VP Pence Lays Out Trump's Vision For Establishing a US Space Force (nbcnews.com)

Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday laid out details for President Donald Trump's proposed new branch of the U.S. military responsible for protecting national security in outer space. From a report: In a speech at the Pentagon, Pence said the new Space Force would be established by 2020. "As President Trump has said, in his words, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space -- we must have American dominance in space. And so we will," Pence said. "Space is, in his words, a war-fighting domain just like land and air and sea." He added, "History proves that peace only comes through strength, and in the realm of outer space, the United States Space Force will be that strength in the years ahead." The Space Force would ultimately become the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces and would be equal to the other five, Pence said. The Department of Defense has prepared a report laying out the phases of creating the new branch, which will ultimately have to be reviewed and approved by Congress.

Comments

BUY SPACEX

[Spy Handler]

Elon is gonna become the biggest defense contractor on earth

Re:BUY SPACEX

[bobbied]

Elon is gonna become the biggest defense contractor on earth

Like he wasn't already working on that. If you think Musk's business plan didn't include as much defense work as he can get, you are way behind the power curve here.

Re:BUY SPACEX

[Anonymous Coward]

Until the saudis buy him out of that too, and he's confined to slinging shit on twitter.

Re:BUY SPACEX

[Daetrin]

Don't you mean the biggest defense contractor _off_ earth?

Re:BUY SPACEX

[CanadianMacFan]

Unless Trump plays the "national security" card and just takes it for asset value of the parts of everything and not the stock price + premium. Those two words let you do a lot.

Re:BUY SPACEX

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what that means? Aliens.

Re:BUY SPACEX

[jsepeta]

elon musk IS tony stark

Re: BUY SPACEX

[datavirtue]

I'm not willing to say it's aliens.....but....it's aliens.

Re: BUY SPACEX

[nickrao]

ðY£ good one

What about the deep see force.

[fish_in_the_c]

We should have military dominance of the deep sea as well. I mean almost NO one can go there. We need to establish a base on the moon and a colony on mars for 'security'. After all, all that nothing is a real threat.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

We should have military dominance of the deep sea as well. I mean almost NO one can go there. We need to establish a base on the moon and a colony on mars for 'security'. After all, all that nothing is a real threat.

Right!

I mean, it's not like there are militarily-useful things like spy and communications satellites in space....

Oh, wait.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[The Original CDR]

Don't forget a colony orbiting Venus. Can't have all those Venusian women going rogue on Earthlings and Martains.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Major communication infrastructure is in the deep sea as well. If the only way to protect our interests is to display strength, the military is going to need a serious budget increase.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, it's not like there are militarily-useful things like spy and communications satellites undersea....

Oh, wait

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Rick Schumann]

Yeah sure let's militarize every gods-be-damned thing, as if we aren't already living on the War World. Endless cycles of war, what a great way to live!

Re:What about the deep see force.

[penandpaper]

The Navy? Submarines can go pretty deep if they need to. There is no critical infrastructure on the moon or mars. But there is in space and the deep sea! Full-spectrum dominance is a real thing.

I am not sure what your comment is on about.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Yeah sure let's militarize every gods-be-damned thing, as if we aren't already living on the War World. Endless cycles of war, what a great way to live!

Exactly.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Oswald McWeany]

I'm fine with all countries having space forces.. as long as they operate far from earth... and all other forms of military are disbanded.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

the US does, pretty much.

those telecommunications cable tappings done by the NSA submarine.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Green Mountain Bot]

The Navy? Submarines can go pretty deep if they need to. There is no critical infrastructure on the moon or mars. But there is in space and the deep sea! Full-spectrum dominance is a real thing.

I am not sure what your comment is on about.

Modern Submarines have a maximum depth of somewhere between 2400-3000 feet. Any further, and the pressure will crush the hull. Compare that with an average ocean depth of 12,000 feet.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[lactose99]

Your forgetting the micronauts. We need to prioritize shrink ray technology so we can establish dominion over atom-sized empires!

Re:What about the deep see force.

[penandpaper]

I didn't look up the depths because it wasn't necessary. The point of "can go pretty deep if they need to" is "deep enough".

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Military sub's have a crush depth of less than 1 km. Undersea cables are sitting 8 or 10km deep in some places

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you need a human to be next to the cable to protect it?

Re:What about the deep see force.

[apoc.famine]

Want to know how I can tell you haven't had many repeat sexual partners....?

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Insanity Defense]

1984 - "Excess" productivity transferred to continuous war so the "lower classes" can be kept poor and down trodden rather than getting an increased share in worldly goods. Nationalism cranked up to keep them accepting their poverty from the resulting continuous war.

It wasn't ALL Big Brother.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't have to be a person. The current administration thinks we need military assets to protect our interests in the vacuum of space. I think we need to embrace the position of strength is how we protect our interests. It is going to be ugly if we show weakness from here on out.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[penandpaper]

lol, touche. Thanks for the laugh.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy: you're projecting.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[gerald.edward.butler]

Unfortunately, MAJOR WAR IS COMING! With the Earth approaching 8 billion people, and resources already stressed, it is inevitable. There will soon be a tipping point. It will be catastrophic. It will result in war. It will be bad. You win wars by controlling the "High Ground". Space is the ultimate high ground. These are just facts. We may not want this to be the outcome, but, it will be. All the "hope" in the world won't change that.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[bestweasel]

Were you one of those who went and hid in a cave on December 31st 1999?

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Earth can support far more than 8 billion people. And no, resources aren't stressed. Not even close.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[admin7087]

Small local conflicts will be fought but there is no credible major war scenario that can be won by anyone.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

"no credible major war scenario that can be won by anyone."

That's right, we'll all fucking lose.

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Re:What about the deep see force.

[wyHunter]

Yes, we should call it the Supreme Headquarters of the Alien Defense Organisation. And we can locate it under Pinewood Studios, in southern England.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

These are just facts.

Trollolololol.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[wyHunter]

Indeed, we can take a Fantastic Voyage.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Rick Schumann]

You're quoting from the Dominionist Handbook (aka 1984).

Re:What about the deep see force.

[rtb61]

Yeah but this is nothing but bullshit. Reality, they have just created another black hole for tax dollars, with a major percentage being syphoned off as profit. China and Russia are developing a joint space program to commercialise space and the US, a bullshit program to grab as much cash as possible.

Seriously a space force, flying what, powered by what, going where. Space, or more accurately Earth orbits are all to easy to shut down from human access, simply fling as much shrapnel as you can into those orbits and it stays up there for decades or until it hits something to generate more shrapnel.

Why bother fighting from space, with the current level of technology, it is entirely bullshit, all you have to do is shut down access to space, too easy. Two part liquid fuelled rocket, the fuel tanks segmented titanium reinforced plastics, simply remote control to guide it to the correct altitude. Mix the remaining fuel and detonate, scattering millions of titanium fragments into all potential earth orbits and they keep going round and round and round, until they hit something. Voilà no idiot mud monkeys have access to space for decades to come.

The reality of space war, not science fiction, the reality, the more you win, the more you lose, every target blow up in space, puts more shrapnel into orbit and it wont take very long at all until you basically start shooting yourself down. People really have no idea how fast that shrapnel is, no atmosphere to resist initial acceleration or cause deceleration https://www.quora.com/How-fast..., so orbiting in the opposite direction means an impact at 56,000 Kmh, do you understand that space war means the end of safe human use of space for centuries, obviously those fucking morons don't.

How about dominating subterranean war. You know, build big enough bombs so you can trigger seismic cascades, a whole series of major earth quakes and volcanoes, you win by rendering the planet uninhabitable by humans.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

And what if they don't comply with your terms? Should they care what you're ok with?

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong planet. Leather Goddesses of Phobos are where it's at.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

With scantily clad women in purple wigs?

You do know that Pence won't allow himself to be in the same room with a woman that's not his wife, right? Apparently he's unable to act like an adult in the presence of other women.

Can you imagine what being around some of those SHADO babes would do to him? I don't think there's enough underwear on the planet to keep him supplied with dry jockey shorts.

And it was Harlington-Straker studios. Or were you trying to imply that Harlington-Straker was really Pinewood in real life? Because Google Earth's outside shots of Pinewood don't look anything like Harlington-Straker,

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for the reference to space quest.

I donâ(TM)t honesty believe a space force will ever be a thing. We canâ(TM)t even build a permanent space station or satellite.

Iâ(TM)m surprised Elon Musk has not proposed building an arcology or a 1:1 scale model Enterprise just to figure out how to put one in space.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit, there was an actual movie that had this as a plot point. I canâ(TM)t remember if it was a space nazis movie or moon nazis or something equally stupid.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[outlander]

And the greatest depth we know about - the Challenger Deep is 10900 meters deep (36000 feet, more or less) - seven miles.
Submarines can't get close to that depth - maybe 10%.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any deeper would be a violation of the Benthic Treaty

Re:What about the deep see force.

[penandpaper]

I think if you think this is bullshit then you haven't been following the topic for any amount of time. Yes, Trump is good at grabbing headlines but this topic precedes Trump by many years. Right now every branch has to manage their own use of satellites without any centralized thought to management, technological direction, or overlap. We already have a presence in space with assets to protect and a strategy to develop. The army doesn't provide the boats nor airplanes why should it be different for satellites capability?

Why bother fighting from space, with the current level of technology, it is entirely bullshit, all you have to do is shut down access to space, too easy.

Again, this just tells me you haven't been paying attention at all. The Chinese demonstrated shooting down a satellite years ago. I believe that the Russians and the Chinese are working toward expanding their ability to compromise military and commercial assets in space. Having a branch of military dedicated to understanding those threats and working to ensure that our assets in space are not compromised is the point in addition to consolidating overlapping capability that can give direction and specialization currently unable to be performed.

no idiot mud monkeys have access to space for decades to come.

And then you lost your access to space too and the capability it enhanced in addition to the economic impact in the commercial sector. Just like MAD there more to it than just "launch a missile" and the mere fact MAD existed changed strategy for various dimensions of war.

There is critical infrastructure that must be protected and ensuring that the military is organized properly to protect that and to ensure maximum lethality is the entire job of the military regardless where it is.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[datavirtue]

Don't forget the rebuild and modernization of our entire nuclear arsenal that this is meant to distract us from. $1.2 Trillion USD

Re: What about the deep see force.

[datavirtue]

Vice has a good solid episode on this subject. They interviewed the military who are working on tracking orbiting debris and satellites and other experts. They recounted an incident (real or propaganda?) where a piece of "debris" maneuvered itself into another position.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[penandpaper]

I think I remember reading about some articles talking about a way to clean up the space garbage was a laser satellite to slow down debris so it could de-orbit. But the problem was that it was be illegal under current international law. Interesting stuff.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

My ex wife made me move to nowhere Oregon.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

She was a little crazy but the sex was amazing.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[arglebargle_xiv]

So I'm confused, the article says:

"Space is, in his words, a war-fighting domain just like land and air and sea."

and then says the US needs a sixth force. By my counting, land, air, sea, and space is four. Most other countries have the standard complement of army, navy, air force to cover that, and OK Trump wants a space force so he can make rocket noises after he gets bored of making choo-choo and truck noises, but that still leaves two unaccounted military entities that no-one else seems to require.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Iamthecheese]

ahem

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

"cyber" is one

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

There aren't.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Iron Sky (nazis on the moon)

It is quite a good movie actually, I mean, big budget.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[phantomfive]

And small local conflicts are decreasing, for that matter.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Incel loser BTFO! Nice one!

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Enjoy your #metoo moment. One baseless accusation and your life is ruined. What's not to love?

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are both the "Navy" (The Love Boat) and the "Marines" (amphibious assault and expeditions)
Then "cyber" as says the other guy though that one is very new so might not formally exist yet.

In fact I wonder about the "Army" (land) and whatever they actually do since it's most often the Navy, Marines and Air Force that make the news.
Some countries are structured differently they may have land, air, sea and then special forces and "strategic rocket forces" (nuclear weapons). Or just land, air and sea but then paramilitary or legion such that they have something that is not the official military.
The US has at least another thing not in the six forces : amazingly there are CIA drone strikes. Like, spies that do air strikes. Movies had made me think that spies hire hit men, take part in car chases or that secretive villains capture James Bond and leave him alone in a death trap he always manage to escape. Perhaps villains took a clue and have had an armed guard gun down the spy if he manages to escape the death trap. Thus now spies do air strikes.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah these Venus colonists with their venereal diseases...

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's deep enough for him...

Re:What about the deep see force.

[AmiMoJo]

It goes back way further than that. One of the major motivations for the US joining WW2 was the economic opportunity it presented.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey is that you Mr. Ehrlich? Wondered what happened to you after your last prediction.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

So let's put submarines and battleships in space. There's no pressure there to crush them.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[TimothyHollins]

We should have military dominance of the deep sea as well. I mean almost NO one can go there. We need to establish a base on the moon and a colony on mars for 'security'. After all, all that nothing is a real threat.

I can tell you've never been married.

Nothing scares me more than when the wife says "It's nothing".

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to know how I can tell you haven't had many repeat sexual partners....?

I can tell from your sig you know what you're talking about...

Re: What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe nobody mentioned the penal colony on Uranus.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[lsatenstein]

We should have military dominance of the deep sea as well. I mean almost NO one can go there. We need to establish a base on the moon and a colony on mars for 'security'. After all, all that nothing is a real threat.

Perhaps he should first be concentrating on healthcare, education reform, lowering the costs of drugs, infrastructure, reducing for profit prisons. He could have a ordered a thousand troops to assist in the firefighting, if only there was firefighting equipment available.

Re: What about the deep see force.

[nickrao]

Agreed the spy and commercial assets in space must be protect.... GPS and communications are good examples of these commercial assets.

Re:What about the deep see force.

[Anonymous Coward]

Coast Guard & National Guard are independent branches.

You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

Know what will happen because of this? Every other nation on the planet that has a space program will now be compelled to do the same. Likely won't be long before there are nuclear warheads in orbit from one country or another. So much for peaceful space exploration. More fucking Dominionist shit from Pence and the Trump administration. I hope Congress votes it down.

Re: You idiots.

[b0s0z0ku]

Problem is that an arms race is hugely expensive, and orbiting nukes mean that one fuckup means a city gone or a large part of the country hit by EMP. Dominionist is the wrong term, more like apocalyptic.

Re:You idiots.

[BlackOverflow]

What if there is an existential alien threat they know about but haven't told the public about?

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really don't think there are already nukes in space, then you are the bigger idiot.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spaaaaaacccceeeeee Fooooooorrrrccccceeeeee!
PEW PEW PEW!

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

This isn't a video game.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Know what will happen because of this? Every other nation on the planet that has a space program will now be compelled to do the same. Likely won't be long before there are nuclear warheads in orbit from one country or another. So much for peaceful space exploration. More fucking Dominionist shit from Pence and the Trump administration. I hope Congress votes it down.

You mean, if the US doesn't do this, that means China will refrain from doing it?

Yeah, didn't think so.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he say that we were breaking out of the 'Outer Space Treaty' that was signed into effect in 1967 by the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union (as well as India, Pakistan and China later on)? That treaty forbids putting weapons of mass destruction in Earth orbit, the Moon and other celestial bodies.

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

Also who wants to live in a world that seems to be locked into a continual cycle of war or threat of war? Would be nice if we'd evolve past this bullshit.

Re:You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

Prove it, FUD spreader, PROVE IT.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct, and this is why establishing dominance there first is exactly the correct thing to do. Make it prohibitively expensive for anyone to challenge us and we will have a foothold of unsurpassed power.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely every other nation will stand by and laugh at the USA pouring money into space defence, and not follow suit. Lol, remember during the presidential campaign when Trump said he'd pay off the deficit in seven years? How's that coming along?

Re:You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

We should be so lucky. The mere appearance of interstellar aliens would be a game-changer for our species (or so I'd hope). Being threatened by an interstellar alien race would most certainly get us over all this infighting bullshit in short order, giving people a common enemy has a tendency to do that. I'd rather deal with that than this Dominionist bullshit of trying to bring about the apocalypse.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you so into being tentacle raped by an alien? Are you a pervert anime lover?

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

the Soviet Union orbited nuclear weapons in space back in the 60's/70's.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what we've evolved INTO. It's the optimal solution to survival of the fittest. Nature has spoken.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Likely won't be long before there are nuclear warheads in orbit from one country or another.

That would be a violation of the 1968 outer space treaty. Not that the Trump administration isn't stupid enough to violate this treaty, and put us back into an itchy trigger finger cold war with Russia. But it's worth pointing out that we stepped away from that brink of oblivion before.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

competition amongst our variuos countries and factions here on Earth is preparing us for that day. It makes us more formidable. Even though an advanced alien task force would likely judge us too agressive, sterilize the Earth, and move on.

Re: You idiots.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Spaaaaaacccceeeeee Fooooooorrrrccccceeeeee!
  PEW PEW PEW!

I saw that, too!

LOL!

Re: You idiots.

[Areyoukiddingme]

Dominionist is the wrong term, more like apocalyptic.

