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Army space command
https://www.army.mil/info/orga...

Navy space command
http://www.navy.mil/local/spaw...

Coast Guard Space command
http://coastguard.dodlive.mil/...

But it's DoD and DHS. The two worst US Government Departments. They are never held accountable.

You are pretty dumb.

And so are you...

Oh my, it's the dumberer complaining about somebody else. What a revelation.

Look, realistic training is necessary for our troops, that means firing ammo that is "like" the real thing in weight and performance at least some of the time. Sure, you don't have to fire high explosive rounds or drop real 1,000 lb bombs that are going to go off all the time, but you do need stuff that's close to real from time to time.

Which would be a useful rebuttal if ANYBODY EVER SAID that their intention was to NEVER have ANY real materials expended.

But you'll note that the only absolutes are coming from the people saying "OMG OMG OMG, this would never work, NEVER NEVER NEVER, it's all PC-Bullshit" and other such mendacity.

The argument that Chris Katko made was that there's nothing wrong with cutting costs and reducing pollution. It'd be hard to argue otherwise. Even times where you say "We can't cut that cost" it's because there is still something else wrong with it.

I seriously doubt we are going to find a cost effective way to plant trees in mortar shells or wild flowers in target practice rounds. I'm all for not doing harm if we can manage it, but I'm also NOT for these do good green types that advocate the military doing hugely expensive "green" projects that don't really help anything and cost way too much..

That's nice, but you may want to know something. Actual real ammunition and shells are FUCKING EXPENSIVE. So is the clean-up. Spending some money on research is thus competing against a very high standard anyway.

Really, there is a reason we do have fake grenades, and even dummy rounds. Because it's better to practice without that crap going off on you. Save the live-fire exercises for special times.

(Like that "renewable fuel oil" mess the Navy did a while back that was millions of dollars of waste for a very little bit of fuel).

Because a research project is expensive, huh? Now ask yourself how expensive it would be if they didn't prepare in advance.

So the original poster was right...

You haven't made one substantial argument to demonstrate that they are right to oppose any substitution of munitions at all. . Zero. None. Sorry, I know you hate facing reality, most of your type do, but you didn't actually rebut the premises involved.

Keep the purpose of the military straight in your head and dump all the nutty parts about environmental awareness and green technology being part of their mission. They are there to break stuff and kill people while avoiding having others break their stuff and kill them and us. To hell with planting trees or saving the environment if we are not here to enjoy it because the bad guys won the next war.

Well, don't worry, this will be done by a private company anyway. Just like the fuels. That's how the government works. That's how the military does things.

Don't like it? Too bad. You're dumb anyway.

“Shut up and color!” This endearing term has been long used by Air Force leaders and supervisors to help motivate their Airmen to put the mission first and get their tasks completed. This statement reminds them to focus on the bigger picture, and how they fit into the Air Force as a whole. It is not intended to offend, but rather to encourage Airmen to reevaluate themselves as leaders and followers. - See more at: http://airforcelive.dodlive.mi...

More info here: http://www.lajes.af.mil/news/s...

I really like the DoD document. It is fairly approachable, e.g.

http://ctnsp.dodlive.mil/files...

"a strategic policy issue for the United States with
regards to the UOG boom will be the possibility of using our domestic energy resources for
geopolitical influence, in effect turning the tables on the current major oil producers"

I'm looking forward to a World where, for example, Eastern Europe and even Germany are not held hostage by Russia just because there is more oil under their soil and they tend to raise militant leaders into power. Some European countries aren't cozy with Russia because of being fans, but because of being left behind by the EU when it comes to energy independence and alternative sourcing.

The material is also one of the first examples of mainstream recognition of unpredictable, accelerating technological progress, and shows the fig to those who claim that the singularity is no more than the rapture of the nerds or new age-ism. Even discounting for the not too veiled bias of the material to argue for more resources in order to retain technological leadership.

P-3s go around in the Arctic Ocean, even over the poles.

http://science.dodlive.mil/2011/03/25/icebridge-almost-to-the-north-pole/

Greg Pavelka, a wildlife biologist with the Corps of Engineers

Does US Fish & Wildlife have any hydrologists? It might help them to gauge the risks of certain policies if they engaged people that understood the consequences.

