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."

Comments

If the name "sounds cool"

[rdelsambuco]

what more justification is really needed?

Re: If the name "sounds cool"

[Anonymous Coward]

Being called a space cadet might no longer be an insult.

Of course we should do this. It's obvious

[UnknowingFool]

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.

Re:Of course we should do this. It's obvious

[rossz]

The budget for the military is renewed every two years, so it isn't unconstitutional. As for the air force, while I tend to be a strict constitutionalist, I accept that referring to "the army and navy" is equal to saying "the military", which would include the air force and possibly, in the future, a space force.

Re: Of course we should do this. It's obvious

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There are more guns than cars in the US

Wouldn't car owners vs. gun owners be much more relevant? It's not like you can drive ten cars or fire ten guns at the same time.

Okay, so...

[ewanm89]

Is this basically proposing to rename Air Force Space Command into its own full branch?

Re:Okay, so...

[ColdWetDog]

Somebody really wants to be a 'Space Cadet'.

Actually, it sounds like somebody wants their own budget.

All wars are resource wars.

Re:Okay, so...

[blindseer]

Actually, it sounds like somebody wants their own budget.

That's what I thought too.

All wars are resource wars.

And Earth orbit is a resource. The USA will want to have the means to assure that resource is available. Not just available militarily but commercially, since a strong military is necessary for a strong economy, and vice versa.

One idea that has crossed my mind every so often is the idea of something like a Coast Guard for space. The US Navy and the Coast Guard have overlapping roles, and similar structure, but the Coast Guard is regarded as much as a police force as a military one. There's rules in US law and international law on the separation of a military force and a police force. For example, having Navy officers board a foreign flagged ship can be considered an act of war but Coast Guard officers doing the same would be a matter of law enforcement.

Is it really a military force we want in this role? Or should it be more of a law enforcement force?

If this is about protecting a resource, keeping the orbits above the USA clear of threats like the Coast Guard patrols the shores to do the same, then this might be the wrong way to go about this. In time though, as orbit becomes more accessible to non-government entities, I suspect both a military and police force with space borne capability will be needed.

Face Palm?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: Face Palm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Major Face Palm? Has he signed up?

Re: Face Palm?

[rickb928]

Wrong. General Truth is the first casualty of war and other things...

Didn't we have treaties against space weapons?

[rsilvergun]

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...

Re: Didn't we have treaties against space weapons?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was under the impression we did, but with this current administration wanting to rip up anything done before it, I could see them wanting to "make America great" by getting into an outer space arms race. Large metal spikes that can travel at high rates of speed are all that would be needed to wipe out large cities. Look up Project Thor to see what was the next step in the US-USSR conflict had the nuclear weapons been ineffective.

Re:Didn't we have treaties against space weapons?

[Dracos]

Yep. This would almost certainly violate the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

Re:Didn't we have treaties against space weapons?

[thrich81]

Here is some math comparing the energy of orbital speed vs nuclear weapons. First of all, think about it, if you are going to drop something from orbit, first you have to put it into orbit, which will take more energy to do than the ultimate energetic yield upon reentry (discounting the even more far fetched ideas of redirecting asteroids...). The Saturn V could put 140,000 kg into low earth orbit. So the total energy, kinetic and potential, of 140,000 kg in earth orbit is less than the fuel energy contained in a Saturn V. The Saturn V was big, but would be considered very small as the equivalent of a nuclear weapon (the launch spectators were only a few miles away, in the open).
          Now for the math. At the speed of low earth orbit (7.8 km/s) the kinetic energy of 1 kg is 6.1E7 joules (1/2 mv^2). The conversion from nuclear yield in kilotons to joules is 1 kt = 4.184E12 joules. So to equal a small nuke (using the approximate yield of the first one at Trinity) with a yield of 20 kt would require about 2.8E6 kg in low earth orbit to dissipate all of its kinetic energy as destructive yield (that's 2800 metric tons). I've ignored the potential energy of the mass in orbit as it is much smaller than the kinetic energy (about 2E6 joules/kg). The mass of the ISS is 420 metric tons. Not many nukes are as small as 20 kt anymore. I'd guess that the operational ones are closer to 500 kt, though operation weapons with yields of a few megatons (2000 to 3000 kt and up) have been fielded in the past and maybe still are. So now we are talking orbital masses of around 70,000 metric tons to equal one typical nuke. There is a LOT of energy in a nuclear weapon.
So dropping things from orbit does not create city flattening yields or big earthquakes, cracks in the earth, etc.
Anyone can feel free to check my math, I did it in a hurry. I got all my starting numbers from Wikipedia.