You seem to be unaware of what Dominionists want. A significant percentage of Dominionists interpret Biblical version, in particular Revelations, to mean that it is their duty to intentionally induce an apocalypse in order to precipitate the Second Coming of Christ. They're the Dominionists who grew out of Pentecostalism, and sometimes self-identify as adherents of "Kingdom Now" theology. Their goal is a global Christian theocracy, and they think the sole path that gets them what they want is a global holocaust, because they interpret Revelations as prophecy, and believe the prophecy demands it. These people are properly called Dominionists because they self-identify as such, in writing.

Re:You idiots.

[penandpaper]

Space Race 2.0?

Every other nation on the planet that can have an aggressive posture in space will. See China shooting down a satellite.

Do you think there is something wrong with Full-spectrum dominance if so what is it? "Space Force" was inevitable as soon as the costs to get to space were lowered.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

And then many of the smaller countries will band together and fight this, as they are now... except they will be better coordinated and better funded.

Imagine a 9/11 event going off every few weeks... When power is presented, other people fight that power - especially if they deem it unstable.

Re:You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

No, it's destructive and wasteful and only shows that we're just gods-be-damned animals and not truly sentient.

Re:You idiots.

[supremebob]

Shhhh.... you're spoiling SpaceX's plan for future profitability!

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

sez you

Re:You idiots.

[DigiShaman]

These Chinese are already doing it (anti-sat missiles), and most likely the Russians have warheads parked in orbit as well. Rick, you're professing your ignorance on this topic. All that this administration did was clear the air and tell the truth and stop pussy footing around. Super Powers are dominating all domains of access because of a single universal truth of the human condition - humanity is governed by the aggressive use of force. That's not a statement for how it should be, rather reflecting on the reality for what it is.

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

You've got pretty good distance vision for an AC.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

They have so far.

Actually, most other countries won't follow in these footsteps. It's super expensive for almost no gain. Anything that can be done via oribiting satellite can already be done through ICBMs and / or people on the ground.

Instead of putting a billion dollar satellite to hold a few bombs, they'll invest that billion dollars into 30 suitcase nukes and sneak them into the States. It's pretty easy, since practically resourceless Mexicans can do so. The can use the change from buying those nukes to, i dunno, buy a few more planes and run them into more buildings.

Re: You idiots.

[Oswald McWeany]

The only plus side from this is it may lead to technology to colonise beyond Earth... that's the only plus side I see.

Re:You idiots.

[Oswald McWeany]

You mean, if the US doesn't do this, that means China will refrain from doing it?

Yeah, didn't think so.

They haven't yet but it was inevitable it would start eventually. I just wish it could have happened after my natural lifetime.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there kind of are dirrybombs in space for sure. Satellites with nuclear batteries and the like and that's just the part we know about. China is already very active weaponising space. They are leaders in this already especially when it comes to comms and jamming, interception etc.

Re:You idiots.

[WaffleMonster]

What if there is an existential alien threat they know about but haven't told the public about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear weapons = peace

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah because space was totally going to be peaceful unlike the innumerable territorial conflicts seen on earth over its history. Asking "please?" for mining rights, moon and planet territory, and even orbital positions won't work because humans at an Us vs Them level do not give anything to Them without something in return. You'll see it upon colonization and very soon when asteroid mining becomes a thing, especially once more than one country, or even more than one company starts in on it. At some point you'll need strength, force and defense, and no amount of TDS hand wringing will change it.

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

<sarcasm>Nuclear weapons = peace</sarcasm>

FTFY

Re:You idiots.

[cayenne8]

Know what will happen because of this? Every other nation on the planet that has a space program will now be compelled to do the same. Likely won't be long before there are nuclear warheads in orbit from one country or another. So much for peaceful space exploration. More fucking Dominionist shit from Pence and the Trump administration. I hope Congress votes it down.

You don't think the other super nations aren't doing this too?

I was just reading the other day, maybe on /. even, about the Chinese working to militarize space with their programs.

We don't want to be the only ones that didn't if the other counties do.....right?

Re: You idiots.

[cayenne8]

Also who wants to live in a world that seems to be locked into a continual cycle of war or threat of war? Would be nice if we'd evolve past this bullshit.

The trouble is....who (which nation) stops first and puts themselves into danger in the hopes that the other nations follow the example, vs continuing the race and eventually overcoming the weaker nations?

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

All that this administration did was clear the air and tell the truth

Bwa-hahaha oh yer killin' me! did you actually think that? Funniest shit I've read all day. Really thanks for the laugh!

Re:You idiots.

[vux984]

It's worse than that. China has already demonstrated they can and will shoot down an orbiting satellite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

And the only take aways anyone with half a brain would have are:

a) a space based weapons platform would be a sitting duck.

b) the orbital debris from any sustained orbital conflict will make earths orbit completely inhospitable for decades. A bit of scrap the size of a pencil eraser moving at 8 km/s is going to do a number on anything in its way.

You can't "dominate" orbital space the way you can dominate air or land. All you can do is render it completely inhospitable for everyone.

Re:You idiots.

[LynnwoodRooster]

They have so far.

Other than blowing up satellites with space weapons, you mean...

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the still-undecided one that carried 16 points red in 2016? Not bad at all actually

Re:You idiots.

[cascadingstylesheet]

Know what will happen because of this? Every other nation on the planet that has a space program will now be compelled to do the same. Likely won't be long before there are nuclear warheads in orbit from one country or another. So much for peaceful space exploration. More fucking Dominionist shit from Pence and the Trump administration. I hope Congress votes it down.

Right. Every other nation on earth was just going to sing kumbaya in space, now and evermore. There would never be any need to have a military presence in space. If only that mean old Trump hadn't done this.

I can't tell if you really believe that, or if it's a schtick. Maybe you do.

Re:You idiots.

[vtcodger]

Probably not. It's not too hard to figure out that stuff in orbit is extremely vulnerable and will be shot to pieces in the first 12 hours of any serious conflict. ICBMs and cruise missiles are more reliable, less vulnerable, and orders of magnitude cheaper. That's probably beyond the comprehension of Trump, Pence, the press and most of the bozos in Congress. But the Joint Chiefs of Staff will understand it.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

not before i kick your mom's ass with my huge cock

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey bro, what is Revelations?

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's going to take a LOOOONG time to evolve past this. Evolution is quite slow.

Furthermore, our evolution is what we have to thank for all this bullshit. We evolved to survive in a violent world, with an overpowering multi-leveled dominance hierarchy to contend with. Those are the scripts that have been encoded as our instincts.

You can't just flip a switch to escape from that sort of thing.

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

We're SUPPOSEDLY sentient now and should be able to THINK our way around stupid-ass violent 'instincts'!

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

You are correct, and you're also one of the very few around here who actually understand it's a Real Thing.

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

Your optimism is both endearing and saddeningly naive. :-(

Re:You idiots.

[jbengt]

Just because space would most likely become militarized in the future, is no reason to accelerate the problem. But now they will have an excuse to start speeding towards war from space.

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

I said, PROVE IT, not fling half-assed theories around. FACTS!

Re: You idiots.

[sheph]

No, says history. Every country on earth was acquired by conquest. It's lovely to think we could become civilized, and move beyond that. But human nature would suggest that it's not attainable. That being the case, I'd rather the country I live in be the dominant one rather than the dominated.

Re: You idiots.

[jythie]

This was only true when conquest was cheaper than trade. This pretty much ended with the late industrial revolution, which is why today you only really see war of conquest in the most impoverished regions.

Re: You idiots.

[Nidi62]

Hey bro, what is Revelations?

Allegory for the fall of Rome that many modern-day Christians interpret as prediction of a still-to-come event.

Re: You idiots.

[cayenne8]

Why the ACTUAL FUCK do you believe we have to "overcome weaker nations"? Are you also forgetting the tags around your comment?

Not saying we (as in the US) have to overcome weaker nations, but if WE (as in the US) stop our build up first, we become one of the weaker nations that other stronger nations would be very tempted to overcome.

Unless everyone verifiably puts down their weapons at the same time....the first one to put them down alone eventually becomes a loser to the others.

Re: You idiots.

[sheph]

I'll have to look them up tonight. I've never heard of them, but from what you describe it sounds like complete heresy. Nothing in Revelations indicated that the end times can be or will be brought about by man. In fact, it says "no man knows the hour or the day" indicating it will be on God's time table. I often wonder how these groups call themselves Christians when there is nothing in scripture to substantiate what they believe.

Re:You idiots.

[Nidi62]

Instead of putting a billion dollar satellite to hold a few bombs, they'll invest that billion dollars into 30 suitcase nukes and sneak them into the States.

You don't need bombs, just a couple solid projectiles that can be put into a decaying orbit and big enough to survive reentry and slam into the ground (or even air burst). Imagine a Tunguska blast over New York....

Re: You idiots.

[nawcom]

Hey bro, what is Revelations?

Allegory for the fall of Rome that many modern-day Christians interpret as prediction of a still-to-come event.

The AC is pointing out that it's called Revelation, not Revelations.

Re:You idiots.

[AmiMoJo]

Bollocks. You can't hide nukes in orbit. The US already has anti-sat weapons too.

This would be a major escalation of it happened.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've yet to see any such people. Most Christians believe they will end up being persecuted until Jesus shows up and saves them.

Re: You idiots.

[Nidi62]

Hey bro, what is Revelations?

Allegory for the fall of Rome that many modern-day Christians interpret as prediction of a still-to-come event.

The AC is pointing out that it's called Revelation, not Revelations.

Step into a Southern church sometime and you will even hear the pastor say "Revelations".

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

If only we didn't have people who felt the need to scream IDIOT in the face of other people. People like _you_ are the reason we have wars in the first place...

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Everyone who does not have an armed space station raise your hand."

Re: You idiots.

[Nidi62]

I'll have to look them up tonight. I've never heard of them, but from what you describe it sounds like complete heresy. Nothing in Revelations indicated that the end times can be or will be brought about by man. In fact, it says "no man knows the hour or the day" indicating it will be on God's time table. I often wonder how these groups call themselves Christians when there is nothing in scripture to substantiate what they believe.

The idea that the Temple must be rebuilt before the 2nd Coming can begin (or that it is a sign of the 2nd Coming) is big in evangelical circles. They don't know when it will start, but they are hell bent (pun intended) on doing everything that they believe presages the 2nd Coming. Look up dispensationalism and how it affects US foreign policy.

Re:You idiots.

[ninjagin]

Had I the points, I would mod this insightful.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to look up the word sentience. I donâ(TM)t believe it means what you think it means.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what does that have that do with anything? Step into churches all around the world and youâ(TM)ll find that many of them get Godâ(TM)s actual word wrong, not just mispronounce book names.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

There you go with that word again. Since itâ(TM)s the second misuse in as many comments to use it, Iâ(TM)m going to go ahead and assume I was correct earlier. The ability to feel or perceive things subjectively doesnâ(TM)t assume or necessitate that we will all feel warm and fuzzy towards one another.

Re:You idiots.

[Insanity Defense]

Did he say that we were breaking out of the 'Outer Space Treaty' that was signed into effect in 1967 by the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union (as well as India, Pakistan and China later on)? That treaty forbids putting weapons of mass destruction in Earth orbit, the Moon and other celestial bodies.

If the U.S. has them they are by definition NOT WMDS. If anyone else has them a pea shooter can be called a WMD. So no problem, only nations other than the U.S. can possibly be in violation of the treaty.

Re: You idiots.

[lgw]

Prove there aren't.

Re:You idiots.

[Insanity Defense]

More likely every other nation will stand by and laugh at the USA pouring money into space defence, and not follow suit. Lol, remember during the presidential campaign when Trump said he'd pay off the deficit in seven years? How's that coming along?

I'm sure his deficit is being reduced quite nicely. You didn't think he meant the national deficit did you?

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess we need to go back and time and tell the Clinton Administration to stop pondering it. I was in USSPACECOM then. It was inter-service competition, not the Clinton Administration that eventually put the idea on hold.

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/milreview/moorhead.pdf

Re:You idiots.

[lgw]

What makes it hard to hide nukes in orbit? Plenty of RTGs in orbit, and that lump of plutonium in my sat is absolutely an RTG, not a bomb. You can trust me, because I'm a politician.

Re:You idiots.

[Applehu Akbar]

What world event, now and specifically, justifies pumping up the existing Space Command into a sixth branch of an already bloated military? Space Command's existing remit of watching for any need to escalate is still the best paradigm for the present.

Meanwhile, the most likely external threat is still an Earth-crossing asteroid or comet. If we did identify one headed our way, we wouldn't want to trust the job to cost-plus contractors, those wonderful folk who have brought us the $10,000 toilet cover and the perpetually unfinished JWST. We would tweet Elon Must and let him romp.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the point of space based weapons. Space is big. Really big. You take advantage of that space. You wouldn't put them in LEO. That would be stupid. You would put them way-way out, so that there is little chance you can preemptively eliminate them. This is why we wanted a nuke base on the moon in the 60s. Strategically its the most survivable deterrent.

Re:You idiots.

[lgw]

I look forward to increased funding for space programs around the world, with the accompanying new consumer technology.

Re:You idiots.

[blindseer]

the Soviet Union orbited nuclear weapons in space back in the 60's/70's.

They did not, but they did put an armed space station into orbit. There was a cannon on board one manned space station, a cannon much like the anti-aircraft cannons on navy ships. It was fired once as a test before the station was de-orbited, no one was sure what would happen if they had to fire the cannon so no crew was on board for the test firing.

It was this armed Soviet space station that may have lead to the US Strategic Defense Initiative, a program to defend against space based weapons. This lead the Soviets to spend more money on space based weapons, and likely led to the bankruptcy of the government and the fall of the Soviet Union. People later found out that SDI was mostly a fake, they wanted to goad the Soviets into military spending that the US politicians knew that they could not afford. I say "mostly" fake because the US federal government did still spend a lot of money on missile defense, just none of which was based in orbit.

We now see China, North Korea, Iran, and other nations trying to build their own intercontinental missiles. The need for a space force didn't end with the fall of the Soviet Union, it only spread out more widely. Do these new threats carry the same weight as that from the Soviets? Perhaps, perhaps not. What seems clear is that at some point there will be an adversary to the USA that will be capable of launching space based weapons, and the USA should be prepared. Alternatively, the creation of a US space force will again goad other nations into spending themselves into bankruptcy in trying to keep up with the USA.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you control the orbitals you can drop rocks on cities all day long.... sheesh, it's like you people never read science-fiction and don't understand the strategic advantage space-dominance will give us.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Eat a bag of dicks

Re: You idiots.

[Rick Schumann]

Nobody else has a 'space force' at this point in time, why are WE the ones who has to break the seal on that? Why precipitate the whole mess? Why???

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any item in space that contains nuclear fuel, hss the potential of turning into a dirty bomb.

Do you need a list of items in orbit around Earth that use nuclear fuel?

Re:You idiots.

[edi_guy]

And even if your plan was to dominate space, why advertise that fact? Wasn't one of Trump's points in the past that the US goofed by always announcing their military plans (we're going to invade Mosul, we're pulling out of Afghanistan, etc).

Re:You idiots.

[gtall]

No it wouldn't, we'd just fight over who is going to fight them, then some of us would sell our souls to them thus creating another fault line. Eventually, the Aliens would become so disgusted they'd leave on their own swearing to never visit us again.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dispenceacionalism?

Re: You idiots.

[bgrahambo]

Russia is pretty active at taking over nations right now, although maybe that's them taking advantage of their impoverished neighbors. They're just there to help, right?

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

They sound like potential terrorists who would resort to 12 Moneys -style tactics. I miss the days when there was only the strong Evangelical lobby supporting Israel for the purpose of getting all of the Jewish people in Israel so that Jesus can come back and judge them according to their faith..

Re: You idiots.

[bestweasel]

"GodÃ(TM)s actual word wrong"

Even God is powerless to intervene in Slashdot formatting.

Re: You idiots.

[cmdr_klarg]

Also who wants to live in a world that seems to be locked into a continual cycle of war or threat of war? Would be nice if we'd evolve past this bullshit.

Why would we want to do that? War = massive profits.

Re:You idiots.

[DigiShaman]

We're talking about the Russians here. They say one thing, and do another. Personally, I don't trust a damn thing they say. So yeah, wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if there was sleeping MIRV in orbit. Not in the slightest.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all. Nukes, planes, machine guns, etc., are not the product of evolution. Neither ideas nor books are transmitted by genes. Human artefacts and culture are weird anomalies and certainly cannot be explained by evolution.

Re: You idiots.

[tbannist]

I'll have to look them up tonight. I've never heard of them, but from what you describe it sounds like complete heresy. Nothing in Revelations indicated that the end times can be or will be brought about by man. In fact, it says "no man knows the hour or the day" indicating it will be on God's time table. I often wonder how these groups call themselves Christians when there is nothing in scripture to substantiate what they believe.

Just wait until you get to the Prosperity Christians. They believe that God loves rich people, otherwise he wouldn't allow them to be rich. Consequently, it follows that poor people deserve to be poor, and they must have done something to make God angry at them. As a corollary, they also preach that you can be come a better, and therefore richer, person by giving money to their churches.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol. No, probably just way beneath His paygrade.