Anyhow, it doesn't take much digging on the Corps site to find stuff like this: The Pulse and the Mitigation. Read that and you get the impression the Corps is managing habitats first and flood risk somewhere below first. One of the few posts that cite 'law' as reasoning for their decisions.

Grant for the inventor of a THz ellipsometer: http://science.dodlive.mil/2010/08/07/darpa-looks-to-young-researchers-for-game-changing-ideas/

Closing Velocity has an excellent take on Postol's analysis. Turns out the work that Postol did was not exactly rigorous. From Closing Velocity "In other words, Postol is a deceiving hack with a permanent axe to grind. Indeed, when not purposefully misrepresenting test objectives, Postol simply ignores the tests that do not support his wild-ass claims"

MDA also gives Postol the smack-down.

I haven't seen anybody else mention it in this thread, but there was a really interesting pre-launch teleconference with Air Force Deputy Under Secretary for Space Programs (and former astronaut) Gary Payton. Payton gave quite a few details about the program I hadn't seen elsewhere, giving additional insight into the program's purpose and future plans. I've pasted a few highlights below:

http://www.dodlive.mil/index.php/tag/gary-payton/
http://www.defense.gov/Blog_files/Blog_assets/PaytonX-37.pdf

Question: Mark Matthews with the Orlando Sentinel.
Two quick questions. If the tests are successful is the Air Force looking to be able to build more of these planes? And what do you say to concerns about how this could lead to the increased weaponization of space?
Mr. Payton: We do have a second tail number on contract. Currently we're looking at a 2011 launch for that second tail number. That assumes everything goes properly as predicted on this first flight. And truthfully, I don't know how this could be called wedaponizatino of space. It's just an updated version of the space shuttle kind of activities in space. We, the Air Force, have a suite of military missions in space and this new vehicle could potentially help us do those missions better.
Question: Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor.
I guess I would just wonder if you could explain a little bit more about what the flight will test and clarify one thing. Is there not going to be a specific payload on it this time, or is there going to be and you can't tell us what it's going to be? Can you give us some sense of it? There seems to be a lot of mystery around the flight and I'm not sure if that's intended or not.
Mr. Payton: Like in many of our space launches, not all of them but many of them, the actual on-orbit activities we do classify. So we're doing that in this case for the actual experimental payloads that are on orbit with the X37. But again, our top priority is demonstrating the vehicle itself with its autonomous flight control systems, new generation of silica tile, and a wealth of other new technologies that are sort of one generation beyond the shuttle. ...
Question: It could capture a spacecraft that's already on orbit and bring it down for servicing or what have you?
Mr. Payton: Not on this flight. Again, this flight's intend is the experiments themselves, both during ascent, during entry, and on orbit. But there's no arm on this one. ...

Question: A quick follow-up on in-orbit capability. Do you have, what kind of props on this thing? I know you can get up to like 500 nautical miles, something like that. Is there any expectation to do some orbit maneuvering of this vehicle to different altitudes?
Mr. Payton: Just the way we handle satellites in general. We would, and like we handle low earth orbit satellites. We move them a little bit with their own on-board propulsion system.
You're starting to touch on the notion of using a winged vehicle to really change the inclination of the orbit by sort of dipping into the top of the atmosphere and turning and then bouncing back up off the top of the atmosphere. You need a very very good, very very high. Again, hypersonic lift over drag, in order for that to be beneficial. This bird does not have that high hypersonic lift over drag ratio that you would need to do that kind of maneuver.
Sorry, I didn't intend to give a lecture on Aero 562. ...

Question: Air Force Magazine.
You talked before about how this could handle a small sized satellite. In more lay person's terms, what does that mean? Is the payload large enough to hold like a Volkswagen Beetle or an SUV? Can you give us some idea there?
Mr. Payton: You know our ORS program, Operation Responsive Space?
Question: Yes.
Mr. Payton: Maybe a couple of satellites that are a few hu