Documentary Podcast
The Sky Is Full Podcast – A Story of Power in Orbit

Based on SWARM  ·  Potomac Books  ·  January 2027

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Low Earth orbit is no longer just outer space.
It is infrastructure. Battlefield. Chokepoint.

Coming in 2026, a documentary podcast uncovering how vast swarms of satellites are reshaping daily life, global politics, and the future of conflict. From Ukraine's battlefields to Silicon Valley boardrooms, Cold War bunkers to Chinese launch pads, this series reveals how low Earth orbit became the most contested infrastructure on Earth.

The Book Behind the Podcast
Swarm
The Rise of Megaconstellations and the Battle for Low Earth Orbit
Jay Allen  ·  Potomac Books / University of Nebraska Press  ·  January 2027
↗ Publisher ↗ Amazon UK ↗ Amazon US ↗ Barnes & Noble ↗ Waterstones ↗ Back on Kickstarter
What you'll hear

The Stories
No One Is Telling

01
War & Technology
The Sky Is Full
Ukraine, 2022. Russian missiles cut the lines. Then slim white terminals arrived, and a commercial satellite network changed the course of a war.
02
Cold War Origins
Sputnik's Panic
The Cold War paranoia sparked by a single beep, and how that moment set the world on the path to a sky full of satellites.
03
Power & Competition
From Ashes to Orbit
Iridium's spectacular collapse nearly killed commercial space. Then SpaceX rewrote the rules, and the race to fill low Earth orbit began in earnest.
04
Geopolitics & Power
The Orbital State
China's Guowang constellation, military-civil fusion, and how Beijing has come to see low Earth orbit not as outer space, but as sovereign territory.
05
Intelligence & Surveillance
Eyes in the Sky
How commercial satellites put spy-grade imagery in the hands of journalists, researchers, and anyone who'll pay. What that means for power, privacy, and war.
06
Conflict & Vulnerability
War in the Heavens
Cyberattacks on satellite networks, directed-energy weapons, and the shadow conflict already underway in orbit. The war most people don't know has started.
07
Governance & Law
The Governance Gap
The rules governing space were written in 1967. The swarms arrived in 2019. The fight to keep orbit safe, and who really has the power to do it.
08
The Future
Below the Swarm
Kessler syndrome, Taiwan, escalation spirals, and the question no one wants to answer: what kind of sky are we leaving behind?
Early access