Re: You idiots.

[admin7087]

History has nothing to say about it. Technical, scientific, and cultural development have made massive quantum leaps, our current technical culture with global communication & global trade is not even remotely comparable to anything that has existed before, and there is no sane reason to think that "countries", "nations", or similar arbitrary human artefacts have to repeat the mistakes of the past. On the contrary, the history of cultural development suggests strongly that mankind can shape their own future as they like, just as we shape cities, countries, and all of the rest of our environment to our liking. If you think that skyscrapers are possible, then certainly lasting peace on earth is possible. It's not even very hard to achieve, all you need is a decent amount of economic entanglement, lots of contracts to the mutual benefit of everyone, and a few global players to push it forward.

Note that pretty much all of the past reasons for conquest have long gone in modern, industrialized societies. Resources can be acquired by international trade, war for territory is no longer worth it, and religious superstitions are luckily declining wherever there is technical and economic development.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind me again when World War I and II happened?

Re: You idiots.

[wyHunter]

I live in a red state, in an even redder area of this state. I've never heard of such people. Where do they exist?

Re: You idiots.

[Swave An deBwoner]

To take the attention of the masses off of that "witch hunt" perhaps?

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

We're talking about the Americans here. They say one thing, and do another. Personally, I don't trust a damn thing they say. So yeah, wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if there was sleeping MIRV in orbit. Not in the slightest.

Re:You idiots.

[AmiMoJo]

You can't hide stuff up there.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please review this list and reflect somewhat on who has been the dominant aggressor since WWI. I'll give you a hint, it's not Russia.

Re:You idiots.

[AmiMoJo]

Do you really believe that the US couldn't tell an RTG from a warhead? Do you think they wouldn't notice the reentry vehicle or the huge unexplained mass of its engines and fuel and atmospheric shield?

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

From personal experience, heavily in midwest. Dakotas, Nebraska, rual areas of Texas, some presence in Iowa, northern midwestern states. They have very little presence on the coasts. Was a christian, now an athiest because of these asshats.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Creflo dollar ?? Joel Olsteen ?? Any US TV Evangelist you care to mention ??

You haven't heard of them ???

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

All this regime did was lie about everything and commit treason and start pussy grabbing around.

FTFY. Stick around, we need more comedy bits like yours. There's nothing quite as funny as a Nazi with his head up his ass.

Re: You idiots.

[outlander]

Pentecostalism, which is the predecessor of modern-day Dominionism, arose out of folk churches.

They very literally believe - as did medieval scholars - that enough biblical exegesis coupled with faith and self-abnegation will allow them to engage in divination.

Never mind that such practices are expressly condemned in old testament texts, and would have been (relatively) heretical even to the batshit english puritans who settled the east coast of North America. The current Dominionist belief structure reflects a post-enlightenment level of absolute savagery, albeit dressed up in a nice suit for Sunday, but still red in tooth and claw.

Dominionists slough off proscriptions against divination as "old testament" and claim that the personal relationship with the numinous supersedes both older rules (which, granted, were intended to maintain control over belief change) and (the scary bit) logic and reason. They claim that only 'experiential faith' is valid, and all other forms of religious observance are shams.

The truly scary bit is that the notion experiential faith expressly incorporates the validity of revelatory experiences - and the mandate that revelatory experience is to be taken as truth, and challenges to it represent heretical behavior that requires prosecution in the name of holiness. Such a system has no internal checks and brooks no challenges, and is an ideal basis for an authoritarian state. For if A has a revelation and reveals it, B and C are bound to obey it, whether it is to their benefit or not.....

Thomas Paine, who I revere, has this to say about this sort of revelation-trumps-all thinking in Part2/Sec20 of Common Sense. He was responding to earlier forms of socially-sanctioned illogic occasioned by the Great Awakening of the 1730s and 40s, led by Jonathan Edwards and

"Revelation then, so far as the term has relation between God and man, can only be applied to something which God reveals of his will to man; but though the power of the Almighty to make such a communication is necessarily admitted, because to that power all things are possible, yet the thing so revealed (if anything ever was revealed, and which, bye the bye, it is impossible to prove), is revelation to the person only to whom it is made. His account of it to another person is not revelation; and whoever puts faith in that account, puts it in the man from whom the account comes; and that man may have been deceived, or may have dreamed it, or he may be an impostor and may lie. There is no possible criterion whereby to judge of the truth of what he tells, for even the morality of it would be no proof of revelation. In all such cases the proper answer would be, "When it is revealed to me, I will believe it to be a revelation; but it is not, and cannot be incumbent upon me to believe it to be revelation before; neither is it proper that I should take the word of a man as the word of God, and put man in the place of God." This is the manner in which I have spoken of revelation in the former part of the Age of Reason; and which, while it reverentially admits revelation as a possible thing, because, as before said, to the Almighty all things are possible, it prevents the imposition of one man upon another, and precludes the wicked use of pretended revelation."

Re: You idiots.

[outlander]

Which is why the crazy religious want a big war in Israel - once the current mosque built on the site of the former temple is demolished, they believe that the Israelis will get on with building the second temple and get the apocalypse underway.

It's insane.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

God doesn't know html. IJS.

Re: You idiots.

[outlander]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:You idiots.

[outlander]

Agreed.

a: absolutely true

b: The ablation cascade - e.g., the diffusion into a more evenly distributed quantity of orbiting bits moving very fast - would kill spaceflight for hundreds of years, at best. There's nothing that can protect a launch vehicle moving through such a cloud of small pieces, at least not now. It makes Asteroids look dead simple....

c. Why militarize space when it can be commercialized? I for one want to spend a vacation in a weightless space station. That would be amazing....

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know Reagan's star wars was a bluff to bankrupt the Soviet union, right? Pretty funny if Trump bankrupts the US to actually build it.

Re: You idiots.

[deviated_prevert]

I'll have to look them up tonight. I've never heard of them, but from what you describe it sounds like complete heresy. Nothing in Revelations indicated that the end times can be or will be brought about by man. In fact, it says "no man knows the hour or the day" indicating it will be on God's time table. I often wonder how these groups call themselves Christians when there is nothing in scripture to substantiate what they believe.

One little ditty from Revelation that seems to be conveniently skipped by the American religious right these days is the following one in quotes. The Mennonites are keenly aware of this prophecy and it is the one that is turning out to be most current.

"The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”

I was modded down for this post rather quickly for being "off topic" but to me at least, it seems that taking care of the earth and all the creatures that are upon it is job one and we are failing at miserably.

Cooperative space exploration and science does not have to include military function, and our very industrial base does not need to be in future mostly created for destructive ends. The optimism during the Vietnam war created by the peaceful aspects of the space race that landed us on the moon could be repeated. The entire human race could become united and excited by both the rapid advancement of ecologically sound industrial and agricultural practices and experiments in space farming technology and the future necessary expansion of live off this planet. The technologies necessary for environmentally sound agriculture on this planet and in outer space are closely related. Our current greenhouse technologies are primitive, instead we are fucking things up royally and wasting precious petroleum based polymers and hydrocarbon based fuels on automotive tech and plastic packaging.

Either we smarten up and learn to use our resources wisely or we will have to deal with idiots like Trump rolling back the clock to primitive technologies that consume ridiculous amounts of resources just to put a few boots with guns in space! And BTW nuclear weapons that just go bang are essentially useless in space unless they are emp pulse based and even so they are far too costly to refine into the cheap weapons of directed emp necessary for space warfare. But developing the technology to use nuclear resources exclusively for space based energy sources is a hell of a lot more sensible than experimenting with nuclear devices in the atmosphere to say the least. If we are to advance technologically it will eventually be in space but first we have to advance past the mindless greed of today's consumerism and the endless wars it creates.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ack, surrounded by morons. Anything in a decaying orbit isn't going to have enough velocity to do much damage. Take a physics class or read some sci-fi or something.

Re: You idiots.

[BrianMarshall]

Would be nice if we'd evolve past this bullshit.

Evolve?

This is Mike Pence we are talking about - one man more dangerous than Trump, if only because he might be a more competent politician.

Re: You idiots.

[BrianMarshall]

"more dangerous" in the sense that if Trump is impeached or quits, Pence becomes POTUS.

Re: You idiots.

[datavirtue]

Our money would be better spent building infrastructure here and in Muslim countries.

Re:You idiots.

[dryeo]

Any alien intelligence's that are technological advanced enough to cross interstellar space are advanced enough to sit out at Saturn and throw rocks at us.

Re: You idiots.

[Zontar The Mindless]

This was settled 50 years ago. Or am I the only one in the room who remembers a little thing called the Outer Space Treaty, to which the US is a signatory?

Re:You idiots.

[Zontar The Mindless]

So... I'm not the only one who remembers this, after all, hey!

Re:You idiots.

[Insanity Defense]

I don't know why that is being classed as funny. I've had Americans tell me that nations other than the U.S. can't be allowed to have nuclear weapons because only the U.S. can be trusted to NOT use them. The fact that ONLY the U.S. HAS used them seems to escape their notice. Screws loose or missing entirely.

Re:You idiots.

[dryeo]

Unless this time it is America who goes bankrupt.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless this time it is America who goes bankrupt.

Take a look at this list of nations by GDP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

The USA is on top, and produces about 1/4 of the world's economic output. It would take the next four on this list to exceed the economic output of the USA, three of those four the USA had at some point in history defeated in war. That's not saying that a new cold war wouldn't be a burden on the economy, only that the probability of such a burden leading to bankruptcy is quite small.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

How do we know if a warhead is covertly hidden within a Russian "weather satellite". In fact, might be a dual purpose sat.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Going to space requires some science and engineering to happen. This space force won't be sustainable when technically competent people are fired because they refused to be yes men to "Mr. grab em by the pussy."

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Existential alien threat? Like anybody's scared of a cappuccino drinking 20 year old philosophy major.

Re: You idiots.

[Gavagai80]

They're in rich places, naturally. They build megachurches all through California.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't hide nukes on orbit then tell me what's aboard the X-37. It not necessarily a nuke but if it was how could anyone tell?

Re: You idiots.

[dunkelfalke]

Actually Russia does.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

We should be so lucky. The mere appearance of interstellar aliens would be a game-changer for our species (or so I'd hope). Being threatened by an interstellar alien race would most certainly get us over all this infighting bullshit in short order, giving people a common enemy has a tendency to do that. I'd rather deal with that than this Dominionist bullshit of trying to bring about the apocalypse.

Interestingly enough the Mennonite Mob believe that the trade in cocaine and other drugs is justified in that it will help bring about the downfall of Western democratic society and thus the end of the world as we know it. So does Putin and a large section of the Chinese political directorate who if not actively then passively support this through the Russian Mafia in New York who wholesale a large portion of the Mennonite delivered drugs in the states. Of course the whole scheme was concocted by sociopathic assholes who use religion as a drug on their followers but it was also supported by American organized crime and is still going on as strong as ever. A bit like the fake news and "make America Great" bullshit currently being spouted by Donald and company to daze the electorate of the US into stupidity. Don't believe it is really happening, watch this bit of fake news dated 1992 from the liberal media in Canada.CBC CANADA

However most Mennonites see the bullshit that goes on a little more clearly than the sheep who follow assholes like Abraham and Enrique Harms or the Republicans that follow Donald Trump and Mike Pence. I seriously doubt that very many Americans really understand how destructive these manipulative assholes are becoming. It seems that the American populace is slowly but surely being both propagandized, drugged and duped in a way that would have made Joseph Goebbels green with envy. My bet is the next step is that the coming elections will be invalidated until Trump and his backers receive another mandate.

I am seriously afraid that we have another Adolf on our hands and unless he is stopped and soon elections will become completely irrelevant. The news media will be the next target if Trump loses the mid term elections and control of the houses of government he is already setting us up for that by demonizing the media the same way Hitler did.

Re: You idiots.

[terrycarlino]

So I guess WWI and WWII, which both happened after the industrial revolution never happened?

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets hope the Russians and Americans dont use their anti-sats either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_missile#United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_missile#Russia

The US has demonstrated they are more than willing and capable of shooting down an orbiting satellite too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really want to nuke from orbit there are other ways than orbiting a nuke for years and decades. You launch the nuke right before using it and deorbit it over your target without completing one single orbit. See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System

Amazingly, SpaceX or Elon Musk proposed doing this with people (using the BFR and a ship with 80 to 200 people). Because the stresses in an ICBM trajectory would kill people on board. Needless to say the idea seems perfectly workable in theory but it seems just a tad ridiculous.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that the whole protestantism? After the Middle Ages ended and printing shook up the old world and we began to have overseas Empires, more non-noble people got rich and eventually became early capitalists. The Catholics' worship of poverty was over the top (if you ignore bishops living in luxury etc.)
So they got fed up with it, hence Protestants protested, if only to tone down rich == evil. If you're not rich? "Work ethic".
I don't wish to imply protestants worship money or in the way you describe above.

Still there may be a US tendency to believe in "natural rights" that translates into "It's my god given right to burn leaded gasoline/own twenty weapons/run full tilt AC on 4000 square feet and a hot tub at the same time/drive a four ton truck with fire coming out the pipes/eat four story burgers with a pound of bacon"
May not be the same thing but God or Jesus approve rather than disapprove.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

China has had ICBMs forever.
Iran has the means to do it but they say themselves they don't want to do it. You're free to not believe them but that's in contrast with North Korea that has been rather upfront about wanting to nuke the US (and Japan, and even Australia but still around the theme of nuking US military bases)
Iran also paid more attention to having satellites actually work whereas North Korea doesn't give a shit if their satellites are duds.

Mind you, building an ICBM is easier than ever. It's mainly hard to get away with it. There aren't that many North Koreas around. I can only think of Israel as another country to make "rogue" ICBMs. South Africa would have been but had a change of mind of sorts.
Some countries are allowed to have civilian nuclear power and satellite launches, even though it's beyond obvious what one can make of those technologies. Iran officially wants to be in this category either for the practical benefits or for prestige, but has international politics problems with that.

Re:You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bollocks. You can't hide nukes in orbit. The US already has anti-sat weapons too.

This would be a major escalation of it happened.

Yes and I am sure you know exactly how big or small the latest foreign nuclear satellite is, because you are the mysterious Q. And of course, you know exactly how they could not hide it by putting it, say, inside something else.

Genius.

Re: You idiots.

[houghi]

WWI was still during the industrial revolution. Prices had not yet dropped that far and trading was still expensive.
WWII was basically caused by the problems of cost of living for Germany with the extremely strict rules brought to them by losing WWI, making it very difficulkt to do any trading at all.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes survival of the fittest. Like when Cadet Bone Spurs used his daddy to get out of having to serve his country.

Re: You idiots.

[guruevi]

Not sure if you noticed but conquests have been going on by US and Russia.

Just because they are resolved more by small forces doesn't mean it's not a conquest. You don't have to conscript millions of people to fight a war anymore, a few thousand (Russia, US, China and Israel all have done this multiple times in the past century) can kill multiples of thousands, disrupt an economy and take over an entire country.

Re:You idiots.

[lgw]

It doesn't take much fuel to de-orbit if you're not very concerned about impact velocity, though it would be a large satellite. Beyond the size of the sat, theres very little else you can tell about what's actually under the skin. The USSR had some suspiciously large sats in orbit. So do we (or at least, we did during the cold war, anything this century is hard to get info on).

Now, if we wanted moder, high-efficiency nukes, there's a bit of a problem: they use tritium. and that means they would need to be serviced every few years. Heck, to make that practical, we'd need some sort of re-usable "space bus" with an arm to grab a sat and maybe an internal bay designed for servicing it. What an awkward thing that would be to launch and recover. We'd never build anything that silly.

Re: You idiots.

[wyHunter]

Most mega churches I've seen are in relatively poor places, like Colorado Springs. Fortunately I don't live in, nor visit, California. Have I been there ? Yes, many times. Hopefully I won't have to return anytime soon. Just personal preference, that much crowding isn't my thing. But I do have a question, have you ever visited such churches? I'm really (genuinely) curious about this attitude as I've never, ever encountered it before.

Re: You idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, "a continual cycle of war or threat of war" that's what we have now. Threats of war spring up literally every year around the globe (c'mon, you know this).

And it's what we had before this. It's what we'll have for a long time, maybe forever.

Not ideal, but 'tis what 'tis.

Re: You idiots.

[NotFamous]

Treaties are so last administration. We don't do treaties anymore.

Re: You idiots.

[Areyoukiddingme]

But I do have a question, have you ever visited such churches? I'm really (genuinely) curious about this attitude as I've never, ever encountered it before.

Megachurches aren't all that closely identified with Prosperity Doctrine, though some preach it. I've seen it in tiny shitty storefronts in the ass end of Detroit too. You don't have to actually go to a church to see it, either. Just watch any television evangelist, particularly those who appear on Trinity Broadcasting Network satellite programming. It's been around since the 50s. Benny Hinn, Oral Roberts, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, and Robert Tilton are all Prosperity Doctrine proponents. Two of those achieved prominence specifically because of their appearance on TBN. TBN has been the biggest source of Prosperity Doctrine since the 80s.

Re: You idiots.

