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?

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.

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.

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?

[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'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.

Stargate?

[SirDrinksAlot]

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

Re: Face Palm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Major Face Palm? Has he signed up?

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.

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.

Re: Face Palm?

[rickb928]

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