Stories from the New Silk Road: Space

The Documentary Podcast

China's Belt and Road Initiative stretches physically with infrastructure projects across the globe, but there is one initiative that is the most ambitious yet - The Space Silk Road. The space race is heating up with new entrants like India and private companies like SpaceX, but it is the Chinese who are set to dominate by 2045. Central to the Space Silk Road is a controversial station in Patagonia, Argentina. The Espacio Lejano Ground Station has a powerful 16-story antenna, with an 8-foot barbed wire fence that surrounds the entire compound. Katy Watson asks astronomers, space engineers and Argentinian residents, how President Xi's Space Silk Road is impacting their universe.