[Areyoukiddingme]

Hey bro, what is Revelations?

Me being too lazy to type "Revelation of Saint John the Divine" twice, and unwilling to call it "Apocalypse", which would be its traditional name, that being the first word of the original text in Koine Greek. Most people don't recognize it by that name anymore.

Re: You idiots.

[Areyoukiddingme]

I've yet to see any such people. Most Christians believe they will end up being persecuted until Jesus shows up and saves them.

Your ignorance does not make them cease to exist.

Re: You idiots.

[pnutjam]

If you'd like to know more.

Re: You idiots.

[pnutjam]

It was written in dream sequences to sneak it past Roman censors. So it reads as if it is making prophecy, but it's just some guy in prison talking to his followers.

At the time Christians beliefs were suppressed, but your everyday Roman believed in oracles, prophecy, and dream interpretation.

more info: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/...

Re: You idiots.

[wyHunter]

All I can say, is I've never encountered it, but based on what you've said, I could see it. (I don't have a television and frankly in this instance am willing to take your word for it 'cause I would just as soon not watch televangelists.) I will say that I live in an extremely red corner or an extremely red state that's quite 'bible belt' like and few that I know like televangelists. But they may be an anomaly. The televangelists are rather like the PBS telethon for the religious you know..."We are barely making it! Please send your donation now!"

Re: You idiots.

[strikethree]

A significant percentage of Dominionists interpret Biblical version, in particular Revelations, to mean that it is their duty to intentionally induce an apocalypse in order to precipitate the Second Coming of Christ.

ROFLMAO. The arrogance. They think they can control God? "Precipitate" the second coming? Really? All that an apocalyptic scenario will induce will be a LOT of dead people and a lot of misery amongst the survivors. You can't force God to do anything. If you could, then they are not a God. Oy vey.

Is there a term for this type of insanity other than religious fundamentalist? (I note Muslims have a similar disease to the Christians, do others?)

Re:You idiots.

[strikethree]

It's worse than that. China has already demonstrated they can and will shoot down an orbiting satellite.

You REALLY should have mentioned the response from the US when that happened. TL;DR, USA shot down an orbiting satellite with a missile, launched from a destroyer, in heavy seas.

Not only did America prove it can shoot down a satellite, it proved it could do so at a whim in less than ideal conditions.

America already knows that the space based platforms are not reliable. The rest of the world should know too since this was all public.

Says who?

[johanw]

The president of the country that has to rely on the Russians to launch their astronauts to the ISS and failed to get anything working in manned spacecrafts, probably due to the sue him culture where everyone is too affraid to make something that is not absolutely safe.

Re:Says who?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your point about manned space vehicles?

The US has quite a robust space vehicle fleet, we just don't have people in any of them. And really, beyond bragging rights, can you explain why we need them?

If ever interstellar travel becomes a thing, then we will, but right now we aren't even sure if a human could survive the trip to mars, or how long could you reasonably stay on the moon before getting cancer. There's a lot of research needed to happen before we really need a functional manned vehicle. And in the mean time, we've gotten really good at making robots to send to places we can't go.

Re:Says who?

[ScentCone]

The president of the country that has to rely on the Russians to launch their astronauts to the ISS

Manned flights for two new US-based systems (from Boeing and Space-X) to take our people to the ISS begin in less than a year.

Re:Says who?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sorry, did you not hear? We landed MEN ON THE MOON almost 50 YEARS AGO.

what did your country do in space 50 years ago? Did you even launch a satellite (aboard one of OUR rockets?)

Re:Says who?

[Anonymous Coward]

The president of the country that has to rely on the Russians to launch their astronauts to the ISS

Manned flights for two new US-based systems (from Boeing and Space-X) to take our people to the ISS begin in less than a year.

We could probably get them up way sooner than that if we stopped being so concerned about the value of astronaut lives...

I mean we've not demonstrated we are concerned about anyone else's life... why are astronauts so important?

Re:Says who?

[Anonymous Coward]

what about his statement isn't true? Boeing and Space-X aren't doing it now, so he is 100% correct

Re:Says who?

[Insanity Defense]

I am sorry, did you not hear? We landed MEN ON THE MOON almost 50 YEARS AGO.

what did your country do in space 50 years ago? Did you even launch a satellite (aboard one of OUR rockets?)

So what. You can't do it NOW either. A private company or two might be able to do it in 5 to 10 yeas but not your nation unless they pay those companies to do it for them.

Our first satellite? 1962 on one of your boosters. It was operational for 10 years (designed for 1). We are a much lower population country and didn't get all the WWII German (NAZI) rocket scientists you did to kick start your space program. Not to mention the actual V2 rockets to start the program with. Then you lost the will to do space in a big way.

Much as many hate Elon Musk he has done more to kick the U.S. space industry into high gear since JFK did it. Now just wait till the Chinese start cloning the Falcon designs.

What a bunch of maroons

[Anonymous Coward]

You yankees are hilarious. No universal healthcare like even CUBA has managed to do but youre gonna be the masters of space. Suuuuure you are!

Re: What a bunch of maroons

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth it if it saves space from the evils of socialism

Re: What a bunch of maroons

[Anonymous Coward]

Wish we did not have the universal healthcare here....

Universal healcare - everyone gets the same shitty service and you cannot afford anything better because you already pay a shitload for it...

Re: What a bunch of maroons

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why they all complain so much. Oh never mind they don't. And even the ones who do would never trade what we have for what they have.

Re: What a bunch of maroons

[Anonymous Coward]

You've just described all of socialism in a nutshell. Equal suck for all.

who cares about the deficit

[BlackOverflow]

Spend, spend, spend! Spend like you have no limits! Who cares about the future, just keep spending and don't ever pay off your debts! Who cares if we can't pay the interest on the debt! Who cares! We have a Space Force!

Re:who cares about the deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

Broad strokes, eh? Perhaps we should be as quick to blame you for all of your countries shortcomings. Don't even try to lie and claim wherever you are from is an example of perfection.

Re:who cares about the deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree the deficit and debt is out of control. Let's cut the top 2 most expensive government programs. Health and Human Services and Social Security.

Re:who cares about the deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but it's miles better than the cesspool you have now.

I mean, even a basic person would understand that putting in any Businessman into the presidental role will simply move the swamp to his business buddies directly. There'd be no professional lobbiers to politicians because those lobbiests ARE the politicans.

The net effect was just saving megacorps some money and have much less public accountability.

None of the people who voted for trump seems to understand this.

Re:who cares about the deficit

[Anonymous Coward]

But Ameridumbs had choice between that and Hillary Clinton. So I don't fault them. Trump was the morally better candidate.

Why not use the USAF?

[b0s0z0ku]

Why not use the USAF instead of creating another parallel bureaucracy? Better yet, why not merge all of the branches (cut out the Coast Guard and put it back under DoT control) and share as much bureaucracy as possible?

It's not like we don't have domestic issues (crumbling roads, health care, education, etc) to spend money on. Cut taxes, cut the debt, or start spending money on things that benefit people other than military contractors.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, then they couldn't ask for a 20% increase in defense spending. This is like Bush creating DHS. Creating new agencies or military branches are a great way to funnel cash to your buds, not the previous guy's buds. There is a good argument that there is already too much duplication among the existing branches.

There is also the issue that most of the modern problems in international relations cannot be solved by killing people better. Imagine a world where schools, hospitals, and economic development were the lead in American influence in the world instead of bullets and bombs.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[penandpaper]

Jack of all trades are the master of none. With enough specialization the justifications to expand or reduce a particular asset of the military becomes large enough to be under its own authority and budget and command structure. What works for the Army (the backbone) does not work for the Marines (the tip of the spear) likewise what works for the Air Force may not work for a potential (IMO inevitable) Space Force.

As access to space becomes cheaper the strategic importance grows as does our nations dependency on access to space. It was an inevitability for the military to recognize space as a potential theater of war if the costs justified it to be.

Military spending accounts for ~16% of federal spending (discretionary and mandatory). It is one of the specific jobs of the federal government to do under the constitution. Health care and education are not enumerated responsibilities of the federal government.

Re: Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Military contractors" translates as high paying jobs. A lot of high paying tech jobs. And translates into high quality R&D for tech that can be directed toward civillian use and improved quality of life.

It isn't a pit that money drops into and is gone forever.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[gtall]

Many in the DoD are against the new Guardians of the Galaxy force (haven't been able to recruit a talking raccoon). Most likely what will happen is the DoD will bury the new force in study committees, plan proposals, etc. in that dork leaves office. Hopefully, we won't be left with a religious nutjob like Pence. And even if they do stand up a new force, the Air Force and the Navy will be gunning to reabsorb it over time.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[cleavet]

The Air Force should be abolished. Establish the Department of Strategic Warfare instead. If there's going to be a Space Force, originate it in the Navy and review after 15 years to determine if it should be split off into its own branch.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

The USAF has been doing it. The problem is, since about 2002 or so many on the federal level have been satisfied with how the air force has handled the responsibility. Calls for a space force are actually pretty old. It's getting a lot of press but it didn't start with Trump and it isn't new. The most recent push for a space force started in congress a few years ago. Trump is merely the first president to give it serious consideration and support.

The case for a space force is actually a rational and legitimate one. China and Russia have been developing new ASAT weapons for some time now and have been pouring a lot of resources into it. There is a real threat that our spy satellite network and the GPS constellation could be knocked out decisively. Some have over dramatically termed it a space pearl harbor. rebuilding lost space infrastructure would take a lot of time and be very expensive and that's not factoring in the possibility the other guys may just destroy it again. Congress has been pressing the air force for some time on addressing this and so far they haven't done much. In fact they have done worse than if they had done nothing. They have been siphoning funds for space projects into other areas so we have actually lost some capability. The GPS constellation is not as robust as its supposed to be right now because funds for new satellites have been diverted elsewhere.

Congress, the President and many who stay informed on these things agree that it would be best if space duties were spun off into their own branch. We aren't talking about space marines or star trek. We are talking about maintaining and growing our existing infrastructure and developing effective ways to protect it in war. Most of the informed opposition argues that making the change would be disruptive and cause more problems in the short term. Uninformed opposition just makes jokes but nobody with a dog in the fight is listening to that anyways.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[ScentCone]

The Air Force already does a lot of this. But there's tons of overlap with other branch activities and very much so with other agencies. Consolidating this sort of thing under one branch focused on that activity makes sense. In the same way it makes sense for the Navy to run the boats, rather than for the Army to float their own troop carriers. The Coast Guard, at first blush, looks like a redundant mini-Navy, but their mission is very different. Hence it's its own branch.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Rick Schumann]

We shouldn't be doing it at all. I'm hoping Congress votes this down.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[jeff4747]

Because if you keep using the USAF for space things, Trump doesn't get his name in the history books as the guy who created it.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Zorro]

Because EVERY armed service has a branch at Peterson AFB or Vandenberg AFB.

But Also South Korea, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

It makes sense to move all those offices under one unified comand.

BUT for Reasons of politics the Army and Navy refuse to let it be the USAF.

So Space Command "To Protect Out Orbits Whether The Need It or Not!"

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already a number of parallel bureaucracies operating on space. Unfortunately, there are reasons that they are separate from one another: they probably should not be merged.

Beyond the Air Force, the biggest is the NRO, also the largest of the intelligence agencies by budget (although minuscule in staffing). They were formed to take satellite launches away from the Air Force, which was FUBARing budget and management; as a result, the NRO is a skeleton agency that farms out everything it does to contractors. They also work for the CIA and NSA and NGA, and they centralize space work that would otherwise be duplicated between those agencies and the Air Force. I doubt merging the NRO with Space Force would be useful.

NASA exists separately to divide civilian from military and classified launches. They handle work for NOAA and the rest of the civilian government. Every now and then NASA gets gifts from NRO, like a spare Keyhole satellite or the tech to make new optics, but NRO's toys are classified, which is why NASA can't be rolled up together with it. NASA has to be separate from the Space Force to keep the best new toys under wraps.

The only thing that's left for a Space Force to do, really, is anti-satellite capabilities. Something like a larger X37b for quietly dicking around with or deorbiting foreign nations' satellites might be fun for the Pentagon, but there's nothing else that really merits a new branch, and there's not much reason to roll the NRO or NASA into Space Force.

Re: Why not use the USAF?

[Dripdry]

Why? Well Bush 2 did it with the TSA. Look how effective that's been. It's the way you do things on Capitol Hill nowadays.
Pork pork pork...

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[penandpaper]

The calls for a separate branch specific for space have been around a lot longer than Trump.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Otherwise the Marine Corps would have to manage their own space program to equip the Space Marines with the capability of storming the shores of distant planets and moons.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Space coast guard?

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is no air in space. It would be better called Vacuum Force.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[b0s0z0ku]

The Coast Guard was under the DoT until the gross over-reaction from 9/11. So there's precedent for an armed DoT. Coast Guard should be for local protection and lifesaving -- Navy should protect foreign ports (ideally, we'd actually cut a lot of naval bases abroad, though).

Environmental protection is useful. Other maritime laws? Let other countries enforce them or pay us good money to help them, not our problem.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Green Mountain Bot]

Better yet, why not recognize that there is never more than a handful of human beings in space, and that there is no need (or legal basis) for a branch of the military in space?

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[CanadianMacFan]

You can't merge all the branches because then you couldn't justify all of those generals, colonels, and admirals they have. How else will they develop enough people to go into high-paying cushy jobs in the military-industrial complex that will have connections to selling to the military all of the things it doesn't need?

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is like Reagan creating the VA Administration at the level of secretary. Republicans LOVE to fret e new cabinet posts, more high level bureaucrats.....so much for "small " government

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[asylumx]

Why not use the USAF? (US Air Force)

Because there is no air in space.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this!

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't work; there's no air in space.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of those in the DoD are against the new Space Force, because it'll cost them funding.
It's the reason the Air Force doesn't want the Army or Marines to have any aircraft.
It the reason the Navy tries to keep boats out of Army hands.
It's the reason the Army tries to keep tanks from the Marines.

A Space Force assuming control of satellites and space launches would be a significant reduction in funding and power of the Air Force (and Air Force staffed NRO) which currently handles most of this, and of the Army which handles the rest of it.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[gtall]

Neither is airline safety. The airlines and their accountants would be more than happy to take it over. It would allow them to find the precise point at which crashes impact profitability. Food safety isn't an enumerated responsibility of the federal government. Joe's Bait and Sushi shop should be able to use the leftovers from one operation be used in the other. Auto safety isn't an enumerated responsibility. The SEC isn't one either...but then under Bush, it certainly wasn't a responsibility and contributed to the crash.

The list goes on. The Point is that government cannot remain stuck in the 1700s.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[gtall]

The Navy has its own air force (carriers) and army (Marines). The Air Force has their own special ops, well, they all do. It makes no sense to create another bureaucracy just because some asshole needs to see his name on it.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[penandpaper]

Ignore the law that establishes and limits the federal government because you can make a straw-man of government remaining in the 1700s.

Seems legit. Your list doesn't address anything relevant worth mentioning.

Re: Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagined that world when I was young. It was a beautiful place. It was then promptly taken over by . Luckily I woke up and opened my eyes before the mass killings began.

Grow up, kid.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Miamicanes]

Because, ya know, SOMEONE needs to be responsible for sitting on the ISS and tattling on American & European crew members who spend Friday night over on the Russian side sharing a newly-arrived bottle of quality vodka. Or maybe even taking it upon him/herself to legally enforce temperance in orbit by confiscating and destroying any contraband vodka that might arrive on a Soyuz.

I partially jest... but the sad thing is, I can almost see something that stupid and petty happening.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[ScentCone]

No, it makes sense to REDUCE bureaucratic overlap by looking at the growing need for new services in a new domain in the context of the multiple DoD/Intel agencies that are reinventing the wheel or double-budgeting for the same types of activities.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[ayesnymous]

Because there's no air in space.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[deviated_prevert]

The Air Force should be abolished. Establish the Department of Strategic Warfare instead. If there's going to be a Space Force, originate it in the Navy and review after 15 years to determine if it should be split off into its own branch.

Canada already tried to solve this problem, we tried an integrated military service model years ago. It is called FINKS or flying infantry with naval knowledge.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Postal Service is also one of the specific jobs of the federal government under the constitution (article 1, section 8, clause 7). The Postal Service, unlike the military, is self funding and not reliant on taxes yet congress has put great effort into making the Postal Service unsustainable with its recent budget mandates.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately for Trump, his name will be associated throughout history as the worst president in the history of mankind. He's assured that already, and there is little he can do to turn it around unless he turns and implements universal healthcare and education and imposes a 90% tax on all entities worth more than $10 million. He would be known for trying, but the damage he's already done would still weigh his legacy down. After all, it's hard to ignore the fact that he's raped multiple children and has immigrant children sold into sex slavery.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you include all the military budgets American citizens have access to, federal spending on defense is actually ~60%. One has to ignore a lot of money going into the military to arrive at 16%, this has been proven over and over again.

