NEW: Pres. Trump says he is directing the Department of Defense and the Pentagon to "establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces."
"We must have an American dominance in space." https://t.co/dMeVjlPoyT pic.twitter.com/a59t6cFHWv
— Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) June 18, 2018
Alright. A few points here. First, I hate that name: Space Force. It sounds like the title of one of those post-Star Wars b-movies from the late 70’s like Starcrash or Battle Beyond the Stars.
The idea of militarizing space is okay with me. I get what we’re doing. Especially since the Pentagon keeps admitting that it’s been running into unidentified flying objects that it can’t seem to do anything about. For what it’s worth, I think aliens are real and are not our friends. But then, I’m not the president and have no obligation to be serious about anything, ever.
For our terrestrial foes, yes, it’s vital that we have a warfighting ability to handle threats from satellites and what not. No argument there. I get what we’re doing and why it’s necessary. My only real complaint is that I agree with Mattis in that we shouldn’t create a whole new branch of the military for this capability. It’s only going to contribute to the sort of bloat and waste we’ve gone through since the bad decision to split the Air Force into a separate branch from the Army.
Splitting off yet another branch from an already-unnecessary branch is an invitation for all manner of problems. The Air Force has plenty of expertise and technology for further development into space warfare. There’s no point in disrupting it.
I might be willing to change my mind if the Space Force wears the Colonial uniform from the classic Battlestar Galactica though. I hope to God they don’t end up going with some kind of shiny jumpsuit or anything like that. Like, it’s okay to have a silly name if you at least look cool.
Yeah the name is dorky, but what can they use that isnt already been used in some cheap sci fi?
Orbit Guard? Space Guard ? Star Fleet? Space Rangers?
This has been long in the making. Since about the mid 90s there has been serious discussion in the pentagon and AF/Navy circles.
Several of the Stupid talking heads on Twitter, has claimed that this is illegal, per The Outer Space Treaty. That is wrong the OST forbids the emplacement of WMD. mainly nukes in orbit or on celestial bodies. or the establishment of fortifications on the same.
As for the militarization of space, AKA actual weapons, the Russians were way ahead of us with Alamz, and Polyus systems, plus the Russian Blunderbuss ASAT. On the US Side the Blue Gemini never flew, and never had any hardware manufactured. the F-15 launched ASAT was shut down only after a few test firings. the Primary stage was a SCARM Air to Ground rocket, which is no longer in inventory. The only thing we officially have is the Navy SM-3 BlkII ABM missile, with is intended to be a anti ballistic missile, but can engage and hit a sat up to 150 miles above the earth.
As for uniforms,. heh , they ill probably keep AF blue for a while. as for bloat i agree, peeling of the Space forces from the AF could be step to merging the AF back into the army/.
ps
Starcrash was fucking horrible.
Any chance the designated motto will be “You Can’t Take the Sky From Me”?
Yo…Trump?
Motto
“We own the orbitals.”
“You can’t hear the imprisoned children screaming from here”
That’s sort of like the old Army cadence “Napalm sticks to kids”
Sometimes absurdism is really all we have left.
I think someone just coined my personal motto.
It’s probably a slippery slope to nihilism.
I wonder if there’s a chance that Trump keeps doing goofy things like this just to keep the entire country from taking the black pill and slipping into utter nihilism. This really is the Golden Age of Absurdism