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sferrin said:No doubt the horse cavalry in the US Army thought the same, "Air Force....seriously?"
VTOLicious said:sferrin said:No doubt the horse cavalry in the US Army thought the same, "Air Force....seriously?"
I think you kinda missing my point...
"...As the Cold War began, fear of Outer Space being used for military purposes spread through the international community. This led to the creation of multiple organizations with the intent of governing how outer space can be used in order to assure it does not become the next frontier for conflict..."
WASHINGTON – With former U.S. Air Force officials demanding more time for the service to prove it is on track with space development, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) continued to argue Sept. 7 the time is now to create a Space Corps, or something akin to it.
The Air Force has had enough time to prove its mettle in space, Rogers, the chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee said during a keynote speech at a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference on space organization.
“The Air Force is as fast as a herd of turtles as far as space is concerned,” said Rogers, who introduced legislation in June to create a Space Corps – a new military branch similar in structure to the Marine Corps – to focus on space operations and acquisition.
A Space Corps would be a better steward of space matters than the Air Force would be, Rogers said, because there would be no competing interests as there are now with space falling under the Air Force’s aviation-focused structural umbrella.
The Air Force’s inability to put space first has created acquisition and operational problems, he said.
“I don’t think the Air Force can fix this,” he said. “You can’t have two No. 1 priorities. The Air Force is focused on air dominance, as it should be.”
But several former Air Force officials at the conference contended the service should – and can – be the entity that controls the majority of national security space programs.
No special, separate space organization is necessary, they said. Instead, what’s needed is more time for the service to further develop and implement the recent operational concepts for warfighting in space recently detailed by Space Command.
“It is very distracting to talk about reorganizing,” said Lisa Disbrow, former Air Force undersecretary, during a panel discussion on defining problems and opportunities.
The nation already has “the world’s best space force,” she said.
Some of the space-funding problems were not of the Air Force’s making, noted Doug Loverro, who served as deputy assistant defense secretary for space policy during the Obama administration. National budgeting changes had a major impact on those programs, he said.
“After sequestration,” he said, “the space budget never recovered.”
In another keynote speech, retired Gen. Robert Kehler, the former commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said space development was derailed not by a lack of interest, but by a greater concern to battle terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“Why are we behind in space?” Kehler asked. “There was a shooting war.”
While space operational and acquisition issues may continue to exist, he said, those problems can be addressed within the existing Air Force organizational structure.
“Nothing is stopping us,” he said.
“A Space Corps will not fix space acquisition,’ he said. “It will not produce more space professionals or provide more resources.”
Instead, space advocates should be focused on what he calls the “most urgent” problem: “We must prepare ourselves fight a conflict that extends into space.”
One of the ways to do that, he said, is to steal a page from the Navy. “We ought to think about space the way we do about submarines, not the Marines,” he said, noting the submarine force is somewhat of separate, special force that is still part of the Navy.
One possibility the ex-Air Force officials did say might be worth pursuing is some kind of Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) for space to streamline acquisition by giving a handful of service officials the ability to fast-track programmatic approvals.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the conference, Bill LaPlante, a former Air Force assistant secretary for acquisition, said the service used such an RCO to push through B-21 bomber decisions more quickly.
WASHINGTON — Congress’ strongest supporters of a new Space Corps have not given up the fight, slamming the U.S. Air Force for wasted time as Russia and China pose a growing threat to America’s vital satellites.
“We could be deaf, dumb and blind within seconds,” House Armed Services Strategic Forces ranking member Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., said Wednesday at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum on space. “Seldom has a great nation been so vulnerable.”
Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, and the Corps’ biggest champion on Capitol Hill, said a space-focused service could be built in three to five years. By year’s end, Rogers, R-Ala., expects an independent report, required by the 2018 defense policy law, about how that process might look.
Rogers and Cooper argue it’s necessary for the military to have a dedicated space force because the Air Force let space capability atrophy in favor of more traditional air needs.
Rogers on Wednesday accused the Air Force of not taking space seriously enough to send a speaker to the CSIS event.
“Over the years, the Air Force has used space programs as a money pot to reach into and subsidize air-dominance programs when they feel like Congress hasn’t given them enough for tankers, fighter jets, whatever,” Rogers said. “Congress has not given any of the services enough, but that doesn’t mean you starve to death one of your subordinate missions.”
White House, Pentagon and Air Force leaders pushed back on a failed proposal from the House Armed Services Committee to create a Space Corps, arguing it would add unneeded bureaucracy. The provision faced opposition in the Senate, and the 2018 defense policy law forbids the creation of such an organization.