And if you include the estimated black budget of the military, federal spending suddenly jumps up to over 240% of federal spending! That's with extremely conservative estimates where the known price of a hammer is about $10k. There have been many verified reports where basic tools were "sold" to the military for well over $10 million, with the difference going towards the black budget. Everyone in the military is well aware this happens, it's just unknown exactly how much taxpayer money gets absorbed into the MIC.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[jeff4747]

And every president before him has resisted those calls, since it's a stupid thing to do. We don't need a warfighting branch in a place where we are banned by treaty from fighting wars....or even developing the weapons to fight a war.

But Trump's narcissism is useful for the people that want a Space Force.

Re:Why not use the USAF?

[penandpaper]

"resisted those calls"
- Because the costs were prohibitive and so urgency was low. As costs drop, the reliance of satellites in the economy and military grow. Why would you want a growing part of the economy not be defended?

Those treaties didn't stop China from shooting down a satellite. Those treaties do not stop Russia from hacking satellites. Just like psychological and cyber-technological not every dimension of war requires a soldier with a gun or a missile with a warhead.

The point is to consolidate expertise so that not every branch has to supply overlapping capability. At the same time enable that consolidated expertise to develop strategies to ensure lethality and capability amidst growing competition. The Army doesn't provide boats or planes, why should they provide satellites? Why should the Air force? Should the budget of any space capability be second thought to primary mission of the Air force? How many projects that would expand our capability and lethality be deprived because those funds were diverted to something like the F-35?

"But Trump's narcissism"
If all you can see is "but Trump" then it says more about you. This is inevitable. Your criticisms are juvenile.

Grrrr! Impetuous boy!

[DredJohn]

Prince Vultan: Ah, well; who wants to live forever?

Error

[bluefoxlucid]

The headline reads "vision" instead of "fantasy".

Re:Error

[ScentCone]

So, the huge level of activity our military and intelligence already have in space-related matters is "fantasy?" How poorly informed are you on this? Consolidating these activities in one branch with expertise in that area makes perfect sense. Right now it overlaps in a very inefficient way across all sorts of military and security and intelligence entities.

Re:Error

[bluefoxlucid]

We have satellites which stay up there for decades at a time and a tiny research center that's ungodly-expensive to run as a joint international process.

A space force isn't just a program; it's soldiers, ships, and tactical base encampments. We need space vessels, space combat training, space bases, the lot. They're discussing space warfighters and tactical operations in space, not just consolidating DOD spy satellite programs under one branch.

Re: Error

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf are you talking about? You act like we have bases and soldiers up there right now preparing for war.

You are an idiot.

Re:Error

[ScentCone]

We already HAVE (and have had, for decades) people expanding our military operations into space, and looking at (as well as actually doing) defense and even combat mission issue that involves stuff in orbit. Every branch of the military has or has involvement in space-based assets and operations, and our defense intelligence entities are all hip deep in it. We should be making all of that overlap as streamlined as possible, and we absolutely DO need to be looking at what it takes to protect those assets at both the strategic and tactical level.

Re:Error

[Green Mountain Bot]

vision: viZHn/
noun
...
2. an experience of seeing someone or something in a dream or trance, or as a supernatural apparition.

Dunno. Seems accurate to me.

Re: Error

[Straif]

How do you think the various military branches control their drones? Handle their communications? Perform long range targeting? Observe high value areas?

It's all done through the use of military satellites.

This 'Space Force' is simply a concept of putting the development and protection of the US's space based systems under a specialized branch as opposed to the current system where every branch does their own thing and only cares about their final objective and not the technological framework that's allows them to reach that goal.

Other governments, China especially, are already developing weapons of mass disruption to interfere with satellite and ground based systems. All this proposal, which is not new, is actually meant to do is create a group tasked with developing proper counter measures as well as possibly some of their own similar offensive capabilities. And by offensive I don't mean killer nukes from space but the ability to jam enemy communications or disrupt targeting systems.

You can agree or disagree with how much should be spent on programs like this and whether or not it should remain spread across countless military branches and assorted federal agencies or consolidated into one department but the only idiots here are those who can't get passed the idea that this has nothing to do with 'marines in space' and all about developing and protecting orbital defense assets.

Re:Error

[Yunzil]

Consolidating these activities in one branch with expertise in that area makes perfect sense.
No, it really doesn't.

But the Space Force is never going to happen anyway, because congress ain't gonna pass anything for it.

Re:Error

[Anonymous Coward]

How charmingly naive of you to believe that creating a Space Force would remove all of the overlaps and inefficiency, instead of creating even more wasteful bureaucracy and useless turf wars.

too bad he destroyed STEM

[Anonymous Coward]

The attack on universities perpetrated by the GOP will make this impossible. Tje banning of immigrants will too... Remember Einstein was a refugee immigrant who got a stable job at a university... Two things impossible today.

Re:too bad he destroyed STEM

[Anonymous Coward]

This. For all of the polarization around Elon Musk, he has had a tremendous impact on the EV and Aerospace industries and technology momentum around them. And since he was born in South Africa, he probably wouldn't have been allowed to immigrate to America under the current administration's "vision" of immigration reform..

Re: too bad he destroyed STEM

[Anonymous Coward]

And I think Einstein did not sneak into the country but did it the legal way....

Undocumented immigrant - someone that sneaked into the country and that will not be paying taxes like the rest of us...
Documented immigrant - person that is known to the government and that will have to pay taxes like the rest of us.

Gundams?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll only support this if the plan includes mobile suits

Space Marines

[Thelasko]

When do we get space marines?

Re:Space Marines

[Anonymous Coward]

A little after we get space cadets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Cadet

Re:Space Marines

[DigiShaman]

We get space marines when we develop AI and robots. Space is far too harsh of an environment for fleshy creatures. Both for their exposure to radiation, and the inefficiencies in engineering to protect them. It's just added weight, complexity, and risk to have human being in outer space.

For 99.99% of the time, Space Force will be on the ground as drone operators. The rest will be AI/Robotics space.

Re:Space Marines

[perry64]

I think, as most social media posts show, that we've already got far too many space cadets.

Re:Space Marines

[Thelasko]

We get space marines when we develop AI and robots.

When the singularity happens, we'll need human space marines to battle Skynet. Better have the space marines ready in advance.

Re:Space Marines

[DigiShaman]

Reminds me of R'ha'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Only good for one thing

[djbckr]

This is rhetoric for one thing and one thing only: Lucrative Government Contracts.

Re:Only good for one thing

[jeff4747]

No, you're forgetting the most important thing: It would put Trump's name in the history books as the guy who created the Space Force.

Re:Only good for one thing

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're forgetting the most important thing: It would put Trump's name in the history books as the guy who created the Space Force.

Trump is making himself a bigger laughingstock than that crazy Nork.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Space-the final frontier!

[Anonymous Coward]

Trumpty Dumpty’s been playing with his Buzz Lightyear toy again.

This was predicted by George Friedman

[iMadeGhostzilla]

... of (now) Geopolitical Futures, in his book "The Next 100 Years." It even describes, as an example, a plausible space-related war taking place around 2050, between the US and Poland on the one side and Turkey and Japan on another. In the description the war is on the ground but a technological breakthrough happens in which the US figures out the way to efficiently beam energy collected from solar panels in outer space to the earth, working from its large orbital space station.

It's an interesting bit of sci fi, especially if you believe it has a small chance of happening in some form.

Re: This was predicted by George Friedman

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, the Polish, they are very clever. I heard they intend to send a rocket to the sun. It'll land at night.

Re:This was predicted by George Friedman

[gtall]

Well, if Erdogan is anything to go by, Turkey won't be fielding anything bigger than a couple of muskets in a few years.

Re:This was predicted by George Friedman

[iMadeGhostzilla]

I think Turkey has what Friedman would describe as a fairly large geopolitical margin of error. It's defined by the country's strength and by its threats. Turkish economy is ranked 17th, and they are not under a military threat from any of its neighbours. So they can make a mistakes and still be fine. (Unlike, for example, Israel, or, increasingly, Iran, and Russia too.) With the 17th economy and favorable conditions they may well come up higher in the rank by mid century.

Japan is in his analysis more interesting: he says Japan has been a militaristic nation for all of its existence, and only after their WW2 defeat they became pacifist. But that too is regressing to the norm, which you can see by the expansion of their Constitution as to what their military can do. At some point, Friedman's hypothesis goes, Japan will feel threatened by the US for the same reasons it always has been, including at Pearl Harbour: that the US will attempt to control Japan's energy supplies. Hence the initiative for war, to secure freedom, as is always said in a war.

Btw the country with probably the largest margin of error is the US.

Re:This was predicted by George Friedman

[Anonymous Coward]

Btw the country with probably the largest margin of error is the US.

Good thing, because the US made a huge error in November 2016. Hope it gets corrected in time.

"History proves that peace only comes through stre

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a history buff. Can anyone explain when this was?

hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

and Trump will be chewbacca

Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

Start an arms race in the ONLY fucking military area you're NOT superior than the rest of the planet combined. You could simply lean back and be Number 1. On water, land and sea, nobody can hold a candle to your military power and in space there's the Outer Space Treaty that everyone who could even remotely matter signed and heeds.

The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke. Russia has man rated rockets to launch them. China has man rated rockets to launch them. The EU... doesn't need man rated rockets to launch them 'cause where they launch, nobody gives a crap when the nuke comes back down prematurely.

Pence, we all know the worth of your brain is that of your name, but did you have to prove so blatantly that you're basically only an assassination insurance for Trump? I.e. "think twice before shooting me, 'cause then this bozo is prez!"

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[jeff4747]

Start an arms race in the ONLY fucking military area you're NOT superior than the rest of the planet combined

I wouldn't say that....the USAF and NRO has a lot of space assets.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[EvilSS]

The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke

You mean besides the almost 400 Minuteman III ICBMs? Did we forget how ICBMs actually work? Or the Minotaur V?

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[supremebob]

I think that was the plan all along. Space Race 2.0 isn't going to be very interesting unless we start out behind the Russians like we did last time.

I don't think that we'll have a "winner" in this race until someone has an operating Mars base. For defensive purposes, naturally.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[IMightB]

My thoughts on this are
- It's Trumps ego and need/desire to be "great" that's driving this
- It's going to be fiendishly expensive.
- Being out of the gravity well is the ultimate high ground.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Anonymous Coward]

" ... incoherent screeching about the US ... The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke ... incoherent screeching about Trump ..."

Show this post for free admission to your favorite nuthouse!

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Anonymous Coward]

The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke

Wait, what?

You want to try that one again?

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[OrangeTide]

The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke. Russia has man rated rockets to launch them.

Never in history has anyone taken a manned rocket to detonate a nuclear warhead. I can't say that it was never on the drawing board, but it seems like a bonehead idea.

The US's ICBMs fly up to around 1100 km before reentering to strike their targets. That's just above the maximum altitude of the old Shuttle Orbiter, and well beyond the typical operational altitude for most Shuttle missions (320 km).

Can Russia fly higher? probably. But is that a requirement for nukes in space? clearly not. In fact the highest test explosion was at 540 km, and yet about half of the known tests were under 100 km.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[LynnwoodRooster]

High ground always wins. Space is the ultimate high ground - control that, and you can relax your worries about holding oceans, mountains, fields, etc.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[ShanghaiBill]

I wouldn't say that....the USAF and NRO has a lot of space assets.

Those are reconnaissance and surveillance assets, not weapon systems.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[jeff4747]

Ok, name the country with weapons systems. (Since this is explicitly banned by the Outer Space Treaty, that may be a tad difficult).

The point is the US military has far more in space than everyone else. Even if it doesn't have a gun bolted to the satellite.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[penandpaper]

Grunt: How high do we go?
General: Higher.
General: Higher.
General: Too High! ...
General: ... Higher.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Anonymous Coward]

High ground always wins. Space is the ultimate high ground - control that, and you can relax your worries about holding oceans, mountains, fields, etc.

Have you been living in a cave for the last 20 years? If so, it wasn’t a cave in Afghanistan because then you would already know that your philosophy is ridiculously full of shit.

Presumably you are just too young to know anything useful about the Vietnam War.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Anonymous Coward]

Atlas and Titans were used for spacelift. Delta is a variant of an old ICBM. We are still using old MX missiles for spacelift.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[lgw]

The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke.

So, like an ICBM? Yeah, we totally don't have those.

You know there used to be nuclear mortars, right? I'm not sure that smaller nukes have any real point as space-based armament (given the energy of anything just dropped form orbit without a warhead), but we probably have some up there anyhow.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[OrangeTide]

All the US warheads are on Triton and Minuteman III these days. And still nobody has sat in with a bomb, so the original post is kind of a crank.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

Maybe we never knew how ICBMs work? Or didn't learn that ballistic trajectories take WAY less dV than on that's supposed to put a payload into an orbit?

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

Trust me, to launch a nuclear warhead in peace time into an orbit, you DO want man rated equipment. You want a rocket that has a chance of exploding on the way up that is as close to zero as you can possibly get. First, because it could be kinda hard to all the residents of Florida that America's Wang just got uninhabitable due to fallout.

And then there's that unfortunate "what goes up, must come down" part where you could make it halfway around the globe before your rocket fails and it lands where it makes diplomacy really, really complicated.

Sure, when launching ICBMs in a nuclear war scenario, that all is very negligible. I mean, we ARE already in a potential fallout situation and whether it's your nuke or the Russian one, who gives a fuck? But in a peace scenario, you do NOT want that warhead to come down anywhere unplanned.

And I think I already pointed out why ICBMs make very poor orbital rockets. ICBMs fly ballistic. That's kinda short of what you need for an orbital shot. Going into orbit isn't about going higher. It's about going faster.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

If you are planning for an all-out war against an enemy where a decapitating strike on a central and well known command structure is possible, yes.

I think the last war like this the US waged was WW2.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

An ICBM flies a ballistic curve. It's kinda in the name.

What you need here is a rocket that can take your nuke into orbit, and take it there with zero chance of it coming down prematurely because it could be kinda hard to explain to, say, Russia why there's an American nuke in the Red Square. Or to Florida's inhabitants why they have to move back to their kids in Wyoming because a launch error spread weapon grade nuclear material all over their retirement home's position.

Not really a problem when the nukes are already dropping anyway, i.e. when your ICBMs would be used. Kind of a big deal in every other case.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Anonymous Coward]

Never in history has anyone taken a manned rocket to detonate a nuclear warhead. I can't say that it was never on the drawing board, but it seems like a bonehead idea.

Meet the MX-2276...

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/073754.pdf
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/cold-war-nightmare-weapon-manned-nuclear-missiles-13965

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[LynnwoodRooster]

So then, it makes sense in that you can hold off the "superpower" potential enemies with the high ground, and better equip your conventional forces for unconventional warfare. Much like there is a role for the batteleship and the LCS, owning space allows you to deny access to large swaths of land - or the threat of massive annihilation of valuable assets like cities and infrastructure - for relatively low cost. Big pieces of tungsten or nickel dropped from on high are all you need.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[LynnwoodRooster]

Not as young as you think, being close to 3 score years. Think of the Iraq war (either of them) - eliminate 90% of the flown sorties with high ground. Owning space allows you to hold off superpowers (those with massive infrastructure and cities) for "cheap" and then concentrate your conventional forces on guerrilla warfare like has happened since 1776... Some of us just think bigger than the last war, and realize there are threats out there more than just terrorists...

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

You ARE aware that the only superpower that could remotely be considered a threat to the US is (again, I might add) leaps and bounds ahead of the US? Why would you want to cancel a treaty unilaterally that puts you at a disadvantage? Not even the fat little douche in North Korea is stupid enough to cancel the armistice, knowing that he's but a fart compared to what his enemy and its allies could field.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[LynnwoodRooster]

Who would that superpower be? China? Russia? Neither can field the mobile assets of the US - and both have massive, fixed infrastructures and population centers that would be prime "MAD" targets for a space-based system. Space-based kinetic weapons pretty much eliminate the need for strategic nuclear weapons. A few tons of nickel or tungsten sprinkled from orbit will do orders of magnitude more damage than a B52 strike...

Re: Yeah, that's one smart move

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course no one will notice it's raining tungsten and then launch a MAD counterstrike in retaliation.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[lgw]

ICBMs are designed to hit a target anywhere in the world, which in general means they can put a payload into low orbit if needed. And the payloads are all several times the mass of the nuclear warheads, due to countermeasures against interceptors. You could easily launch a warhead in a package that let you choose when to de-orbit.

So, yeah, sure, you might have some 'splainin to do if you did something that simple, but we certainly have the rockets.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Anonymous Coward]

Powerful ICBMs can launch in orbit. You probably need a new fairing. e.g., soviet R36 converted to space launchers.
If the ICBM is road mobile it's launched from the transporter-erector-launcher and all.
Even the DPRK said they would attempt an orbital launch with the Hwasong-15. It probably would be a very small short lived satellite. For the time seeing it's not in their diplomat interest to play with that idea.

Russia has the new somewhat overkill Sarmat (one may ask, why bother? why not just do the road mobile three-stage solid fuel ICBM and forget about the liquid monster). They say it can do fractional orbital bombing, which may or may not be trolling. They say they have a hypersonic MHD toy as well, Avangard. If this can actually work and not burn up or get out of control this makes orbital bombs moot anyway.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[EvilSS]

Maybe we never knew how ICBMs work? Or didn't learn that ballistic trajectories take WAY less dV than on that's supposed to put a payload into an orbit?

