Watch the trailer for VICE on HBO’s episode “A Kurdish State & Out of Space”

The Kurds have played an instrumental role in the fight against ISIS in Iraq. Although their case for independence is rarely made, the Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without a state of their own. They're also one of the only peoples to suffer an attempted genocide since the Holocaust.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, Vice's Ben Anderson met those involved in the fight from the frontline to the Kurd's former guerrilla president to ask why the group recently voted for independence and what hopes they have for achieving a state of their own.

More than half a million pieces of man-made space junk are orbiting the Earth at speeds up to 17,500 miles per hour. Even the tiniest pieces have the potential to destroy any of the 1,700 satellites circling the Earth.

Nuclear physicist Taylor Wilson joined the Air Force Space Command to see how a growing military and commercial space presence threatens the ubiquitous satellites, which are essential to humanity's digital way of life.

See it this Friday at 7:30 PM and 11 PM EDT on HBO