The law did give Air Force Space Command authority over space acquisitions, resource management, requirements, war fighting and personnel development — viewed as a start for the potential creation of a Space Corps in the future. And it requires an independent organization develop a road map to start a separate military department to encompass “national security space.”
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U.S. military officials have acknowledged that America’s adversaries have caught up to it in space, but classified reports paint a even more troubling picture, the lawmakers said. Rogers called the over-classification of such information “disturbing.”
“There would be a hew and cry in the American public to fix this situation if they knew how bad things were and what we’ve allowed Russia and China to do,” Rogers said.
The commercial sector’s ability to quickly field new capabilities in space, versus the military’s decade-long acquisition schedules, prove the case for a segregated Space Corps, with its own acquisition system, they said. Rogers said he would be open to more agile acquisition authorities for the Air Force.
“I’d be happy to, I would have liked to have had them pose that a year ago instead of fighting us,” Rogers said of the Air Force.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Steve Kwast has argued that China is way ahead of the United States in the race to send settlers to space, and they are currently a building a “navy in space.”
Kwast, who is the commander and president of Air University at the Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, said that although America remained the world’s leader in space exploration, they were beginning to fall behind China two years after they announced their cutting-edge “Space Force” plan.
“In my best military judgment, China is on a 10-year journey to operationalize space. We’re on a 50-year journey,” he told CNBC. “We could be on a five-year journey because it’s all about how aggressively we are going about this journey.”
Kwast warned that the Chinese expansion into space could present a serious national security problem, but that North Korea’s nuclear and electromagnetic capabilities were the “real problem.”
“China is working on building a ‘navy in space’ that would work even beyond Earth’s gravity,” Kwast said. “Right now, if North Korea were to launch a missile into space and detonate an electromagnetic pulse, it would take out our eyes in space.”
Kwast also criticized America’s regulation and bureaucratic procedures for slowing down the progress of America’s space programs, especially for private companies such as SpaceX, and urged authorities to “bring together the right talent to accelerate the journey.”
“You have to detail everything in your suitcase—each item’s material, manufacturer, weight and more—the government takes a year to go through it and then tells you what you can and can’t take,” he said.
“And, if you have to update your request, then you have to start all over,” he said. “When you finally get approval you have to spend your entire life savings for the airplane, which, when you land, you have to burn to the ground.”
This view is defended by Space X President Gwynne Shotwell, who said real progress can only be achieved if ” the U.S. government must remove bureaucratic practices that run counter to innovation and speed.”
In March, President Donald Trump signed a bill securing funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with the aim of sending a “crewed mission to Mars in the 2030s.”
Meanwhile, representatives of the Chinese government and the European Space Agency began talks in April regarding the construction of a possible moon base, and have also unveiled plans to land a vehicle on Mars by 2020.
sferrin said:No doubt the horse cavalry in the US Army thought the same, "Air Force....seriously?"
Avimimus said:sferrin said:No doubt the horse cavalry in the US Army thought the same, "Air Force....seriously?"
You know, I'd just been about to walk back my claim (in the Russian strategic moderation) about the U.S. being perceived as interested in the militarisation of space when this came out...
sferrin said:Avimimus said:sferrin said:No doubt the horse cavalry in the US Army thought the same, "Air Force....seriously?"
You know, I'd just been about to walk back my claim (in the Russian strategic moderation) about the U.S. being perceived as interested in the militarisation of space when this came out...
Your claim was there were space weapons NOW.
Avimimus said:The United States is pursuing hypersonics, space based weapons, and pulling out of disarmament treaties.
Avimimus said:To be clear, I didn't even necessarily mean a deployed capability, more along the lines of pursuing the equivalent of being nuclear latent state / nuclear threshold state, but when it comes to space-borne weapons (e.g. The U.S. has the goal of eventually being able to deploy a substantial number of FOBS or strike capable satellites within a couple of years of getting the green light).
Avimimus said:For the record, this is what I wrote:
Avimimus said:The United States is pursuing hypersonics, space based weapons, and pulling out of disarmament treaties.
Archibald said:Who needs Shuttle noawadays, even with racing strippes ? imagine the number of laser-armed space marines a BFS could carry... (we really need a remake of Moonraker, either cheesy or serious, I don't care)
Archibald said:Who needs Shuttle noawadays, even with racing strippes ? imagine the number of laser-armed space marines a BFS could carry... (we really need a remake of Moonraker, either cheesy or serious, I don't care)
The Air Force bolstered its space budget by 18 percent, or $7 billion over the five-year future years defense program, in an effort to increase its capabilities and ensure the United States keeps pace with other countries in space, Air Force Space Command chief Gen. Jay Raymond said Thursday.