You saying we can send ICBM's without launching them? Because you stated we can't "launch anything like a nuke". Also, Minotaur V? You conveniently skipped that.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

We're talking about sending those things up into an orbit, which is by some margin more difficult than sending something on a ballistic trajectory. Also, we're talking about doing it in such a way that it can neither cause fallout locally nor start a nuclear war. Sorry, ballistic missiles are NOT good enough for either of these jobs.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

Not quite. To hit a target once around the planet (which is pretty much the maximum possible distance), you need a lot less dV than for reaching orbital velocity. A package that allows you to determine when to de-orbit would actually have to be quite a bit heavier than one that "only" has to go once around the planet, because "what goes up must come down" ain't so true anymore once you're in orbit. To get back down, at least in a planned way, you need a second unit of boosters that not only most likely need a second set of thrusters and fuel (because an ICBM isn't exactly meant to reignite after an unspecified long period of time), it also needn't be pressurized or suffers from any other negative effect of exposing the fuel to weightlessness (which can really spoil your day because the fuel starts to float and disperse in the tank instead of sitting conveniently at its bottom).

This isn't exactly easy. Actually, one of the tricky parts of space exploration is to make engines that can be ignited a couple of time, in vacuum and weightlessness. That's surprisingly nontrivial.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

China and Russia both have second strike potential. And anything you could rain from the sky will be noticed long before you do. De-orbiting a weapon to strike at some target isn't exactly something you can do in a surprise move. These things are kinda visible long before impact...

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

Again, launching a non-nuclear payload isn't that big a deal. It wouldn't be the first satellite to not make it to orbit, and even if that piece falls down in the middle of the road somewhere, people would probably be unhappy but it would be seen as an unfortunate stepping stone on our way to the stars. You can argue that. Because everyone wants satellite TV and reliable weather forecasts.

You can NOT argue a nuke coming down over Russian territory.

You can of course develop such weapons, and prepare them, but you do NOT want to launch them.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[EvilSS]

We're talking about sending those things up into an orbit, which is by some margin more difficult than sending something on a ballistic trajectory. Also, we're talking about doing it in such a way that it can neither cause fallout locally nor start a nuclear war. Sorry, ballistic missiles are NOT good enough for either of these jobs.

First off they could easily deposit a payload into LEO if you reprogramming its flight profile. If you want it higher, you can put it into GEO with a Delta IV variant or Minotaur V (which you conveniently keep ignoring). Want to do it sneaky, use the Air Force X-37. Nukes are not that heavy, once you remove the launch vehicle. The X-37 could delivery a single warhead and launch sled to orbit.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

Again, you don't just send up a warhead. You have to send up a warhead AND what's required to get it back down to earth. Preferably in a controlled fashion because, well, if it comes down in the wrong place, this just MIGHT cause a bit of a diplomatic issue.

And then there's the fact that everything you send up there WILL come down eventually. And unlike satellites, these things will likely not disintegrate into a happy poof because that's what they're not supposed to do. Unfortunately they're also not really supposed to come down like manned capsules, i.e. in one piece and softly. And you don't want them to come down and impact somewhere because it just might unsettle the payload enough to make the payload supercritical.

There's plenty of reasons to simply not do it.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[strikethree]

The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke.

Publicly, you are correct. You have no idea what the US Air Force is doing with rockets. They are capable of putting nuclear devices in orbit, tomorrow if need be.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

2 things you should probably know: Man-rated != manned. It means that these rockets are built to higher level security specifications to make accidental rapid unplanned disassembly less likely. Which you want if the payload is humans. Or a bomb that can potentially make large portions of your (or, diplomatically worse, another) country uninhabitable for the next couple dozens generations.

Second, "high" doesn't mean "orbit". To get into an orbit, you needn't go up, you have to go fast sideways. The only reason we go up first is that it's kinda hard to go fast in the thick atmosphere our planet has. Altitude only matters because of the atmosphere, not because that's a requirement for an orbit. Without that pesky air around us, you could orbit the planet safely at about 10km altitude.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[Opportunist]

Yes, but there better already be a nuclear war going when they do, because one of these rockets dropping its payload prematurely due to a fault would probably start one.

Re:Yeah, that's one smart move

[EvilSS]

Getting it back down and on target is the easy part, we are experts at doing that already. As for keeping it up there, we know how to do that too and it doesn't add all that much mass that we suddenly can't launch it. Your original statement was this: "The US doesn't even have the rockets to launch anything like a nuke" . Support it or shut it.

Militarized space

[DrYak]

Likely won't be long before there are nuclear warheads in orbit from one country or another. So much for peaceful space exploration.

First, nuke in orbit aren't necessary when you can deal damage by the sheer kinetic energy when de-orbiting things. There's a reason why controlled deorbit aim for the Nemo point.
(Also nukes in orbit would be violating several international treaties, but I wouldn't be surprised if some rulers decided to wipe their asses with those)

Now, the most important part : You might have not noticed, but despite several decade of space conquest, there hasn't been much actual *fighting* going on in space. Most of the weapons sent into space where for the specific use of survival among the wild-life if the return capsule gets lost in the middle of nowhere (some of these lost cosmonauts where complaining of hearing wolves and bears dangerously close to the capsule during night-time, while waiting to make contact with the retrival team).

The thing which space has been used a LOT for is for intelligence and spying.

The first thing that is going to happen if other countries try to militarize their space program is high resolution camera pointing at all the place that the US won't allow to be photographed with their own satellites plus ability to jam any communication satellite that adversaries might be relying on.

Re:Militarized space

[Anonymous Coward]

Fighting in space is super easy.
All you have to do is launch a tiny ball bearing w/a rail gun. High-velocity micro-meteors puncturing a habitat can do immense, probably-fatal damage. We could already orbit satellites capable of this. Why do we need actual boots in space?

Oh yah. Contractors need some new project to boondoggle and make money.

Re:Militarized space

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time this was posted I also posted against "rods from god" type systems because they don't make any sense.

All of the energy possessed by the rods comes from the launch rocket, so...why not just launch the launch rocket at your target. Oh wait, that's right, we already have such a system: ICBMs are real things.

Re:Militarized space

[Anonymous Coward]

You can detect the launch and we usually know how long it'll take to hit the target so there's a decent reaction time. If you drop a rod, which I'm not necessarily promoting just explaining, then you have half the time to react, and if you don't have good space radar, you won't detect it until it heats up on re-entry which is an even shorter reaction time. The energy from launch is being used as a battery. That energy can be stored for a long time and there are no parts on the rod to break or worry about like detonators. Just drop when your target is about to swing by. Super simple. Is it the best? No idea, but it's not a terribly stupid idea.

Re:Militarized space

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. From LEO, a chunk of heavy material in geosynchronous orbit - figure 35k kilometers - could be aimed at a spot on the face of the planet and strike in minutes - orbital speed is something like 29k km/h mph - dump a fairly significant amount of concentrated energy on that spot on the face of the planet.

That is, notwithstanding the hey-cool-look-we-have-the-ballistics-figured-out thing, not good.

It's a recipe for ensuring that all conflict on the face of the planet falls just below the level of what is required to provoke ballistic attacks. it will harden grudges between groups and make ver more bitter national rivalries. And when an opportunity presents itself, whatever agency holds the high ground will be overthrown and war will be the inevitable result.

And that war will not leave a lot of humans after. That's sad - we are far from perfect but we have accomplished amazingly brilliant things. To ruin it is a shame.

Re: Militarized space

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, stuff in space is fragile and impossible to defend. You don't even need explosives, just use kinetic or lasers.

Re: Militarized space

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, you people are stupid. All of your velocity is perpendicular to your target. It's useless.

Re:Militarized space

[Holi]

Your forgetting about Orbital velocity. Those things would be moving far faster then anything on earth. the estimate is about mach 10 on impact, that's over 7000 mph.

I'm in training... must not be disturbed

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing intensive light saber training right now. I'm kind of a badass.

What about the uniforms?

[mmmVenison]

Will there be redshirts? Oh my god I hope there are Redshirts.

Re:What about the uniforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will there be redshirts? Oh my god I hope there are Redshirts.

Ensign Expendable, please report to the transporter room.

Re:What about the uniforms?

[PPH]

Never mind the damned uniforms. There will be co-ed showers.

Re:What about the uniforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

We already have them, it's the Trump Administration.

Mexico?

[ZipprHead]

Is Mexico going to pay for this too?

Re:Mexico?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a bit out of their budget. But you have to admit that funding the wall is a good first step to repair strained relations from continually trying to invade the USA!

Re:Mexico?

[GunJah]

Of course not.
Trump will make the Aliens pay for it, as surely as Mexico will pay for the wall.

Re:Mexico?

[Anonymous Coward]

The federal government will be shut down until the forces are launched into space.

Re:Mexico?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mars will.

Time to tell the truth about the SGC?

[Joe_Dragon]

Time to tell the truth about the SGC?

No, when he said "illegal aliens", ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... he really meant aliens from outer space!

The only problem is, that nowadays, I can't tell who's the alien anymore. Both Hillary and Trump seemed like they are not human.
Then again, maybe this is an Alien VS Predator thing...

Damn, now we will find out, how the Afghanis must have felt, when the Soviets and Americans fought a "not-war" in their country.

Re:No, when he said "illegal aliens", ...

[sheph]

We're gonna need a bigger wall.

Re: No, when he said "illegal aliens", ...

[datavirtue]

Flaimbait? That was funny as shit!!

Big beautiful rockets...

[Drethon]

We'll have big beautiful rockets! And the Martians will pay for them.! And they will be flown by the most elite astronauts, but the true elites are all of you right here who voted for me! And...cough...sputter

Sorry, can't keep that up.

Re:Big beautiful rockets...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this what leftist "comedy" has turned into? Sad!

Re:Big beautiful rockets...

[Drethon]

Is this what leftist "comedy" has turned into? Sad!

What is funny is I always voted Republican.

Needs approval of Comgress ...

[CaptainDork]

... how's that working out for the Wall?

Re:Needs approval of Comgress ...

[iggymanz]

Construction started April 11....

however I strongly suspect Congressional approval would eventually be needed to continue or finish the thing

Re:Needs approval of Comgress ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just do it with an executive order. It's not like the next President can undo it with their executive order... A Federal Judge just made that clear. Everyone on the Left cheered when Obama violated separation of powers when it was for '"The Cause". Precedence is set, and Republicans have learned to enjoy using the same "Nuclear Options" that Democrats create. Obama came up with $ 1.7 Billion in cash for Iran, Trump can play that game.

Re:Needs approval of Comgress ...

[CaptainDork]

Indeed.

[July 1 2018] Trump's border wall not worth government shutdown, say lawmakers

Re:Needs approval of Comgress ...

[CaptainDork]

Trump can play golf. Barely.

Re:Needs approval of Comgress ...

[Anonymous Coward]

And by construction started April 11 you meant repairs to the current walls. No new walls are being built.

Re:Needs approval of Comgress ...

[iggymanz]

new wall is being built, 20 mile segment at Santa Teresa, about 980 miles to go

Re:Needs approval of Comgress ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wall / barrier was started in 1994:

https://en.wikipedieda.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_barrier

Wow, best comment here

[SuperKendall]

Thanks for the rational and insightful commentary, it's a shame that people are so dismissive of a "Space Force" just because Trump proposed it, or they lack understanding of the modern world... especially as you say China (not sure if Russia will be a very advanced threat in space for some time yet).

Re:Wow, best comment here

[gtall]

You forget that Trump destroys everything he touches, the Space Rangerettes will be no different.

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[Sarten-X]

Germany was quite peaceful in 1939, thanks to its strong military and authoritarian government. It was all those other, weaker countries that had that nasty war, mostly because they weren't strong enough to repel invaders.

Trump is a big fan of that German ideology, so it makes perfect sense he'd want to replicate their history here.

so NORAD's not a thing?

[Thud457]

A bit on the nose, don't you think?

"Whoever wins... We lose. "

And Gold. Don't Forget the Gold

[Anonymous Coward]

"The rockets will be gold plated, and there will be gold gargoyles, and pictures of the Great Leader on all the rockets, framed in gold! Everyone knows that the gold rockets are the best rockets, the fastest rockets. Know what a gold star is? It's the best star. That's why we will have gold rockets!"

Why waste the money?

[Nidi62]

Just launch satellites loaded with kinetic projectiles (read:big rocks) and calculate the necessary trajectories to major cities. Could even be geosynchronous if that makes it easier. Then make it known that attacking those satellites will be treated like attacking a nuclear silo, ie grounds for immediate launch/declaration of war. There, American dominance in space, achievable in only a few years. Well, US dominance until China, Russia, India, etc launch their own rock droppers, but then we are back to the status quo that we have on the ground.

money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

We got people who can't afford to go to the doctor, but these jackoffs want to play outer space.

Deficits exploding, but they're acting like we got money to burn. Wages going down for working people, and these geniuses think they're going to put jackbooted space troopers on Mars. Probably have a big Trump parade up there, too.

I mean, Pence is a guy who thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old and there's no evolution, but he's spearheading a Space Force that's going to be paid for with money borrowed from China, with whom we just started a trade war. Oh, we are so fucked.

Re:money to burn

[Straif]

Almost the entirety of the "Space Force" exists today but they are spread across multiple DoD and Intelligence groups so this isn't a huge expansion of the defense budget, more a realignment of existing expenditures. Over time it could even save money through consolidation. It's not even like this is a new proposal it's just the first time the Executive Branch bothered listening.

It's main proposed purpose is to protect the US (and it's allies) from space based attacks which are not primarily of a physical nature but more technological. There looking to develop better defense of satellite and earth based communications, GPS systems and physical space based equipment as well as develop tech that may be able to interfere with those same systems as used by the 'enemy'.

It's not like this is way out there either as China has already made claims about some of their satellite based 'defensive' capabilities.

A lot of these projects are already funded but due to various agencies priorities the money doesn't necessarily get spent in those areas. This will create an agency that ensures the money appropriated for space based defense gets spent on space defense.

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

so this isn't a huge expansion of the defense budget, more a realignment of existing expenditures.

Horseshit. There's already been a $120 billion increase in the defense budget this year, and the DoD has already requested another $12 billion just to begin the process of realignment. Have you ever heard of an additional government agency that didn't cost more money? How much do you think it cost just to put on Pence's little ceremony today announcing the Space Force? How much will the grand military parade Trump is planning for November cost taxpayers (and China)?

It's main proposed purpose is to protect the US (and it's allies) from space based attacks which are not primarily of a physical nature but more technological.

OK, so we're going to be protected from the Klingon empire. Noted.

It's not like this is way out there either as China has already made claims about some of their satellite based 'defensive' capabilities.

You know that additional $120 billion that we're spending on the military this year? It's almost entirely borrowed from China. Goddamn, man, do you not see the folly of going into debt to the country so you can build defenses against that country?

Re:money to burn

[Theaetetus]

Almost the entirety of the "Space Force" exists today but they are spread across multiple DoD and Intelligence groups so this isn't a huge expansion of the defense budget, more a realignment of existing expenditures. Over time it could even save money through consolidation. It's not even like this is a new proposal it's just the first time the Executive Branch bothered listening.

It's main proposed purpose is to protect the US (and it's allies) from space based attacks which are not primarily of a physical nature but more technological. There looking to develop better defense of satellite and earth based communications, GPS systems and physical space based equipment as well as develop tech that may be able to interfere with those same systems as used by the 'enemy'.

It's not like this is way out there either as China has already made claims about some of their satellite based 'defensive' capabilities.

A lot of these projects are already funded but due to various agencies priorities the money doesn't necessarily get spent in those areas. This will create an agency that ensures the money appropriated for space based defense gets spent on space defense.

All of this... And consolidating into a Space Force, stupid name aside (it obviously should be Starfleet), has been something proposed since the Reagan era. We all like to make fun of the Cheeto-in-Chief, but it's not really a Trump program.

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheer up, PopeRatzo. You know what they say.
Some things in life are bad,
They can really make you mad.
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle,
Don't grumble, give a whistle!
And this'll help things turn out for the best
And
Always look on the bright side of life!
Always look on the bright side of life
If life seems jolly rotten,
There's something you've forgotten!
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing,
When you're feeling in the dumps,
Don't be silly chumps,
Just purse your lips and whistle -- that's the thing!
And always look on the bright side of life
Come on!
Always look on the bright side of life
For life is quite absurd,
And death's the final word.
You must always face the curtain with a bow!
Forget about your sin -- give the audience a grin,
Enjoy it, it's the last chance anyhow!
So always look on the bright side of death!
Just before you draw your terminal breath.
Life's a piece of shit,
When you look at it.
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true,
You'll see it's all a show,
Keep 'em laughing as you go.
Just remember that the last laugh is on you!
And always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the bright side of life
Come on guys, cheer up
Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the bright side of life
Worse things happen at sea you know
Always look on the bright side of life
I mean, what have you got to lose?
you know, you come from nothing
you're going back to nothing
what have you lost? Nothing!
Always look on the bright side of life

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

Cheer up, PopeRatzo.