Re:Didn't we have treaties against space weapons?

[BeerCat]

The Saturn V could also put around 31,000kg into high orbit (high enough to go for lunar orbit) (combined launch mass of Lunar Module and Command Module), at a velocity of 11 km/s. Kinetic Energy of 1kg at escape velocity is around 6E7 joules (though my back of an envelope calculations could be out).

Enough to be scary for those on the ground, but there, as you point out, easier ways to achieve the same aim.

Though kinetic weapons conveniently don't violate any existing treaties (Outer Space, Non-proliferation, SALT, START etc)

Re:Didn't we have treaties against space weapons?

[blindseer]

I saw nothing to imply this space force would be in command of orbital weapons. It'd be a large and relatively independent force within the Air Force that specialized in space based military resources. That could just mean that they manage the communications, navigation, and weather satellites for the Air Force and other branches.

Also, I think you are about 40 years too late to complain about an arms race to develop space weapons. And that's being rather conservative. really. It's probably more like 60 or 70 years.

Re:Didn't we have treaties against space weapons?

[blindseer]

I'm not so sure. The Wikipedia summary of the treaty does say that conventional weapons are allowed, only what they deem weapons of mass destruction would be prohibited.

Space Corp Directives!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.'

youve got to keep that ball rolling.

[nimbius]

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.

Re:youve got to keep that ball rolling.

[DatbeDank]

America is an empire. If America didn't have it's empire level military someone else would by vying for that position. Blunt and honest fact, Europe's welfare states and the rest of the world's healthcare systems are subsidized by American citizens. Whether that will continue for much longer is to be seen. It will be a glorious day when the ungrateful socialists of the world realize that their freebies weren't free lunches.

Here's an honest question for fools like yourself. Which boot would you rather be licking?

America
China
Russia

I'll take my chances with America. Maybe when the rest of the world descends into an oppresive Islamic state that's enslaving women and killing LGBTs, people will recall the good 'ol days when America silently protected them and their ungrateful selves.

Re:youve got to keep that ball rolling.

[Sarten-X]

disclosure: american here.

I am an American as well, but with a different perspective.

our Department of Defense is funded to the tune of more than 500 billion dollars.

Our GDP is almost 18 trillion dollars.

It employs close to three million people.

That's 1% of our population.

This doesnt count the literal millions of people whom are employed as military contractors

One. Literally one million. A quick search shows that adding up the top 9 contracters is under 900,000 people, and a large portion of each of those companies actually sits outside the defense industry. For simplicity, let's round up to a nice single million. That's not even enough to bump our percentage beyond statistical error.

providing everything from catering to private security and transportation (our troops fly commercial aircraft frequently.)

Their contracts are included in the DoD's budget. Our troops fly with paid tickets, most often coming out of that DoD budget as well.

we helped ourselves to the war chest during WW2 to get out of a crippling depression fueled by unregulated credit markets.

That's a nice story that resonates well with today's economic fears, but it's only partly true. When the stock (not credit) market crashed, it triggered a period of deflation. That in turn led to a drastic cut in spending, including the spending on new credit. Then Europe started to default on its credit that we had extended during World War I, and due to political instability, did not have much hope for recovering. That froze the credit market, as well. That would probably have not been so bad, except that a century of bad agricultural practices had crippled the Great Plains farmland, and a series of droughts decimated the recovery efforts.

When World War II began, the economic recovery was well underway, with the GDP back up to pre-1929 levels, but confidence was still low (much as it still is today after the 2007 recession). While the war brought us a huge new market for defense technology, it didn't bring much funding. Instead, the massive bond program led to what was essentially a crowdfunded war effort. In a curious turn, the war bonds effectively boosted the consumer confidence, because they offered a future income as well as inspiring patriotism.

