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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."
what more justification is really needed?
I comment occasionally so that I can mod others -1 overrated or -1 offtopic.
We should do this right after we re-organize the Navy to be in charge of space cruisers and space carriers. After all how will we get our fighting men to board and annihilate the space vessels of our enemies if they don't have an adequate mode of transportation. The Air Force should focus on more important things like developing anti-teleportation technology which we know those Commie Russians and Chinese are working on right now. Because all these things are way more pressing than any other military problems we have right now.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Is this basically proposing to rename Air Force Space Command into its own full branch?
They better be equipped with EVA suits armed with blue lasers, otherwise it will never work
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I was going to say this was a major Face Palm, but then I saw it was CNN reporting it. So now I'm wondering if it's even true.
If not we bloody damn well should. I'm not up on my physics here but I'm to understand that if you dropped a large metal object from space the damage would be pretty bad. Heck it might be worse than nukes. You could in theory get the destructive power of a nuke without the messy fallout. Imagine if you could wipe out a country and then just roll in and take the land day 1...
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Does this mean we can finally have Space Corp Directives?
Space Corp Directive 34124. 'No officer with false teeth should attempt oral sex in zero gravity.'
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.
I think this is a good idea, though. We have to be ready when Mars attacks.
Well if they form their tax polices after the fantasies of someone who never got over their teenage fantasies of how the world should work then why not their space exploration policy?
Laugh all you want, but this is an open secret amongst the millions of personnel serving in various clandestine space commands since WWII. Air superiority has governed every war since we could get off the ground, and everybody ran to weaponize space as quickly as possible.
The Air Force doesn't like this reorganization, because they don't want to lose control of all their very cool toys.
The curious researcher will make note that only one U.S. Military Command -- The U.S. Navy -- is Constitutionally chartered, and they (mostly) own this area of operation. There is a reason that Star Trek follows the rank and command structure of the Navy, and not the Army nor Air Force. The other military commands similarly have their own space-faring tech and toys; but the average person might be surprised at how much they don't get along, and forcefully demonstrate their disagreement.
Tip of the iceberg. The rabbit hole goes very deep, and actions like these are to prime the public for better awareness regarding what the "break-away civilization" has been up to for the past half-century (and longer).
Will the new division keep their Stargate in Cheyenne Mountain as well?
"run it up the flagpole and see who salutes". first of many.
they play the guitar on the empty-V
.down at the bottom of a gravity well
Expenditures on defense are already obscene and need to be cut in half. After they manage that then and only then should be we begin talking about space.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
OK, sarcasm evident, but anyone who thinks the DMZ is peaceful hasn't been there. There are guns there, and once in a while, firefights.
Here's my DMZ selfie.
Bruce Perens.
*service guarantees citizenship
The existing Space Command is a good framework for staying aware of whatever weaponization other countries might be contemplating in space before any such weaponization actually occurs. If we pre-emptively declare a Space Corps into existence, everyone else will consider it an escalation and want one too. This wouldn't even make military sense, let alone diplomatic sense.
Remember that we proved the worth of air power all through WW II without needing to create an Air Force until 1947.
So the name Starship troopers was gone ?
Nullius in verba
who didn't arm their spaceship?
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes, but with their new name they will have to change their motto: "Guardians of the High Frontier" seems so sensible and, well, down to earth. Might I suggest: "To infinity and beyond!"?
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.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Complete remarks at https://armedservices.house.go... ...
It resisted the creation of the Air Force itself – the great irony here. "
"The Pentagon always resists change.
The United States Space Corps would be the first new branch of the military since 1947, when the Air Force was formed
People should also ask: what the hell is the point? Since the USA has no "space" assets that need defending, nor has the ability to hold territory against foes and can't even claim rights to anything that might be in orbit.
But I suppose that if you want to provoke all the other world powers, who have much more advanced capabilities, into militarising space then go right ahead.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Fleet does the flying, MI does the dying.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
I guess since we do not have a World Unified Government then the question is who will own Mars and its resources once we do get there?
The nation who is capable to conquer it and provide 'security' for the colonists/mining companies will be the Owner of such colonies or at least charge a massive fee for providing that security. Kind of a racketeering business in space.
The way it seems we have done all the fighting we can do here on Earth now we are getting ready for Battlefield Mars.
The mineral wealth on Mars better be worth it.
imagine if you could drop something like a nuke but have it leave behind no trace. After all, wars are fought to take land away from the people already living there. Now imagine no war, just taking the land. Sure, it'd have to be rebuilt from scratch, but the land wouldn't be radioactive. And I think we as a species have already proven we'll kill mass amounts of each other at the drop of a hat when times our tough.
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I am hoping that when they name everything in space that they just put "space" in front of it so you have "Space Captain" and "Space Private" and "Space Admiral" flying on "Space Ships" that dock in "Space Ports" that are home to "Space Fortresses" and "Space Base".