You're right. There is much to be thankful for.

https://www.newyorker.com/humo...

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

If a fight happens, borrowing money to have a weapon was not folly.

If a fight does not happen, then borrowing money to have a weapon was folly.

Re:money to burn

[lgw]

Why are you posting this when you could be curing cancer!

People who don't see the value in going to space should just leave Slashdot; this is a site for nerds.

Military in space is less good than science in space, but it's still good.

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

You're making the exact same argument that people made in the 1950s and 1960s against the space program.
"People can't afford to go to the doctor!" they cried, "Why spend money on these 'weather satellites?"
"We've got deficits exploding" said the fools, "Why spend money one this useless GPS?"

Your ignorance bigotry against Pence's religious beliefs aside, your arguments are even more foolish and shortsighted than usual. This is almost entirely a re-assignment of responsibilities and funding from the existing branches to a new one.

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

If a fight happens, borrowing money to have a weapon was not folly.

Becoming indebted to a country you expect to have to fight is folly no matter what. It takes more than a weapon to insure defense.

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

People who don't see the value in going to space should just leave Slashdot; this is a site for nerds.

I see value in going to space. I see greater value in having a population that is not in crushing medical debt. Greater value in keeping asbestos out of building materials. Greater value in clean water and stewardship of the environment instead of a self-dealing cabal of sleazoids looking to steal everything that's not nailed down.

And who the fuck are you to be arbiter of who should and who shouldn't leave Slashdot? What makes you think you got balls big enough to tell someone to leave just because they don't subscribe to your 4-chan political ideology?

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

You're making the exact same argument that people made in the 1950s and 1960s against the space program.

The Space Force is not a "space program". It's the explicit militarization of something that should never be militarized.

And if you wanted a space program, you shouldn't have blown up the deficit with tax cuts for the rich while fucking regular people.

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

China has taken the approach the US has: spending gobs of government money on pointless exercises in chest thumping without any real plan to use them in any fashion. China wants the US to keep borrowing money precisely because it's good business for them. The area I see China doing anything is with Taiwan, where they've already demonstrated a willingness to push companies and trade partners around on. I imagine that that is mostly the future for China, for at least the short term and probably the long term.

Now, if you want to argue that the pattern overspending is long-term a bad idea I agree, but it only peripherally ties into China. It's a bad idea to be so heavily indebted, period. Many parts of the world are moving from developing to developed beyond China. Those that are developed are already heavy competitors for which a large debt is obviously a disadvantage. I think the real think to look at is Japan which seems set to implode based on its debt to GDP ratio.

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure about any of the facts you stated (i.e., 120 billion borrowed almost entirely from China), but borrowing money from a country in order to build defenses against said country seems kind of smart. If they attack or there is any kind of military action between the countries, no repayment necessary. That's a pretty big incentive for the country that loaned the money to not attack since they would lose their investment. Plus, if you were planning to attack a country anyway, might as well borrow a bunch of money from them first, right?

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

And who the fuck are you to be arbiter of who should and who shouldn't leave Slashdot? What makes you think you got balls big enough to tell someone to leave just because they don't subscribe to your 4-chan political ideology?

Probably the same thing that makes you think you are. Only the GP is on more solid ground.

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

Oy vey, Pope! Ida nevah figgerd you for a New Yawkah readah! It's anudda Shoah I tells ya! Anudda Shoah!

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

Not sure about any of the facts you stated (i.e., 120 billion borrowed almost entirely from China), but borrowing money from a country in order to build defenses against said country seems kind of smart. If they attack or there is any kind of military action between the countries, no repayment necessary.

This isn't Civilization IV, you knucklehead. A nation's defenses are more than just its weapons. Didn't you ever read Sun Tzu?

If China decided to stop buying (or holding) US debt, you'd be out of work by the end of next week. We're in that tenuous of a position. The dollar would crash, inflation would skyrocket and it wouldn't take all that long before you're doing Grapes of Wrath cosplay. Your orbital super-defense systems would be as worthless as a used Atlas booster on the bottom of the sea.

Re:money to burn

[fatwilbur]

In the past I would've strongly agreed with your point about borrowing money from China, but the truth is, they have borrowed from China in US dollars, meaning the debt can be effectively wiped at any time. The 2008 financial crisis most drove home this fact for me, in that Chinese holdings were significantly devalued through all the quantitative easing.

For those folks who don't know the US borrows from China in US dollars, it's because they sell them treasury securities denominated in US dollars. The US could literally just print toilet paper to pay off those debts, as it nearly technically did in 2008.

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

In the past I would've strongly agreed with your point about borrowing money from China, but the truth is, they have borrowed from China in US dollars, meaning the debt can be effectively wiped at any time. The 2008 financial crisis most drove home this fact for me, in that Chinese holdings were significantly devalued through all the quantitative easing.

Have you ever thought what happens to the dollar if the US 'wipes" it's debt? Which countries are going to buy it's treasuries? And if China should suddenly stop buying US treasuries? Economic pain like nobody knows. And if China were to start selling those securities it has? Game over, Rover.

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

Goddamn, man, do you not see the folly of going into debt to the country so you can build defenses against that country?

I generally agree with you. However, debt is a virtual thing, so the folly would be on China after they are outgunned and can no longer reasonably negotiate.

Re:money to burn

[Tough Love]

It's main proposed purpose is to protect the US (and it's allies) from space based attacks which are not primarily of a physical nature but more technological.

You're being too charitable to Trump, who genuinely believes it's to fight the spiders from Mars with ray guns.

Re:money to burn

[lgw]

The space program is some 4-chan political ideology in your damaged brain?

It you can't see that space program technology could make e.g. medical care cheaper or better, then, yes, GTFO. This is supposed to be a nerd site, dammit.

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

The space program is some 4-chan political ideology in your damaged brain?

No, deciding who does and who does not belong on Slashdot is 4-chan political ideology.

It you can't see that space program technology could make e.g. medical care cheaper or better, then, yes, GTFO.

Maybe you can explain to us how weaponizing satellites will make health care cheaper and/or better, you fake nerd. A "Space Force" does not a space program make.

Re:money to burn

[lgw]

Gee, how could better imaging technology help out medicine, I wonder? MRIs and CAT scans and the like rely on digital imaging technology invented by JPL. There's tons of stuff like that, as you'd know if you were a nerd instead of a troll. Solving difficult engineering problems that push the limits of human technology will always have civilian payoff. Now slink back to your bridge! (or to your non-trolling account, whichever).

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

MRIs and CAT scans and the like rely on digital imaging technology invented by JPL

MRIs and CAT scans and digital imaging technology were not "invented by JPL". None of them.

You would have known that if you were a nerd and not an alt-right troll. If you want science that will benefit the general population, it's a lot more efficient to get it from, you know, science-based space programs instead of some bogus "Space Force" invented by a degenerate president who believes that "in space, no one can hear you collude".

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it should be militarized. We have assets up there, and they're vulnerable to any tin pot dictator that wants to take a shot at them.

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

We have assets up there, and they're vulnerable to any tin pot dictator that wants to take a shot at them.

Do tin pot dictators usually have militarized space programs?

Maybe we should create a separate branch of the military to deal with attacks like the one Russia perpetrated on us 2016? It's the most serious attack on the homeland since 9/11.

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that additional $120 billion that we're spending on the military this year? It's almost entirely borrowed from China. Goddamn, man, do you not see the folly of going into debt to the country so you can build defenses against that country?

Perhaps the grand plan is to borrow ALL of China's money and then default, leaving China broke.

Re:money to burn

[captbollocks]

Goddamn, man, do you not see the folly of going into debt to the country so you can build defenses against that country?

I would say it is a brilliant move, it isn't like you have to pay the debt back if war does break out..

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

I would say it is a brilliant move, it isn't like you have to pay the debt back if war does break out..

Wow, you really don't understand how the economy - or war - works, do you?

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

This from an asshole that claims economists don't know how an economy works. Perhaps not, but I suspect they know a good deal more than you do.

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

Wages going down for working people...

Uhhh, there's currently a labor SHORTAGE. That drives up wages. Isn't that like economics 101?

Re:money to burn

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever thought what happens to the dollar if the US 'wipes" it's debt? Which countries are going to buy it's treasuries? And if China should suddenly stop buying US treasuries? Economic pain like nobody knows. And if China were to start selling those securities it has? Game over, Rover.

China's economic well-being is inextricably tied to the U.S. consumer market. When the U.S economy hurts, so does China's. There won't be a "Game over, Rover."

Re:money to burn

[PopeRatzo]

Uhhh, there's currently a labor SHORTAGE. That drives up wages. Isn't that like economics 101?

I guess Econ 101 was horseshit, because it's not working that way. There is currently a wage recession going on. For the vast majority of workers, wages have gone down under Trump.

1G is for wussies

[Thud457]

We need a orbital base for Space Marines ASAP!

Re:1G is for wussies

[Anonymous Coward]

Built Cairo Station now!

Let me guess

[Archfeld]

Trumplstiltskins' alcohol fueled vision for a space force involves Flash Gordon(trump himself), and Obama the Merciless ? With Elon Musk appearing as Dr. Hans Zarkov ? The role of Dale will be filled with a rotating gallery of women of the week.

i see your space force and i raise you

[Anonymous Coward]

2 or 3 rockets filled with high explosives and ball bearings

peace only comes through strength?

[Anonymous Coward]

History proves that peace only comes through strength? I guess Switzerland is the strongest country in the world.

They will need oxygen's bottles.

[Anonymous Coward]

Area 51 is full of mysteries.

They did the half truth, the another half is the lie.

Finally

[thegarbz]

We can nuke it from orbit!

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[penandpaper]

Uh. No. Peace through strength has been around ever since there was military strategy. Sun Tzu had some good thoughts about it.

"If their forces are substantial, prepare for them; if their forces are strong, avoid them."

"The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities...It is best to win without fighting."

"In peace prepare for war, in war prepare for peace. The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence under no circumstances can it be neglected."

What do you think would have happened if in 1939 the allies had stronger militarizes than Germany? What would have happened if the allies had adapted to the technological advancements instead of fighting the previous world war?

Requires abrogating a treaty

[Areyoukiddingme]

It only happens if the US issues formal notice that it is withdrawing from the Outer Space Treaty. The Outer Space Treaty forbids weapons of mass destruction anywhere above the Earth, to include installations on other celestial bodies. Warmongers like to try to claim this only forbids nuclear bombs, and therefore allows kinetic bombardment. This is some bullshit of the highest order. A megaton explosion is mass destruction regardless of how it was initiated. More to the point, anything in orbit capable of military operations is by definition a potential kinetic impactor. Unfortunately this interpretation is unlikely to win outside of states with no power at all to enforce it, economically or militarily.

Regardless, Trump can withdraw the US from the Outer Space Treaty unilaterally, without the approval of Congress. Jimmy Carter terminated a treaty with China in 1979 and George W. Bush unilaterally withdrew the US from the ABM Treaty in 2002, and neither action was successfully challenged. The US Constitution is completely silent on the subject of how treaties are broken, so it's merely custom how it happens. For the first 200 years of the US, it was done by a President at the behest of Congress. Nowadays a president can just do it.

However if there were laws passed implementing the treaty independently of the treaty text itself (unnecessary, since treaties have the force of law, but it happens), then Congress would have to repeal those laws to actually change the behavior of the government. Someone more knowledgeable of the US Code will have to render an opinion about whether or not any of the Outer Space Treaty exists in federal law independent of the treaty text.

It's military spending

[rsilvergun]

there's zero chance of the current right wing Congress voting it down. If you want this to stop you have to stop electing people who support these things. Even if it doesn't feel good.

Re:It's military spending

[Anonymous Coward]

Democrats are just as in bed with the military industrial complex.

Re: It's military spending

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! Both sides!

Re:America, fuck yeah

[deviated_prevert]

hell yes, we will kick commie ass in space too

Some idiots in America have learned nothing from getting a serious ass kicking in Vietnam. Especially idiots that went to the New York military academy and got out of service in Vietnam because of a bone spur. The problem is that the more block headed idiots get into power and think that mere economic and military power alone will solve what are essentially social and political issues the more things get fucked up. Somehow I seriously doubt that having a military force in space will do anything to advance the human race as a species.

Here in Canada we are finally coming to the conclusion that Sir John A MacDonald was a racist asshole that did little other than screw up what could have been a wonderful land of plenty with room and resources for all. In the US we have a new moron believing that sending the seventh cavalry into orbit to hunt down those pesky alien space injins will bring peace and economic security. Fscking bunch of morons we have elected that cannot see the forest for the fucking trees. We either start to take care of this planet and all life on it or we will never advance beyond the boundary of the earths atmosphere. Perhaps it is part of the evolution of intelligent life to come to the conclusion that advancement must include stewardship of all life that is bound to the origin planet or there will be no chance of advancement. In essence we either advance beyond aggression and war or die out as a species because of a lack of intelligence to see the obvious solutions to our shared problems.

no one wins

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like nuclear war, everyone loses in a space war. There are already hundreds of thousands of pieces of space junk the size of a marble or larger in orbit. Imagine life with no satellites and no way to even get into orbit to replace them for decades or more until we find some way to clean up the millions of pieces of debris leftover from even a small scale skirmish. Even if we never fight in a single space battle, we still presumably need to train for one and that will create more debris, even if only through accidents. If you're worried about threats from outside our solar system then it's even more of a waste of time and money. Any civilization capable of reaching Earth would so far beyond our technology that we might as well be ants to them.

Because this is how we do socialism

[rsilvergun]

one of the hardest challenges in America is prying money out of the hands of our ruling class. But you need to do it because as history has shown the aristocracy will, given the chance, plunge the world into a global dark age of extreme conservatism by monopolizing wealth so they can leverage it as power.

Eisenhower saw this coming. He couldn't figure out how to stop it peacefully, so he allowed the creation of the Military Industrial Complex. The rich pay taxes to fund a bloated military that employees excess laborers.

Eisenhower talked about regretting it in his memoirs. Still, I'm not sure there's another way. People really, really hate to just give stuff away. There's this thing were when a person suffers they want others to suffer exactly as they do. Misery loves company. I've seen this in all walks of life. I know LGBTQ folks who are upset the kids today don't have to go through the same shit they did. They acknowledge that's still a good thing, but it bothers them. They can't help it. Its a knee-jerk, emotional reaction.

I don't know how to counter that so that we can have a society that doesn't abandon 99% of it's people to poverty out of spite. You can't reason with it because it's completely emotional.

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[LynnwoodRooster]

Germany was quite peaceful in 1939, thanks to its strong military and authoritarian government.

You mean other than demands of land from neighbors, and invasions of Czechoslovakia, Austria, Lithuania - and of course the 1936 militarization of the Rhineland? That peace?

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[ShanghaiBill]

Germany was quite peaceful in 1939, thanks to its strong military and authoritarian government.

Yet Germany lost the subsequent war.

The biggest "winner" of both world wars was the country that had done the least to prepare for them: The United States of America.

After WW2, America switched to much higher military spending, and higher levels of preparation. Results: Korea - tie, Vietnam - lost, Afghanistan - lost, Iraq - lost.

The problem with high military spending, is that it makes it easy to initiate stupid wars.

Ronny Ray-Gun will finally get his Star Wars

[jandrese]

This was a giant boondoggle in the 80s, and it's just as stupid today. I have no doubt Trump has visions of X-Wings flying around protecting America from space Muslims but it's completely divorced from the reality of the world. Is he worried that he's not building up debt fast enough? That's absolutely not a problem thanks to his disastrous tax bill.

Re:Ronny Ray-Gun will finally get his Star Wars

[elainerd]

Boondoggle? You mean the Strategic Defense Initiative that scared the crap out of the USSR and then bankrupted them?
You know we actually implemented it right? It wasn't just smoke and mirrors, it is actually in place today and benefiting all Americans. More than that, Poland has been begging us to implement it for them so they can also be under the umbrella. Israel already has their own Iron Dome based upon the Strategic Defense Initiative. I guess when your liberal professor "poopooh'd" the concept of it you thought that it was just a theory or something?

If only the Space Force had been announced under a "cool" president all the star trek fanboys who consider themselves 'progressives' could get behind it.

Mom, the cool kids don't like me because I voted Trump. That's OK honey, this is the land of Individualism.

Re:Ronny Ray-Gun will finally get his Star Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember when Republicans paid lip service to the debt and the deficit? Remember them going nuts over the debt required to bail out Wall Street in 2007-ish? And again over Obamacare financing? Remember that?

The funny thing is, the political Right has always talked a good game over public finances but they are the worst at implementing their aspirations. It's always some giant military build-up, or a tax cut, or some giant infrastructure project, but they always subvert their rhetoric on public indebtedness. The Left has been far more responsible for tackling debt in recent decades (they have to be harangued into it I'll grant, but they actually do it).

Maybe it's time we just admit that the Right are paper tigers on the debt. When out of power, it's always "those other people's fault, we will fix the problem!" When in power they suddenly get distracted by the big shiny and sell out anyone who was actually serious.

