"Is the Space Force a call for War?" Topic

"On June 18, 2018, Pres. Donald Trump announced he was directing the Pentagon to develop a new branch of the U.S. military, a "Space Force" that would give the United States "dominance" in that realm.

It would be, he said — and here he used a classic phrase from the Jim Crow era of racial segregation — "separate but equal" to the U.S. Air Force.

Much of the rest of his announcement sounded like it came directly out of a Star Trek episode. "My administration is reclaiming America's heritage as the world's greatest space-faring nation. The essence of the American character is to explore new horizons and to tame new frontiers … " And like Jean-Luc Picard captaining the USS Enterprise, he promptly, if redundantly, ordered the "Department of Defense and Pentagon" to make it so…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Ridiculous. If one of theirs had suggested it they would be 100% on board with it. Hypocrites.

As for the world's opinion, those who can't will always criticize and vilify those who can.

Dan

More regressive political drivel.

Dave

That article is about as legitimate as any article in the Onion. Probably less. This thread belongs in Utter Drivel.

Well, a lot will depend on whether the Martians and Venusians decide on a preemptive strike.

I like the call out to Jim Crow. If the author is going there, go all the way. "Instead of a new Space Race, it's a Space Racist!"

More precious seconds of my life wasted skimming that.

I didn't even bother going to the link after reading what was posted. To bring "Jim Crow" into a discussion about a space force is truly absurd. Sounds like political tripe just to once again attack the President.

You can bet that the Air Force and Navy will do their darndest to kill the Space Force idea before it could even "get off the ground" (no pun intended) because not only do they see it as another "separate but equal" service branch that would divert funds from their precious budgets but also infringe on their traditional god-given turf. Most astronauts are drawn from the Navy and Air Force after all. They're the ones with "the right stuff."

Why do I get the impression that if this was 1948 and Trump was pushing for an Air Force that we would be reading articles like this?

Question: how do you discuss government pork and not get DHed? This thread seems like a trap.

28mm Fanatik speaks much truth.

It is simply taking all the military "space" (tracking, satellites, etc.) missionms and placin g them into a single branch, instead of having wasteful duplication of effort.

Don't worry PDJT and "Mad Dog" will see it gets done right.

Dave

"This thread seems like a trap."

Cue the Admiral Ackbar "It's a trap!" gif… ;-)

We should have put a Space Force in effect in 1960. Every argument used against the Space Force was used against the Air Force when it was proposed.

The "Jim Crow" remark was unnecessary and uncalled for, and not relevant to the conversation.

Not even worth reading the article.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

At least if the Space Force is it's own branch, it will be able to prevent Air Combat Command from stealing it's budget.

I wish I was joking, but apparently HQAF has been doing just that to AFSpace.

Apparently, all the various branch Space commands are getting mandatory-transferred to Space Force. Friend of mine is in Army Space, hoping this plan doesn't go through, because AFSpace is the overall largest Space group and is positively toxic as an environment.

I didn't read the article either, but the moon and near Earth orbit are the new "high-ground", so it makes sense, and is about time.

The Zoomie Mafia in the USAF doesn't like to share resources, and I suspect isn't really all that interested in outer space, so……

Remember when Reagan was going to go "Star Wars" in space ? Remember how every president since the last moon landing promised we'd go back within a decade and nothing happened ?

Space Force sounds awesome until you bump into reality …

It's horrendously expensive, so you'd have to completely defund two other branches, even more dangerous than letting your troops walk into the target area of 155mm target practice, it doesn't do anything current equipment can't do, it doesn't provide some magical "high ground" …

It would be probably be a much better idea, a much better investment of money time and effort if the president demanded they create the US Marine netless volcano high wire walking force.

Basic physics, aka the rules that have proven idiots wrong every single time are going to defeat the whole concept before it even begins.

Or to put it another way, we've been in space for over five decades, if there was any chance of doing so realistically, they would have done so.

youtu.be/PgtLjj4Ka08

It's basically putting all the different military (and maybe intelligence?) programs under a single command structure to eliminate the duplication of effort.

The challenge will then be to get the force-specific requirements funded, because Army Space generally uses different assets than Navy Space, etc.

If there is any war in space we all know it will evolve into Star Wars and we know how that ends….

"…the US Marine netless volcano high wire walking force."

I suspect this unit already exists in unofficial form, as a loose affiliation of members who choose to remain secret.

They've also got an offshoot branch of firewalkers for ground ops.

Just from the excerpt, you can tell the article is trash.

The big question of course is what the Space Force will look like?

TMP link

Dan

There is still a lot of misinformation/disinformation being pushed as to what the Space Force mission will be. Most of this comes in the form of attempts to mock the current POTUS.

It is not about disbanding NASA and folding it into a military branch.

It is not about space fighters, space bombers, and space cruisers.

It is about unmanned satellites, satellite communications, and other things that the military is already doing in space.

And it may or may not (my money is on "may not", at least in the near term) become the source for military astronauts.

More Generals, more pensions. Unless it's a space fleet then there will be more Admirals.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

joedog, well written.