country but if you\u2019re there building infrastructure\u201d \u2013 which is effectively claiming it \u2013 \u201chow do we deal with that? And if you have many powerful nuclear-armed countries trying to jostle for the same things in a distant place, that\u2019s another place where you might spark a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

We only have to look at every environment on Earth, she adds, to \u201csee that the extractive colonialist framework has led to an existential crisis for human beings. And we have a chance to do this better as we move into space. And so we shouldn\u2019t cede that power to the first most powerful company that\u2019s able to do it.\u201d She points to a piece of small print in the Starlink user agreements<\/a>, about jurisdictions, and governing law. For any disputes about services \u201cprovided to, on, or in orbit around the planet Earth or the moon\u201d, Texas state law applies, it says, while \u201cfor services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars \u2026 no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not as though Martian settlement is imminent, but the intent is effectively there in print, to refuse all other jurisdiction but of those who get there first. \u201cI obviously don\u2019t know him [Musk]. I can only see what he says and what he does. But I don\u2019t share a view of humanity that he does. I probably shouldn\u2019t go any further. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s inclusive. I don\u2019t think it values human life in the same way that I do. I don\u2019t think it prioritises future generations in the way that I would, or human culture. What\u2019s the best of us, not what\u2019s the worst of us. I don\u2019t know the mechanism to make a course correction right now but I do know that it won\u2019t happen unless people demand it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are a couple of levers. Although the Outer Space Treaty did not imagine Musk \u2013 or any private actor being able to function so widely in space \u2013 it does clearly say that the launch country is responsible for any subsequent activity \u201cin outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies\u201d. So the \u201cUnited States government could say yes or no, or: \u2018To do this, you need to show me a plan for why this is in our interest, not just your interest.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a United Nations of Outer Space Affairs \u2013 but little in the way of mechanisms of enforcement. Any brakes have so far in effect been left to bureaucratic regulatory bodies, Grego says \u2013 though from a military point of view it is hopeful that just this week there has been a meeting in Geneva of the UN\u2019s Open-Ended Working Group on Preventing an Arms Race in Outer Space.<\/p>\n

One reason Grego really enjoyed talking at the philosophy and music festival in Wales, How the Light Gets In, was the opportunity to think about things on a bigger horizon than her usual diet of research and policy papers. In an ideal world, she argues, we would completely reframe the narrative. Currently the dominant story is \u201creally problematic, which is: space is the final frontier. The US military likes to call it the space domain, and that it needs to be dominated.\u201d It is all about the singular (male) hero, long pointy rockets, speed, to boldly go.<\/p>\n

But there are other ways. Not all scientists, but most, she says, \u201cwhether they\u2019re looking at very, very small scales or very, very large scales, pretty quickly come to the realisation that human beings are extraordinarily interesting and rare. How do we safeguard that? And how do we steward that? If we think that humanity is something worth saving, then we actually have a lot we need to do to make sure that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

That might include considering whether we should just step back altogether. \u201cI happen to think Earth is a really nice place. It\u2019s beautiful. I love the beaches, the mountains. Mars has none of that. Mars is harsh. The moon is harsh. They\u2019re very difficult places to live. It will take a long time to make them habitable or pleasant. And Earth has so much going for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s really the horizon that I spend my time on. My kids and my grandkids. And I hope that there\u2019s a world, a beautiful world for them, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last time I saw Laura Grego was in a tent in a baking field on the Welsh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-550665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}