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President Trump Directs Pentagon To Create New 'Space Force' Military Branch (defensenews.com)
Gunfighter shares a report from Defense News: President Donald Trump on Monday appeared to sign an executive order directing the Pentagon to create a new "Space Force," a move that could radically transform the U.S. military by pulling space functions variously owned by the Air Force, Navy and other military branches into a single independent service.
"I am hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces," Trump said during a meeting of the National Space Council. "That's a big statement. We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force. Separate but equal. It is going to be something. So important," Trump added. "General Dunford, if you would carry that assignment out, I would be very greatly honored." Dunford responded in the affirmative, telling Trump, "We got you." The oddity of Trump's statement was that it was followed up with a White House readout that "contained no language related to the creation of a new military branch, leaving open the question of whether Trump has actually issued formal guidance to the military," reports Defense News. It is believed that Trump still needs the support of Congress to actually establish a space force.
"I am hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces," Trump said during a meeting of the National Space Council. "That's a big statement. We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force. Separate but equal. It is going to be something. So important," Trump added. "General Dunford, if you would carry that assignment out, I would be very greatly honored." Dunford responded in the affirmative, telling Trump, "We got you." The oddity of Trump's statement was that it was followed up with a White House readout that "contained no language related to the creation of a new military branch, leaving open the question of whether Trump has actually issued formal guidance to the military," reports Defense News. It is believed that Trump still needs the support of Congress to actually establish a space force.
This kind of stuff takes a lot of money. Is there any proof or compelling evidence that we *need* a space force separate from what our current military provides?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
This is the worst of Reagan's brean-dead mind boggling expenditures in the name of "conservatism?" and you traitors of no particular ideology eat it up because a traitor promised it? Lol. Mueller's keeping a promise also!
The Air Force has satellites, the Navy has satellites, the Army has satellites. Consolidating 3x management resources into one is mind boggling expensive, how exactly?
You're not hearing about "the treaties prohibiting militarization of space" because there are none.
There is a 1957 treaty about putting NUCLEAR weapons in space.
Did you forget about SDI and the hundreds of military satellites currently in orbit?
I'm not sure but isn't creating a new branch of the military (with all the command, administrative and support staff and resources) rather than a new command in the U.S. Air Force a LOT more expensive? They could handle it like the U.S. Army Air Corps which was later spun off to its own branch when it got large enough.
Seems like an inefficient way to run a business.
How are they supposed to waste billions on a border wall and this at the same time?
Perhaps someone is running up a huge debt before declaring bankruptcy...possibly so this person can later carry massive tax credits and avoid paying any taxes for the rest of his/her life. The tax credits go to the King, right?
So the US has five different air forces, which different aircraft, procedures, and protocols.
This didn't sound right because I recall reading somewhere that the USCG does not train any of its own pilots, they recruit them from other services. So I did some research and I found that not only does the USCG not train any pilots themselves all helicopter pilots for USCG, USMC, US Navy, and USAF all train at the same Navy base. My guess is that the US Army has a large enough group of their own helicopter pilots that they train them on their own base somewhere but the training is similar enough to the other branches that the USCG will take US Army pilots.
For another example I took a look at the C-130, an airplane I remember an Army buddy saying he took a ride in before. Sure enough it is used by USAF, USCG, US Navy, and USMC. Turns out all pilots that fly a C-130 will train at the same base regardless of which branch they serve.
Each branch certainly does in fact own their own helicopters and cargo planes. Given the size of each branch it makes sense that, as an example, the USCG flies their own HC-130 variant air frames to refuel its helicopters. Just as the USMC flies the KC-130 variant to refuel its helicopters. Given that they all trained at the same school as the Navy pilots it's no surprise that once in a while a US Navy KC-130 will refuel USMC and USCG helicopters and US Navy helicopters will refuel from USMC and USCG planes.
As for the US Army helicopters? Fuck them, they can't refuel from anyone... Oh, wait, that's not right. US Army helicopters routinely refuel from tankers flown by the USAF and other branches.
Perhaps you need to review your assumptions.
We are using helicopters in missions where they are inappropriate for purely bureaucratic and political reasons, and the Army's need for CAS is still not being met.
I can agree that perhaps the Army's need for close air support is not being met this is not because of some kind of miscommunications between the branches. This is because the A-10 air frames that have served this role are getting very old and the DoD dropped the ball on finding an adequate replacement. There's certainly some politics involved here. The USAF wants to be rid of the A-10 because it's a money pit from maintenance issues. There's people in the USMC that are willing to take the A-10 air frames as they see value in the role they serve in spite of the cost. The US Navy is objecting because they are not equipped to provide the logistics for an air frame that cannot be launched from a carrier. The powers that be in the US Army are split on taking the A-10 but that gets to what you point out on the Army being typically barred from flying fixed wing combat aircraft.
When the different branches are forced to work together, such as on the F-35 project, the politics and in-fighting resulted in the worst and most expensive military boondoggle in the history of the world.
The F-35 is a boondoggle. I'm not so sure that the different branches were "forced" to work together on this project. There was certainly promises of sharing resources and therefore reduced costs in the long term. It's not looking well for the F-35 so far, especially as I look at the F-35C carrier based variant.
The F-35 was supposed to fill the role of the A-10 but there's some concern that the current weapons that can be fitted to the F-35 will match the firepower of the 30mm cannon that the A-10 carries.
It comes down to the F-35 being too fast, Army helicopters being too slow, and the just right A-10 getting too old. Perhaps the Army's new V-280 can replace the A-10 if fitted with a cannon.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
> US space assets are easy targets
One of the things I learned while researching the Excalibur article is just how true this is.
The whole idea of SDI was that your defensive systems would be cheaper than the ICBMs, so you could afford to win any possible arms race. And this was true at first glance - the Smart Rocks interceptor, for instance, was basically a big Sidewinder. The problem is that they were housed in a "garage" that contained all the power, comms and detectors, and those could be shot down with a missile the size of a Sidewinder (appropriately delivered) which meant the Soviets would win any possible arms race.
But then there was the killer stroke. Excalibur was an x-ray laser, and throughout its testing, there were questions whether it could actually generate enough energy to destroy a missile. The answer turned out to be "no". But it turns out that the sensors on the platforms, of any sort, are *fantastically* susceptible to damage or blinding by *much* less energetic lasers. So the Soviets could basically blind the entire fleet of SDI sats by deploying a couple of gas-dynamic lasers across the country. And there was nothing anyone ever figured out to address this, one physicist concluded it was "impossible".
Things haven't changed much. ASATs remain very low-cost solutions to taking out an opponent's assets, and because they're so small they can be lofted by really inexpensive launchers. In comparison, the satellite you're attacking is huge and in some cases required an entire Space Shuttle to put it up there.