This week we talk about military space. The military has been part of space exploration since the beginning, and it continues to be very important, including as a major customer of, and even occasional investor in, commercial space companies. So it makes sense that we spend some time talking about military space in this podcast. I suspect there will be several episodes on this topic, but my first guest, in this episode, is Professor Bleddyn Bowen from the University of Leicester. He has literally written the book on military space, aptly called “War in Space” and will soon publish another one. We talk about his books, the recent establishment of the U.S. Space Force, how one should think about space as a military domain, about relevant space capabilities, and a few other things. Enjoy!

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Timestamps

0:00 Intro

3:15 The space domain as a military domain

8:00 Which problem(s) could the Space Force solve?

12:08 Bleddyn's books

13:03 Why Space warfare?

14:52 Analogies to space a military domain

19:30 Key capabilities

24:12 Space defense companies

28:11 Potential vulnerable capabilities

38:24 Circling back to Bleddyn's books

44:19 Sci Fi