CR and RR, page-5

This is why I think the race for Disruptive Strategic Materials is on and I also predict Russia is going to be looking to purchase Graphene!


World Powers Are Preparing for Space Warfare

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1741095-world-powers-are-preparing-for-space-warfare/

By Joshua Philipp, Epoch Times | September 6, 2015




Remains from a Chinese space launch are left in the Badain Jaran Desert on June 12, 2013, in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. The Chinese regime is making a push to defense space-based weapons. (ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

The entire network of U.S. military and intelligence satellites may soon be controlled through a single command center, jointly operated by the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community.

There are high-level discussions now taking place about the command center. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen.

Mark Welsh told Breaking Defense those involved in the discussion include White House officials, the National Security Council, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work, the Air Force Secretary, and Strategic Command and Space Command.

“All the pieces are there,” he said. “We just need to make sure all the authorities are clear, and that’s the difficult part.”

This is the latest in a recent string of global developments around space warfare, each of which was significant enough to have experts question whether something more is at play behind the scenes.

Satellites play crucial roles in the U.S. military’s ability to defend the country and fight wars, and rival countries—particularly the Chinese regime—have made these satellites a prime target in the event of war.

The new center would help defend these satellites from attack, by ensuring all U.S. military and intelligence satellites are visible and controllable.

In order to maintain military dominance, the United States needs to consider all its space assets “as part of a single constellation,” Welsh said. “And if an adversary tries to deny us the capability, we must be able to respond in an integrated, coordinated fashion.”

“A new command structure is certainly warranted,” said Rick Fisher, senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, in a phone interview.

The United States has a fundamental dependence on its satellites, he said, “and these have been targeted systematically by China.”

Earth-Moon Ambitions

Space and cyber were named the main grounds for warfighting by the Chinese regime’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in its new guiding military strategy announced in May.

The PLA’s new strategy names space and cyber domains as the “commanding heights of strategic competition,” according to a June 23 report from The Jamestown Foundation. The strategy was released by the Chinese regime’s Central Military Commission.

“China’s real goal is to gain control of the earth-moon system,” Fisher said, noting this isn’t a new concept.

He said even in the 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union were looking at whether it was possible to have a presence on the moon.

Yet, while the United States deemed early on that long-term survival on the moon was technologically impossible, the Chinese look at it differently. Fisher said they think they can do it, and “they have committed themselves to that goal.”

Fisher said the Chinese regime’s ambitions for space missions aren’t just about science. The programs are closely tied to its People’s Liberation Army, and they’ve already developed accompanying assets for China’s space programs that will help them impose military control in parts of space.

Space warfare, he said, is the most direct path for the Chinese regime to compete with the United States militarily. Rather than trying to match the U.S. Navy and Air Force, it could just build some specialized missiles, some space planes, and a bunch of platforms to send to the moon.

During a Feb. 18 congressional hearing, Kevin Pollpeter, deputy director of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, detailed the military interests the Chinese regime has for its space programs.

“Indeed, nearly every Chinese source describes space as the ‘ultimate high ground,’ leading many Chinese analysts to assess that space warfare is inevitable,” Pollpeter said.

He said Chinese analysts writing on space “argue that it will become the center of gravity in future wars and one that must be seized and controlled,” and say the first step in these ambitions “is to achieve space supremacy.”

Rousing the Military

The U.S. defense community appears to be waking up to this emerging threat.

Just before the PLA’s new strategy was released, top-level officials of U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Air Force broke their silence and warned of growing threats from the Chinese regime.

During the annual Warfighters Lunch on April 14 at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond confirmed that the Chinese regime successfully tested an anti-satellite missile on July 23, 2014.

He also declared, “soon every satellite in every orbit will be able to be held at risk,” according to Breaking Defense. This statement lends some background to why the United States is discussing a consolidated command center to guard every satellite in orbit.

“China’s development of anti-satellite weapons is both provocative and highly disruptive to international space relations,” said Dr. Robert J. Bunker, adjunct research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, in an email interview.

Bunker said the Chinese regime’s focus on space warfare is very similar to its focus on cyber. He said that both “could be utilized against a technologically superior U.S. military.”

Much of the defense community was still unclear about the threats of the Chinese regime’s anti-satellite weapons. Yet, this changed during the symposium, according to William Triplett, former chief counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“What I’m told is the whole China space ASAT [anti-satellite] thing, that really made the rounds,” he said, in an earlier interview with Epoch Times. “I was told it was the hot topic.”

Close to two weeks after the conference, Raymond stepped forward again alongside Gen. John Hyten, commander of Air Force Space Command. The two appeared on a segment of “60 Minutes” and gave a rare inside look at U.S. Space Command.

Triplett noted it was highly unusual for the head of Space Command to give such an appearance, and to grant such access—let alone the fact that they called out the Chinese regime directly. He said, “Somebody somewhere has made a political decision,” by granting access to 60 Minutes, and by allowing the statements.

CBS correspondent David Martin noted at the beginning of the segment, that the role of Space Command is “part of a complex—and mostly secret—battle for what the military considers the ultimate high ground.”

A Political Call

Not long after the 60 Minutes segment, in early May, the Pentagon released its annual report on the Chinese regime’s military and security developments, where it declared “China possesses the most rapidly maturing space program in the world.”

