SPACE WAR

•  In the past three years we have seen some of the most sensational space event in the world. Elon mask has been launching rockets one after the other. India has been successfully landed on the moon, US is about to launch its first human mission to the lunar south pole in 2025. And even china and japan are preparing for the same but while most people might think this to be yet another exploration move few people realize that it has a geopolitical angle to it. For example - In November 2019 NATO declared space as one of the war fighter domains, The united state launched the world's first independent dedicated space force in the same year, France changed the name of it's AIR FORCE to AIR AND SPACE FORCE, and Russia combined it's Air force anti-air and anti-missile defenses into the Aerospace forces in 2015.
• So now space is literally turning into a frontline of warfare so all this drama is not for scientific discovery but also about having that extra advantage during the times of war. So the space race has a very significant geopolitical implication in the 21st century. So many questions are emerging in our mind now one of them is.

1. How did space suddenly turn into a frontier of geopolitical power?
2. What are the most important point in space that different countries are trying to capture?
3. Which are most strategic point the superpowers of the world are racing towards?
4. What is the significant of these moon missions and where dose India stand in all this drama?

• So,If we want to know these things, we have to know them from the very beginning of space history. The story of the space war started immediately after world war 2 with the US & USSR cold war this cold war lasted form the end of world war 2 in 1945 till the dissolution of the Soviet union in 1991. This os when both US and USSR were trying to prove who was more powerful and one of the many things that they were completing in was the space race. This is when on 5th of October 1957 USSR achieved the first successful satellite launch with Sputnik 1. And then in 1961 USSR sent the first human Yuri Gagarin into space and the moment USSR announced this the united States media and the leaders both god extremely insecure. Because this was result of America first attempts to get ahade of space race. America were wary of Soviet intentions fearful that this new technology would be used to launch nuclear weapons towards the US. So that's when the united state was threatened by USSR's success in space. And then decided to send the first human to moon, so finally in 1969 it send Neil Armstrong to the moon. This is how the space race began. It was not about finding anything important or discovering sometimes crazy but simply a political show- off. This is when the USSR broke into several parts, modern days Russia was formed and the cold war came to an end. The end of this war the united States really that if not then some day space will be of uttermost importance. Because if we look the trend of warfare earlier it was just about the land and then the Brits and the France used on the oceans to becomes the rulers of the world and then with both the world wars air become a frontier of warfare and post-world war there two more frontiers of war that got defined cyberspace and space US realized that just like the Brit's and French capitalized on the ocean when nobody was serious about it, when nobody was serious about space. If they understood the space better they could get far ahead during what times. NASA's budget drop drastically after their moon landing but even after that it kept on growing with time so this meant that NASA was very serious about space and not just NASA but many countries across the world have been working on their space projects for decades. And you will be stunned to know that space travel has become super cheap now. The cost of space travel after the SpaceX has reduced significantly, In 1965 it used to cost more than $8200 per launchers spacecraft into the low earth orbit but after the launch of Falcon 1 the cost has decreased drastically and Falcon heavy cost only $1500 per kg. That's 5x decrease in cost and reports are says that spaceX starship cost $1000 per kg, this is the reason why every other company and country is gearing up to control the space. Now one question will arrive, 

1. How can we control the space? And
2. How the country can powerful can powerful launching spacecrafts?

• Well as it turns out all those Space is infinite there are very important point around earth that are crucial for space control and the country understands and explore and captures these points might get way ahead in the space race of the 21st century so the question is what are these points and why they are important ? The first category points around the earth lie in these zones. First we have lower earth orbit then middle earth orbit and then geo-synchronous and geostationary Orbit. 

1. The low Earth orbit is typically at an altitude of less than 2000 km but it could be as low as 160 km about the earth surface this is the closest zone to the earth and it is used to place spy satellite to get higher resolution imagery and you can have a satellite cheaper cost and can have even be used for high-speed internet, even the Starling satellites are placed in low Earth orbit.
2. And then we have medium Earth orbit located between 2000 km and 35786 km this altitude allow satellite to cover large person of earth while providing precise positioning data this is the reason why the America has it's GPS and Russia has it's clones and EU has it's Galileo satellite placed over here.
3. And then we have a last Orbit which is the geostationary Orbit at 35786 km above the Earth surface, now the beauty of this orbit is that the satellite placed in this Orbit will move exactly at the same rate as the earth rotate. So if a satellite is placed over a point on earth, that point will always remain parallel to the satellite while the Earth rotates, so if someone wants to monitor a specific point on Earth for a long duration this orbit is the place to be. And do you remember the United States once caught India during its nuclear test this operation was known as OPERATION SHAKTI and the US spy satellites that detected the operation were present in the geostationary Orbit.

• These are the three orbital zones any space that are used by the US and other countries for Communications internet and spying, these bring us to the second category of imported point in the space which are LAGRANGE POINT these are special points in space where the gravitational pull at this points from both bodies balance out. So this are the point both forces is equalize is known as the LAGRANGE POINT.
• In total there are 5 lagrange points L1,L2,L3,L4,L5. L1 is the point where the Solar observation satellite positioned to monitor the sun without any interference from earth or moon, so L1 Prime is real time solid data which can disrupt power grids satellite operations and the communication on earth so it's basically and earlier warning zone that can allow operators to take precautions. L2 is used for astronomical observation satellites because it offers and unobstructed and stable view of the outer space and it's closer enough to readily communication with the earth this is where we have the James Webb telescope which is a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. And then we come to L3 as of now L3 hasn't seen any practical utilization because kids on the other side of the Sun similarly L4 and L5 also don't have any significant. And all we knows that they are great parking spot to park objects to observe the space. Lagrange point are observation points for sun and outer space. And this brings us to the third type of the important space point which is the moon itself and this is where the India, Russia, Japan and United's State moon race comes in.
• Moon has three important resources that could be eventually proved to be game changer in geopolitics the first resource is water ice which is particularly found at the South Pole this water ice is extremely valuable because what I can broken down into hydrogen and oxygen and this elements can be used for breathing air and more importantly as you rocket fuel for space mission. So the country that cracks this code will be able to transform the moon to a refueling station for deeper space exploration and the scary fact over here is that the lunar water is not a renewable resource like the water that we find on earth. Will be extract on a fast come first so bases so time is the essence for this resource the second research that we have is Helium-3 and this is a game changing resources in itself it is available on Earth also but very limited quantities it is used for a variety of purposes including cryogenic,Quantum computer, neutron scattering facilities,Oil gas exploration and other medicine purpose. And the fun fact is that this Helium-3 can be used to generate fusion energy to provide a limitless and clean source of energy without radioactive waste and the moon is the biggest source of helium-3. This is the reason why government are interested in extracting Helium-3 from the Moon for fuel supply. So if any country manage to crack this it could be a game change your for that country and lastly there are rare Earth elements, these rare earth elements are crucial for wide range of modern technologies, including electronics renewable energy systems and many advanced defence applications. So which your country Masters on moon landing, moon exploration and moon resource will have a huge advantage as compared to other countries this is the reason why the India,China,Russia,Japan even United States are spending so much money on launching Rocket to the moon. And right now India has made an extraordinary landing and China has plans schedule for next year 2026 and United States amis to land astronauts on the Moon's south pole by 2025. Now what remains to be seen is who built the most economical method to get to space.
• This is the history important and the Geopolitics of the space race of the 21st century.