His remarks during a brief public session of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee were questioned by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who pointed to successful Chinese test launches of several anti-satellite missiles, a development he said “fundamentally alters the strategic balance between great powers,” which has “continued to evolve in favor of China” as it has “accelerated development of space weapons.”
sferrin said:Or how about a manned reusable space "fighter" stuck to the end of a Falcon 9 1st stage? Maybe a larger X-37 with enough fuel to make it the rest of the way to orbit (with the 1st stage having enough fuel to land at sea or back at the launch site), maneuver in orbit, and deorbit for a glide back to base. Would this even be possible? That is, would a Block 5 Falcon 9 have enough oomph to put something of that description where it could get the rest of the way to orbit?
NeilChapman said:The hitch is getting humans into space. Neither Crew Dragon or CST-100 will fly until the end of the year. Price per launch is expected to be $654 and $405million, respectively.
marauder2048 said:Sigh...in an alternate history the first brilliant pebbles that were orbited as part of GPALS would
be nearing retirement this year.
While there are countermeasures to space based interceptors they look to be pretty complex/costly.
Orionblamblam said:Is there more to that "fractionated Trident" document?
Orionblamblam said:marauder2048 said:Sigh...in an alternate history the first brilliant pebbles that were orbited as part of GPALS would
be nearing retirement this year.
While there are countermeasures to space based interceptors they look to be pretty complex/costly.
Is there more to that "fractionated Trident" document?
marauder2048 said:Orionblamblam said:Is there more to that "fractionated Trident" document?
Attached.
Orionblamblam said:NeilChapman said:The hitch is getting humans into space. Neither Crew Dragon or CST-100 will fly until the end of the year. Price per launch is expected to be $654 and $405million, respectively.
Neutral-particle beams, a concept first tried in the 1980s, may get a fresh look under Michael Griffin.
“Directed energy is more than just big lasers, Griffin said. “That’s important. High-powered microwave approaches can effect an electronics kill. The same with the neutral particle beam systems we explored briefly in the 1990s” for use in space-based anti-missile systems. Such weapons can be “useful in a variety of environments” and have the “advantage of being non-attributable,” meaning that it can be hard to pin an attack with a particle weapon on any particular culprit since it leaves no evidence behind of who or even what did the damage.
President Donald Trump called for a new “Space Force” to be added to the U.S. military as an armed service separate from the Pentagon’s five traditional uniformed branches.
“When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space,” Trump said Monday at a White House event on space policy. “We must have American dominance in space.”
Flyaway said:And confirmed.
President Trump Calls on Pentagon to Create New Military Branch: A 'Space Force'
President Donald Trump called for a new “Space Force” to be added to the U.S. military as an armed service separate from the Pentagon’s five traditional uniformed branches.
“When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space,” Trump said Monday at a White House event on space policy. “We must have American dominance in space.”
http://time.com/5314994/donald-trump-pentagon-space-force/
The NDAA empowers Air Force Space Command as the sole authority for organizing, training, and equipping all U.S. Air Force space forces. Air Force Space Command is made the focal point for a “space service” within the Air Force responsible for acquisition, resources and requirements.” This cadre of space “war fighters” would be tasked to fix the “systemic problems Congress identified in the national security space enterprise.”
The Air Force Space Command would be modeled after the Office of Naval Reactors, stressing deep technical expertise. The bill gives the commander of Air Force Space Command a six-year term.
Someone should probably tell him.TomS said:It's important to mention that Trump cannot create a new independent service on his own authority. The existing services are established under the National Security Act of 1947, and Congress would have to amend that to allow the creation of a separate United States Space Force.
Trump can order the Pentagon to create a Space Force but only Congress can make it happen.
President Trump on Monday threw a wrench into the Pentagon’s carefully laid out plans to analyze how best to reorganize the military’s space forces. In remarks kicking off a meeting of the National Space Council, Trump pointedly directed the Pentagon to create a Space Force as a “separate but equal” branch of the U.S. military.
According to sources, Trump’s remarks were not off-the-cuff. He had planned to make this announcement weeks ago, and Pentagon officials had been advised the president would be directing the creation of a Space Force at the June 18 National Space Council meeting. Trump mentioned his desire to have a Space Force at four different events in recent months, and the feedback he received was mostly positive, which motivated him to get the process started sooner rather than later.