On the other hand, such "commercial" solutions allowed them to got required capabilities without spending decades and billions on the "traditional" military hardware development. Also, "semi-commercial space defense" allowed them a significant degree of plausible deniability in many gray areas of space military operartions.
Just opening up yet another avenue/pipeline for buying readily avaliable commercial off the shelf solutions most certainly does not justify a stand alone command outside the USAF, so I'd *dearly* like to learn more about those gray areas of space military operations that you appear to be cognizant of. Hic Rhodus, hic salta.
Just like merely different kind of planning did not justify the standalone air force outside the army?)
USAF is absolutely NOT suited for space warfare. This club of elderly fighter jocks managed to drag behind Iran in combat drone technology - just because unmanned aircraft works against interests of professional pilots.
Oh, they are numerous ones. For example, what's are the "rules of engagement" in space? How close one spacecraft could be to other spacecraft without it being considered hostile action? What trajectory change could be considered justification for self-defense (for example, if one spacecraft seemingly burned to a collision course with another, but the interception time is still many minutes away, so it potentially could burn to some other orbit)? Would it be premittable to remove "dead" military satellite, if it theatened the orbit of the sattelite of other country, but the owner of the "dead" satellite could not/did not want to remove it in time? What could be the legal justification for destroying opponents satellite if state of war is not declared, but localized hostility is taking place? Etc., etc., etc.
Albedo wins US Air Force contract for nighttime thermal infrared imaging
Denver CO (SPX) May 01, 2023 - Albedo, a company building an ultra-high resolution, low-flying satellite constellation, is excited to announce winning a $1.25 million government contract to support the National Air and Space Intewww.spacewar.com
Let's explicitly see that different kind of planning then.
Please lay out in detail what exactly you envisage open outer space warfare to look like. An inquiring aerospace engineer really wants to know. Your breathless legalistic hypotheticals above that are pretty much akin to complete strangers maintaining their personal space against each other on a subway train don't really cut it, you know, since they seem to be more like TV courtroom drama scenarios than kinetic interaction.
thehill.com
www.defenseone.com
Space Force's FY24 budget includes 'offensive' options for space. What does that mean? - Breaking Defense
"There are hard kill and soft kill capabilities, if you will, that we're funding," Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said with regards to offensive space capabilities, but none that would created dangerous space debris.breakingdefense.com
To me that seems to says "lasers", or that's the only hard kill option I can think of that doesn't create space debris, at least not much.
spaceflight101.com
www.c4isrnet.com
www.federaltimes.com
