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Congressmen Propose a New Military Branch: The 'US Space Corps' (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Gizmodo:
This week, the House Armed Services Committee voted 60 to 1 in favor of the creation of a new military branch to be called the United States Space Corps... The United States Space Corps would be the first new branch of the military since 1947, when the Air Force was formed. The current proposal would classify the USSC under the Air Force in a way that mirrors the Marines classification under the Navy. The Space Corps' chief of staff would be ranked as equal to the Air Force chief of staff and would report to the Secretary of the Air Force...
According to CNN, the Air Force's secretary and chief of staff are opposed to the plan. One reason is that we already have the Air Force Space Command and the military believes that the creation of the Space Corps would just cause more complications. Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters that "this will make it more complex, add more boxes to the organizational chart, and cost more money."
The bill charges the division of the military with providing "combat-ready space forces," though CNN adds "There are still plenty more congressional hoops for the Space Corps to jump through before it would become official. But, hey, at least the name sounds cool." And Gizmodo's reporter thoughtfully weighs the pro's and cons before concluding, "Yeah, this is probably stupid."
According to CNN, the Air Force's secretary and chief of staff are opposed to the plan. One reason is that we already have the Air Force Space Command and the military believes that the creation of the Space Corps would just cause more complications. Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters that "this will make it more complex, add more boxes to the organizational chart, and cost more money."
The bill charges the division of the military with providing "combat-ready space forces," though CNN adds "There are still plenty more congressional hoops for the Space Corps to jump through before it would become official. But, hey, at least the name sounds cool." And Gizmodo's reporter thoughtfully weighs the pro's and cons before concluding, "Yeah, this is probably stupid."
disclosure: american here.
for those readers outside the states who wonder why we're engaged in perpetual war, its the impetus of an unstoppable machine. our Department of Defense is funded to the tune of more than 500 billion dollars. it employs close to three million people. This doesnt count the literal millions of people whom are employed as military contractors, providing everything from catering to private security and transportation (our troops fly commercial aircraft frequently.)
we helped ourselves to the war chest during WW2 to get out of a crippling depression fueled by unregulated credit markets. Then the paranoia of a generation led us to stumble into central america, the middle east, and southeast asia. Now, the US military is too big to do anything but sustain, or get bigger.
rolling back the defense budget is not an option in a nation that makes nothing anymore. So, we pick our battles and fight the wars we have an overwhelming supremacy in waging. we fight for profit and to a lesser extent ideology, not defense, so its rare to see us in a country that doesnt at least have an exploitable natural resource or strategic value internationally. we pick the countries we can win, the enemies we can paint as a binary good/evil on the nightly news, and we place an emphasis on maintaining the illusion that our conquests have something to do with our moral turpitude and just nature.
It doesnt matter if space is a pointless vacuum, it only matters that it represents an opportunity for profit and sustained funding. Senators voting for this nonsense are keenly aware it means jobs and income for people in their states even tangentially affiliated with the defense department. Not having a war/employed warforce means a more urgent requirement to address things like income inequality, unemployment, healthcare, drug abuse, homelessness, and things that do not make a profit.
Good people go to bed earlier.