Then the paranoia of a generation led us to stumble into central america, the middle east, and southeast asia.

To be fair, the paranoia was mostly warranted. During World War II, the Soviet bloc also recovered well from their own economic troubles, and their economies had led to political expansion that cut off emerging markets for the United States. The Soviet Union also gained a significant amount of territory in Europe through the war, and they maintained exclusive control, apparently fueling the Soviet economy at the West's expense.

Now, the US military is too big to do anything but sustain, or get bigger.

Or it could actually get smaller, as its budget did after 2010. It's ramping up again, but slowly.

rolling back the defense budget is not an option in a nation that makes nothing anymore.

Again, our GDP is almost 18 trillion dollars. That's a lot of "nothing" we make. Our defense budget is only about 3.3% of that. For supporting 1% of the population, it's a little disproportionate, but not unreasonable.

So, we pick our battles and fight the wars we have an overwhelming supremacy in waging.

Again, in the interest of honesty, there are very few places where we don't have an overwhelming supremacy. We have nukes, if we chose to use them. Of course, nukes are bad. So is carpet-bombing. So is a fu

Re:youve got to keep that ball rolling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the old "I'm doing it because I'm protecting everyone else from the other guy who WOULD do it" argument...

America's war-mongering is going to bite it in the ass. Our infrastructure is failing. Schools aren't delivering. Job markets suck. We're honestly debating whether people deserve a right to medical treatment. Our country allowed corporations to profit from incarceration. Unemployment numbers are deliberately mismeasured. Corruption is everywhere. People detest our country *because* of that war mongering and thinking we're entitled to the rest of the world. Would the mass immigrations in Europe have happened without American action in the Middle East? I think paying the tab on that would be a nice diplomatic gesture.

Russia and China are the least of our worries. We won't take care of our own. How far do you think that'll go when we try a draft? How many are willing to lay down their lives for a country that doesn't care about them?

Re:youve got to keep that ball rolling.

[golden_hands]

Europe's welfare states and the rest of the world's healthcare systems are subsidized by American citizens.

Proof please- jingoism is no substitute for facts.

Re:youve got to keep that ball rolling.

[sjbe]

Our GDP is almost 18 trillion dollars.

And our debt is nearly equal to that. And we are adding to that debt at a rate of approximately the entire budget of the US military EVERY YEAR. Basically we are borrowing the entire cost of the US military every single year which we then have to repay with interest. You think there isn't an opportunity cost that arises from that? Just because the US has a large GDP doesn't mean it is infinite or that we can't outspend our means.

One. Literally one million. A quick search shows that adding up the top 9 contracters is under 900,000 people, and a large portion of each of those companies actually sits outside the defense industry.

You have to add in the supply chain for those contractors which I assure you is considerably larger than 1 million people. The actual size of the impact of defense spending is a substantially larger percent of our economy than the 4% of GDP we spend on the federal military budget. Some military spending is necessary and proper. When that spending exceeds the military spending of the next 8 largest countries combined it's pretty hard to argue that we are being responsible with taxpayer money.

Again, our GDP is almost 18 trillion dollars. That's a lot of "nothing" we make. Our defense budget is only about 3.3% of that. For supporting 1% of the population, it's a little disproportionate, but not unreasonable.

It's absolutely unreasonable when we have congress running a $600 Billion deficit every year and they are talking about taking away health care from millions of people including the poor and elderly. Much of the money we spend on the military does not improve our society. It's just money wasted on weapons and combat resources we don't need and won't use.

Stargate?

[SirDrinksAlot]

Will the new division keep their Stargate in Cheyenne Mountain as well?

Space Corps:They Will Fight And They Will Win! *

[veron.claudio]

*service guarantees citizenship

We don't want to be first to do this

[Applehu Akbar]

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.

citizen

[bugs2squash]

So the name Starship troopers was gone ?

A bold move ...

[petes_PoV]

The United States Space Corps would be the first new branch of the military since 1947, when the Air Force was formed

... for a country that lost the ability to send people into space in 2011 and is still scratching its head to work out how (or if) it can get back in the game.

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.

Colonisation

[fonitrus]

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.

True but I think your missing the real benefit

[rsilvergun]

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.

You can grow the list

[sjbe]

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.