LONDON, United Kingdom. A space hotline has been set up between Washington and Beijing to avoid conflict here on Earth.
U.S. and China created the direct link so that they can easily share technical information about their space operations, hopefully avoiding misunderstandings and accidents.
The line has been likened to the nuclear hotlines used during the Cold War. There is already a line between Moscow and Washington which was set up during the era of heightened tensions between Russia and the U.S.
The move comes after Russia and China ramped up their space attack and defence systems in recent years.
US assistant secretary of state Frank Rose told the Financial Times: “We’ve been doing a lot of work with the Chinese on this.
“Up until about nine or 10 months ago, we had to send notifications (of potential collisions and planned tests] to the Chinese via their ministry of foreign affairs.
“The chain would go from Joint Space Operations Centre to the Pentagon to the State Department, to the US embassy in Beijing, and then on to a contact there.”
He added: “Hopefully, it would get to the right people in China at the right time.”
China has been testing weapons which could knock out US high-tech military capabilities, as part of what Mr Rose called a “full spectrum of anti-satellite capabilities”.
Russia and the US have also spent large sums of money on their own space weapon programme.
Credit: Sky News
