Posted on 09/02/2018 4:20:52 PM PDT by Kaslin
I see Russia is no longer going to allow US astronauts on the ISS.
We need Space Marines within the Space Force to guard the space force sensitive items on space craft and secure forward operating planets...
“Couldn’t it be handled by the Air Force or NASA, or a combination of the two, without creating a whole new thing?”
That’s how it was taken care of in the old days. I’ve worked on projects funded by NASA and DARPA while being a designer for the Air Force (contractor) in 1991-1995. Hypersonics was my forte. There is a reason for that. We actually had colleagues back in the day we respected. I won’t even go into conjecture on my perceived application of plasma as a primary heat shield. Realistically, who could survive Mach 25 conditions.
Something I suggested back in ‘95/’96 was to combine NASA, the NRO and Air Force Space operations into one unit. The overhead savings alone would permit significantly increased operations. The next question is: do you MDA and the other services space budget/ops into the same organization? Fundamental to success is for the Space Force to be responsive to all the different needs. One of the areas I wanted them to work on was: Defy orbital dynamics. Space items are very predictable. This is both good and bad. The bad is that they are vulnerable and do not offer the element of surprise. The next bad is that they zip by a location on the ground. That is why UAVs offer much better intel for a variety of situations.
Sorry, couldn't help it.
Sometimes countries have things that are part of available information but the citizens dont know.
Sometimes countries have things that are part of available information, but are dismissed as ‘impossible’ and therefore do not exist.
Lets say China did militarize the Moon, as insane as that concept is. Please spell out an argument to me how a militarized Moon is a big problem.
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A) The first thing humans do when they can is militarize something;
B) Having platform (Luna) that commands the entire Earth makes the entire Earth targetable;
C) Having a platform (Luna) that can only be accessed by the ‘conqueror’ means what happens there is information/actions effectively denied all others;
D) Every time any person on Earth looks up they see someone else’s military base which is denied all others, effectively demoralizing them;
E) In order to militarize something, it must be made as self-sustaining as possible, therefore making it harder to kill;
F) How do you fight a weapons platform that is easy to defend and super expensive to attack?
G) There a a host of other reasons why Luna is likely to be militarized by some one, and why it is a impossible problem for anyone else to defend against.
Currently all branches have various bits and pieces of a space force. As the pieces grow more expensive and complicated, it makes sense to combine them somehow to avoid duplication and to ensure all the pieces can work together.
A Space Force is as good a way as any, just do something about the name and those ugly, crude proposed badges.
I think we need to stand up land guys.
Somebody’s got to be there to unhook the rope from the thing!
Robert Heinlein, in his novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", had lunar rebels bombarding the Earth with rocks launched from a magnetic catapult. Earth escape velocity is 11.2 km/sec, plus you have atmosphere to punch through. Lunar escape velocity is just 2.4 km/sec. A 4-meter diameter rock hitting at escape velocity will release a bit over a kiloton of energy.
And the moon has an unlimited supply of rocks.
Should it use Army/Air Force ranks or naval ranks ala Star Trek?
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