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Subscribe for Full Access [logo] * Archive * Sections * Authors * About * Store * Newsletters * Search * Current Issue * The Latest * Search * Archive * Sections * Authors * About * Store * Newsletters * Search [Report] Ad Astra By Rachel Riederer, The coming battle over space [Harpers_1121_24-25_01] Illustrations by Shonagh Rae [Report] Ad Astra By Rachel Riederer, The coming battle over space Adjust Share All armies prefer high ground to low. --Sun Tzu, The Art of War In late January 2020, in an orbital belt around 640 kilometers above Earth, two unmanned Russian spacecrafts coasted through the sky toward USA-245, an American reconnaissance satellite. From this elevation a traveler would have seen the earth as a rounded slope of green and brown. One could have made out the rugged edges of mountains and the contours of lakes, our white atmosphere, bowed around the planet, darkening to blue and then black. Seen from a backyard telescope,... Subscribe or log in to continue reading. [0001] From the November 2021 issue Download PDF From the Archive Timeless stories from our 171-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day. Email address [ ] Sign Up Got it! Thanks for signing up! Related Ad Astra thumbnail [Report] Ad Astra The coming battle over space By Rachel Riederer, The Enumerator thumbnail [Letter from California] The Enumerator Dispatches from a broken census count By Jeremy Miller, Portrait of the Coyote as a Young Man thumbnail [Memoir] Portrait of the Coyote as a Young Man Coming of age in Bemidji By David Treuer, Rachel Riederer is a writer in New York. Tags American artificial satellites Artificial satellites Artificial satellites in remote sensing Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington DC) China Elon Musk India Jeffrey Bezos John W. Raymond MILAMOS Project (Manual on International Law Applicable to Military Uses of Outer Space) Military Astronautics Outer space PPWT (Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space) Richard Branson Russia (Federation) Russian artificial satellites Space control (Military science) Space debris Space law Space surveillance Space tourism Space warfare United States. Space Force United States. Spacepower (Military doctrine) Woomera Manual (Rule book for military conduct in space) From the Archive Timeless stories from our 171-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day. Email address [ ] Sign Up Got it! Thanks for signing up! More from Rachel Riederer Adjust Share x This principle has been invoked only once, in 1978, after a nuclear-power fueled Soviet satellite fell into Canada and spread radioactive waste across the country's northwest. x China has used a ground-based laser to, in the words of the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, "illuminate" an American satellite at least once, in 2006, but without causing interference. x SpaceX now has plans to launch into orbit a pixelated screen that will display ads in LEO--mercifully not visible from Earth--and will be equipped with a selfie stick and camera to film the screen and broadcast the feed. Advertisers will be able to buy spots using dogecoin and ethereum. x American military reliance on space has been building since Operation Desert Storm, when U.S. satellites proved a tactical advantage: American troops navigated unmarked stretches of desert using GPS and blindsided the Iraqi Army, which expected them to approach by road. 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