I imagine having practice for "Space Battle" so they can wage "Space Wars".
I suppose we could do the same with "Star" if we wanted to or perhaps "Astro" since we already have "Astronauts".
People in power have got some mates who are only just billionaires so what they really need is large sums of tax payers money thrown their way.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IKVE14M
in his memoirs. It was created post WWII because it was the only way anyone could think of to prevent the economy from sinking back into recession/depression. The trouble isn't that we're wasting money we could be spending on income inequality, unemployment, healthcare, drug abuse, homelessness, etc. The trouble is people don't _want_ to spend money on those things. A sizable portion of the population believe if you're not working non-stop you're doing something morally wrong...
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I suggest ABBA's "What About Livingstone?"
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One of the major sponsoring congressmen is from Alabama of which the dying ULA is big employer. Nothing to do with defense or space really, just trying to funnel money to his home state.
A space command is going to have to ultimately maintain large, self contained and self sustaining long term facilities in remote, mobile locations. This is a lot closer to the model of a naval command than an Air Force one. The Navy has hundreds of self contained commands that are mobile; have large multi-disciplinary crews, and handle everything from medicine to propulsion to garbage disposal. The Air Force on the other hand has almost no expertise in this area. Their bases are fixed, land locations with little in the way of environmental hazards and they are typically run for the most part by subcontractors. it will be a space ânavyâ(TM), not a space âair forceâ(TM).
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
...oh, wait. We already have one, in a different name, and they are the one who weaponized run of the mill vulnerabilities and gift wrapped them and gave them to criminals in Ukraine...
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You're quoting Gizmodo? A Gawker site that posts one useful, non-partisan story for every ten anti-Trump stories? "Gizmodo reporter draws conclusion before thoughtfully attempting to deflect criticism of his obvious bias." FTFY
If this is going to be a thing there's simply no other choice but calling it Starfleet, right?
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Cool Dire Straits reference :)
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
The ultimate space weapon could be deployed from the moon.
What weapon? Why would you need the moon to deploy it? One can deploy hugely destructive civilization ending weapons from near earth orbit without needing to go to the trouble of going to the moon.
Whomever has control of the moon(as in..actually there), will control the Earth provided the human race survives that long.
That sentence doesn't make much sense. How exactly do you figure someone on the moon (a place with no food, little water, no atmosphere, and no economy) is going to control earth? By threatening with WMDs? We already have that situation in case you forgot. Do you think people on Earth couldn't shoot those on the moon just as easily as the reverse? I think you've been reading too much science fiction.
There is an Outer Space Treaty that prohibits "weapons of mass destruction" in space. So, no nukes. However, kinetic bombardment weapons have been in development for some time now.
A powerful enough kinetic bombardment system IS a WMD. Just because nukes, biological, and chemical weapons are currently considered WMDs doesn't mean we can't add to the list. When you can get nuclear level yields by dropping an asteroid on a city you'll have a pretty hard time arguing that it isn't a WMD.
You guys are doing it again. Does your country have the money for this? Do you intend to throw more of your taxes to your military?
The article mentions China's space-oriented weapons. China has money. China has your money.
Maybe you should, as a country, find some money before opting for what must be the most expensive military faction ever considered?
What do you mean? The Galactic Empire or the Peacekeepers?
#DeleteFacebook
I appreciate that Congress wants to help the nation but they should listen to military leaders and keep the current structure. The long term solution to combat threats in "Cyber space" would be to hold companies liable for in secure software and data breaches.
US Space Corps is GO
I think what's happened is Drumpf watched Starship Troopers and got scared of space bugs...
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Trump would love it.
mfwright@batnet.com
I was about to disagree with you based on the depth of the gravity well on earth vs. the moon but in reality it would probably be more efficient (in a large scale) to go to the moon, build projectiles, then move them to earth orbit since that transfer requires much less energy.
We don't have to involve the moon at all to have more than enough firepower to destroy earth. I fail to see how the efficiency the orbital mechanics would be significant in a shooting war when the warheads coming from Earth are more than adequate to wipe out civilization already without any of the bother of building a moon base. While the same missile shot from the moon could reach earth a bit faster and require less energy, it wouldn't get to earth quick enough to prevent a retaliatory launch so no tactical advantage is gained that I can see.
But for smaller scales, it's far more efficient to just go to earth orbit and drop things back down. Not that it's especially efficient anyway of course. It just doesn't involve nuclear fallout if you use the weapons.
Pretty much exactly my point. Even if we had an extensive infrastructure on the moon it would still remain true I think.
Will they be like Forbidden Planet with shoulder flaps and a ball cap or more like Space Cadets with high shoulder ridges and a helmet ?
Tracy Johnson
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BT
Congress is behind the times. We already had Marines in space combat in 1979 -- here's the documentary proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...