It also said the Chinese regime’s “continued development of destructive space technologies” is a “threat to all peaceful space-faring nations.”

News that the United States could soon build the joint command center for space warfare first emerged around a month later. Defense One reported on June 23 that the Pentagon was “rushing” to open the center, in order to “fend off Chinese and Russian attacks on U.S. military and government satellites.”

The center was set to open within six months, according to an announcement from Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, during the GEOINT symposium, an annual intelligence conference.


MORE:

• Why a Novel on War With China Has the Pentagon Talking
• Chinese Military Officially Shifts Focus to Cyberwarfare and Space Warfare
• China’s Secret Space Weapons Have the Pentagon Worried

“The ugly reality that we must now all face is that if an adversary were able to take space away from us, our ability to project decisive power across transoceanic distances and overmatch adversaries in theaters once we get there … would be critically weakened,” Work said, according to Defense One.

Corresponding Shift

Russia appears to be making a move similar to that the U.S. military is considering. Its defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, announced on Aug. 3 the creation of a new branch of the Russian armed forces, the Aerospace Forces. This will bring its air force and its recently-created Aerospace Defense Forces under a unified command.

The focus of the Russian joint command center will be different from the U.S. one, however. In addition to space forces, it will also oversee the Russian air force and its anti-missile defenses.

It builds on Russia’s current Aerospace Defense Forces, which was started in 2011, according to The Moscow Times, to defend Russian airspace “from airborne and space-borne attacks.”

A key reason behind Russia deepening this system, it says, is that Russia, the United States, and China “are all working on anti-satellite weaponry that could bring war into space, prompting the imperative of new defensive strategies.”

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1741095-world-powers-are-preparing-for-space-warfare/

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Although this is slightly tongue in cheek it becomes significant once you research this further...

This is why I think the Race for Critical Materials is on - The starting gun has fired !!!


I think MRL Corporation has made a great move with Graphene and I think once it gets going everyone wins. Do you expect positive outcomes?

It is fascinating to see years of economic warfare manifest real changes across the globe...

In my opinion Space is the next Trillion dollar industry!


https://www.newscientist.com/articl...m-graphene-could-run-on-nothing-but-sunlight/


http://www.space.com/27225-space-elevator-technology.html

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Graphene in space could hold clues to development of life on Earth

http://www.gizmag.com/graphene-in-space/19545/




An artist's concept of graphene, buckyballs and C70 superimposed on an image of the Helix planetary nebula (Image: IAC/NASA/NOAO/ESA/STScI/NRAO)

Human beings may have only discovered how to create the one-atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms known as graphene in 2004 but it appears the universe could have been churning out the stuff since much earlier than that. While not conclusive proof its existence in space, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has identified the signature of graphene in two small galaxies outside our own. If confirmed, it would be the first-ever cosmic detection of the material and could hold clues to how carbon-based life forms such as ourselves developed.

The infrared-sensing Spitzer telescope identified signs of graphene in planetary nebulae - the material shed by dying stars - within the Magellanic Clouds galaxies that orbit our Milky Way galaxy. While obviously not a viable source of graphene for Earth-bound applications - such as transparent touchscreens and ultrafast transistors - the potential discovery could help researchers learn more about how the material is created.

NASA says that understanding chemical reactions involving carbon in space may hold clues to how carbon-based life on Earth developed.

In addition to graphene, Spitzer also spotted a related molecule called C70, which, along with graphene and molecules called "buckyballs," or C60, are members of the fullerene family. Buckyballs, which are named after the architectural domes of Buckminster Fuller, are carbon spheres containing 60 carbon atoms arranged like a soccer ball, whereas C70 molecules contain 70 atoms and are shaped more like a rugby ball.

Spitzer first definitively detected the presence of both buckyballs and C70 in space in July 2010. It later spotted buckyballs equivalent in mass to 15 full moons in the Small Magellanic Cloud, demonstrating that fullerenes and other complex molecules could form in hydrogen-rich environments. This latest detection of C70 in the Magellanic Clouds marks the first time the chemical has been observed outside our galaxy.

Fullerenes have been found in meteorites carrying extraterrestrial gases, and very recently water has been encapsulated in buckyballs using new laboratory techniques. These findings offer the possibility that long ago, fullerenes may have helped transport materials from space to Earth to kick-start life. Astronomers speculate that graphene, buckyballs and C70 might be formed in space when shock waves generated by dying stars break apart hydrogen-containing carbon grains.

Source: NASA.

http://www.gizmag.com/graphene-in-space/19545/

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Now once you stop laughing at my back-flips to connect Space and MRL Corporation I have this important point to share

At the most basic level the world is entering a time of insane TECH GROWTH !!! Even though it appears Disruptive Commodities like Graphite are going to boom in a traditional way following traditional lines; I think this is wrong.

The RACE is on and SPACE is a huge part of what is triggering this...

We shall see but I am sure many new Partners are going to offer MRL Corporation their Help in my opinion! I wonder how fast MRL Corporation can get to Graphene?


What do you think? Obviously there are some steps to go before Production but like most I deduce they will get there.




Kind Regards

DYOR !!!!

Easy to be 100% Wrong!!!