Vote Republican, the Short Attention Span political party! We will care until coffee break!

Re:Ronny Ray-Gun will finally get his Star Wars

[jandrese]

Yes Boondoggle. The Patriot missile sites out in Europe are in no way the SDI that Reagan tried to sell to the American people. They completely fail to achieve the stated goal of the SDI of protecting from intercontinental ballistic missile threats. One can argue that it was one of the many factors that caused the collapse of the Soviet Union, but you can not argue that it was a primary factor. It did cause a lot of international tension over the possibility of losing MAD, but in practice it never got close enough to deployment to actually matter.

Re:Ronny Ray-Gun will finally get his Star Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

Frothing idiot. Grow up and get a non-government job.

This, so much This.

[rsilvergun]

Trump is more than a bit of a clown, but Pence scares me. He actually believes the crap he spouts. If the media was doing it's job his radical religious beliefs would have been front and center during the campaign. If he had his way we'd go back the the 50s with mandatory prayer in schools (yes, that was a thing until a SCOTUS decision shut it down).

Re:This, so much This.

[Rick Schumann]

You, sir, are 100% correct about Pence.
One of my great fears is that the GOP knows Trump won't survive and get impeached, and that maybe they WANT Pence instead, he wouldn't have won the election as the candidate, and this would be their back-door way of getting Pence as POTUS.

Re:This, so much This.

[drinkypoo]

Trump is more than a bit of a clown, but Pence scares me. He actually believes the crap he spouts.

Pence wrote some crap he clearly didn't believe about how having an immoral president is unacceptable, because here he is working for one. He doesn't believe the crap he spouts at all.

Re:This, so much This.

[dyfet]

50s? Think, handmaid's tale...

Re:This, so much This.

[wyHunter]

Oh honest to goodness. The hysteria on both sides of the political aisle of 'person X SCARES me!' Geez louise. All of you, just stop. We have a system of checks and balances. What we NEED is this: 1. No more judicial activism. 2. Term limits. 3. Immediate constitutional tests of EVERY law passed (ha!) 4. Reducing the size of the state so that it can't interfere in your personal life.

Re:This, so much This.

[Zontar The Mindless]

If he had his way we'd go back the the 50s with mandatory prayer in schools (yes, that was a thing until a SCOTUS decision shut it down).

The 50s? I remember having prayers read over the school intercom system every morning when I was in school, and I'm not THAT old, thank you very much. Try the late 60s/early 70s.

Engel v. Vitale was decided in 1962, but it took some time for it to, um trickle down.

Re:This, so much This.

[pnutjam]

He believes he should tell you what to do. He's part of the Christianity as self worship cult known as Evangelicals.
It's all about how they virtue signal each other by denigrating non-believers or really anything that catches their fancy.

Only if it involves WMDs

[Theaetetus]

It only happens if the US issues formal notice that it is withdrawing from the Outer Space Treaty. The Outer Space Treaty forbids weapons of mass destruction anywhere above the Earth, to include installations on other celestial bodies. Warmongers like to try to claim this only forbids nuclear bombs, and therefore allows kinetic bombardment. This is some bullshit of the highest order. A megaton explosion is mass destruction regardless of how it was initiated.

As you note, the OST only outlaws WMDs in space, but low size kinetic or energy weapons - i.e. satellite destroyers - are not banned. And yes, taking out an enemy's GPS satellites would be a terrible idea due to the Kessler Syndrome it would lead to, but it's not explicitly or implicitly against the treaty.

Similarly, you could put armed guards on your station or moon base without violating the OST.

Trump ripping off Obama

[mknewman]

Just like his wife ripped off Michelle's speech. http://www.latimes.com/nation/...

Re:Trump ripping off Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

Try fewer propaganda news channels and see some positive Trump news they don't cover.

Re: FAKE MOONLANDING

[Anonymous Coward]

Kubrick did it all in Hollywood. America is The Great Oz. Take off the emerald glasses moran.

Re: Youve never been outside USA

[Anonymous Coward]

So SAD to see such a happy slave.

People complain about what they dont understand

[Anonymous Coward]

I have worked in military space for almost 20 years now...with the Navy, with the Air Force, and with the Missile Defense Agency. What is clear to me from reading some of the posts here is that most of you don't know what you are talking about.

IMO a Space Force is a great, long overdue, idea. The biggest problem I have seen over the years is data sharing between branches. That causes the need for multiple constellations with redundant purposes. Why not have ONE that shares with all branches and serves multiple missions? Saves money, promotes innovation, promotes coordination between agencies.

I think the Navy should stick to boats, Air Force should stick to planes, Army should stick to tanks. Let the Space Force handle space.

Re:People complain about what they dont understand

[PPH]

Let the Space Force handle space.

ASAT weapon launched from a carrier-based fighter. We're going to need someone from the JCS to push the fire button.

Wake me when SCVN-2812 USS Saratoga launches

[MooseDontBounce]

Then I'll be interested.

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[Anonymous Coward]

Peace through strength has been around ever since there was military strategy.

I don't think the GP was rejecting the notion that the phrase didn't exist for a long time, but whether the statement is actually true.

And whether a statement is true or not doesn't depend on how long it's been around. By that logic, the Earth is 6000 years old because the Bible - which is really old - said so.

Sun Tzu had some good thoughts about it.

Sun Tzu - if he was real - lived around the age of the Spring and Autumn period in China, when China was separated into a bunch of states fighting each other (read: not exactly a role model for peace)

Sun Tzu's treatise was on how to prepare and wage war to preserve the state (read: note necessarily the individual), not for achieving peace. If anything, his statements show that he simply accepts that war is a fact of life and the state must always prepare for it. That's not much peace through strength, but more survival of the fittest or might makes right.

What do you think would have happened if in 1939 the allies had stronger militarizes than Germany?

I imagine an equally bloody war, except with the USSR being enemies. Imperial Japan would probably still try to conquer Asia, and that would lead to conflict with the Allies, or the Soviets, or both.

See, even though commies and Nazis hated each other, neither like the Allied nations much either.

Build A Stupid Fence

[JimSadler]

Building a globe shaped fence that protects the US from any attack from space makes about as much sense as a fence on the Mexican border. So here we have a president who claims the US can not afford medical care for all but claims we must have a military service that will eat the national budget a nightmare. The sick part is that if another nation attacked us from space we could still exterminate them with our current weapons based on land and seas.

Dominionists think God is working through Trump

[rsilvergun]

Seriously, this is what they tell their flocks. It doesn't matter how immoral Trump is because God is working through him. To me that's just like saying "The Ends Justify The Means". But there's a literal Pimp running for office with the GOP in Nevada (he runs the brothels) and he's overwhelmingly supported by Evangelicals because, and I kid you not, "He tell's it like it is".

The right wing in America aren't thinking about policy, they're letting feelings get the better of them. Republicans have vastly superior branding, so anyone who's ignoring policy and just listening to their "gut" is going to throw in with them. This is why policies like a Legalized Pot, Living Minimum Wage, Ending the Wars & Medicare for All can consistently poll in the high 60s and low 70s but never pass.

Re:Dominionists think God is working through Trump

[wyHunter]

You can just as easily say the same things about Obama, Bush, Bubba Clinton, etc. They're all lunatics.

Re:Dominionists think God is working through Trump

[reboot246]

Nah, I just like the better economy. My 401K is doing great. My taxes are lower. Inflation is tolerable. What does the other side want to do, go backwards to lower growth, higher unemployment, and higher taxes? No thanks. Had enough of that for a while.

Re:Dominionists think God is working through Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why policies like a Legalized Pot, [...] can consistently poll in the high 60s and low 70s but never pass.

Never pass? It's passed in a number of states already, and more make it legal each election cycle.

Re:Dominionists think God is working through Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, I just like the better economy. My 401K is doing great. My taxes are lower. Inflation is tolerable. What does the other side want to do, go backwards to lower growth, higher unemployment, and higher taxes? No thanks. Had enough of that for a while.

Did you say the same thing in the last year of Obama's term when the boom was really going? When Trump said the sky-high stock market was just a bubble since it was something that happened for his opponent, but suddenly became proof of his genius once he took office?

Re:Dominionists think God is working through Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad that's not who the fuck we're talking about, so whuddabout you go fuck yourself

Re:Dominionists think God is working through Trump

[wyHunter]

Ah yes, the typical left wing answer . Please, consume faeces and expire.

To infinity and beyond.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I just had to say it.

Don't worry...

[asackett]

... it will be over soon.

At least, that's what mommy told me when I lost my virginity.

But, seriously: If peace through military superiority were a real thing, the deployment of USA's military around the globe would have brought us world peace by now. Some days I envy my parents for having done as they said they would: dying before the shit got really bad.

America, f**k yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here wecome again to save the motherf**king world yeah...

Moon = stupid, Nukes in space = stupid, Trump = ?

[TiggertheMad]

You miss the point of space based weapons. Space is big. Really big. You take advantage of that space. You wouldn't put them in LEO. That would be stupid. You would put them way-way out, so that there is little chance you can preemptively eliminate them. This is why we wanted a nuke base on the moon in the 60s. Strategically its the most survivable deterrent.

You are correct, space is big. But LEO or as close to that as you can be is critical. The reason ICBMs were so popular, is the speed that they have, and the lack of reaction time that gives your opponent. If bombers take six hours to get their payload to Moscow, then an ICBM that can get there in twenty minutes is a vast improvement. LEO basically cuts that time in half or more, since there is only the coming down part.

Yeah, the Moon is far out of reach of aircraft launched ASAT weapons, but it is also three days away. Old propeller driven aircraft is faster than that, by twelve times. Days gives your enemy plenty of time to get their anti-missile weapons platform carefully lined up, and perhaps time to even have secondary measures prepared. Entire cities can be evacuated in three days. Sub pens and silos can be emptied, and divisions can be dispersed.

This of course ignores how incredibly fragile nukes and rockets are, and how space is incredibly expensive and dangerous to be in. One solar flare or fleck of paint can reduce your billion dollar weapon platform to junk. Space is a stupid place to put nukes, and LEO is the only place they would be 'fast' enough to be scary.

Want another reason not do space weapons at all? There is zero stealth in space. You cannot hide shit up there. We can see things in thermal really easily against the cold background. Anything man-made will stick out like a sore thumb because of its heat signature. Everyone with a cheap telescope will be able to watch everything you do on your moon base, unless you put it on the far side of the Moon, and that creates a whole new set of problems.

This space force is yet another idea from an inept imbecile who isn't listening to his advisors. We could have put nukes in orbit anytime in the last sixty years, and yet, somehow we chose not to. We had plenty of hawks in the oval office during that time, and yet not one of them even suggested such an idea. Why is that? Old Ronnie was a commie hating hawk, and even he only suggested the Star Wars Defense Initiative as an anti-missile deterrent. Far smarter presidents (from both sides of the aisle) have passed on the idea, for very good reasons.

The Air Force traditionally has been the branch that has had responsibility for space related weapon platforms (ASAT, spy sats, high altitude recon, etc), so why would you create a whole new branch for this? I would wager if I had high enough security clearance, I could find an existing AF officer in charge of super secret space based weapon research projects that are already underway. This is just pointless redundancy in creating a new branch. "Drain the Swamp", indeed!

Pros & cons

[Hognoxious]

Pro: If you have a dedicated space force, it stops the other branches arguing over who owns space.

Cons: You now have one more branch involved in all the arguments about everything else.

What's the fucking rule about what aircraft the army can have again? Fixed wing or armed but not both, unless it's got an odd number of engines or it's a Wednesday and it's raining?

Outer Space Treaty

[Compulawyer]

Looks like someone figured out that there are some pretty big gaps in the OST. https://www.state.gov/t/isn/51...

i thought there

[Anonymous Coward]

were treaty to keep offense weapon out of space. I mean who is going to want nukes a few hundred miles up orbiting over them.

You had to wonder how Trump's cronies would profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Trump paying off the support he got from the "defence" industry...

It's actually a smart move

[Anonymous Coward]

I know everyone wants to hate on Trump and they joke about this, but it's actually a smart move and it's been talked about for many years.

They're not talking about putting men in uniform to fight in space or even weapons in space, although to be fair that may happen. What they're really talking about with a Space Force is that the US Military has become so powerful yet dependent on their satellite network that it is in an opponents best interest to eliminate that asset. Satellites are vulnerable to cyber attacks as well as anti-satellite weapons, and unfortunately while the Air Force has the biggest space arm, each branch of the military has it's own satellites up there and none are specifically tasked with protecting commercial satellites. That lack of coordination leaves open the potential for an enemy actor to exploit a weakness in the network and remove a major advantage of the US military and economic power. The Space Force is simply about consolidating all of the different networks into one group responsible as well as assigning responsibility for the protection of civilian assets.

Increase spending

[The Evil Atheist]

Increasing government spending is alright if libertarian governments do it, apparently.

Re: America, fuck yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Alleged bone spur

Air Force Space Command

[rwyoder]

We have already had this for years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

LAUNCH THE POLARIS!

It doesn't scare us!

When will this cease?

The warheads will all RUST IN PEACE!

Re: Dominionists think God is working through Trum

[Anonymous Coward]

What a moron. All of these things you like are being paid for with deficit spending. It's only temporary.

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[Anonymous Coward]

Err... they did. In 1939 the British had a substantial edge in both radar and aircraft design, and it saved their butts in 1940. I go with Terry Pratchett on this one:

“If you would seek war, prepare for war.’”
“I believe, my lord, the saying is ‘If you would seek peace, prepare for war,’” Leonard ventured.
Vetinari put his head on one side and his lips moved as he repeated the phrase to himself. Finally he said, “No, no. I just don’t see that one at all.”

Re:Moon = stupid, Nukes in space = stupid, Trump =

[Holi]

Why bother with nukes. Kinetic bombardment could do the same damage without all the pesky radiation.

Huh?

[rsilvergun]

I've never once heard _anyone_ say God was working through Clinton (I've heard plenty of people accuse Obama of rooting for the other team though, mostly on Fox News).

Re:Huh?

[wyHunter]

I'm afraid I don't watch TV so I don't know what folks said about Obama. He was merely a clueless man who was out of his depth, like most of the American populace. Perhaps people didn't say God was working through Clinton but he did make a big show of praying when you could quite clearly see that it was fake. I suppose his base was anti-religious and the other party wouldn't say much nice about him. The one thing nice I will say about him was that he was amusing.

SPACE FARCE - THE MOVIE

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump's just looking for Illegal "Aliens" in the next logical place - space! Deporting them will be a bitch!

Handmaid's tale was a response

[rsilvergun]

to Trump (and more importantly Pence) being elected (not the book, turning the book into a TV series). So yeah, you hit the nail on the head.

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only way to win... is not to play" (War Games)

An Unpopular Opinion

[wolf12886]

I'm probably going to get down-voted for this, but I think creating a space force is a good idea. I think the idea that humans will venture out into space, and miraculously leave warfare behind is completely unrealistic. We should be prepared for the eventuality.

In addition to that, a lot of the resulting technology and infrastructure will have civilian applications as well; Its a win-win if you're invested in seeing humans take to the stars. ..Now if you don't care about that, then yeah waste of money I guess; just like going to the moon was.

Suck, suck, suck

[Snufu]

Forget nukes, will there be giant vacuum cleaners?

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said.

China's satellite based 'defensive' capabilities

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like this is way out there either as China has already made claims about some of their satellite based 'defensive' capabilities.

Pardon me, but where can I find more info on the so called "China's Satellite Based 'Defensive' Capabilities" ??

Background music for the announcement

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AUXpnB065o

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[The Evil Atheist]

And Sun Tzu also warned about spending too long and too much on them military. Economic strength is a much more powerful than military strength.

Re: Dominionists think God is working through Trum

[Anonymous Coward]

there's a literal Pimp running for office with the GOP in Nevada (he runs the brothels) and he's overwhelmingly supported by Evangelicals because, and I kid you not, "He tell's it like it is".

The right wing in America aren't thinking about policy, they're letting feelings get the better of them.

Do you not see the irony of what you wrote? You write that Evangelicals should not be supporting this candidate for what you consider to be irrational reasons, but when they support him because they agree with his policy and message somehow their feelings are getting the better of them? Iâ(TM)d call it the epitome of political rationality to set aside your differences and work towards the things you agree on, or do you prefer to let petty disagreements impede you from getting anything done?

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[Anonymous Coward]

You dont seem to understand what the US expects to get out of its increased spending. It expects only to fight, not win. The country is built on war, economically and culturally. It doesnt really function without war. Wich explains why it goes to war even when it knows it cannot win. It needs to fight, not win. Winning is actually bad because it ends the war sooner rather than later.

The longest peace the US has ever seen was 1935-1940, immediately following the great depression(or during its end, depending on the metric). I suppose convincing people to fight abroad was hard when their families back home had no food thanks the domestic threats.

Even more obvious: boom vs hack

[DrYak]

All of the energy possessed by the rods comes from the launch rocket, so...why not just launch the launch rocket at your target. Oh wait, that's right, we already have such a system: ICBMs are real things.

The thing which might not have been apparent in my initial post :

  - how many countries are currently busy hurling nuclear ICBM at each other currently ?
Not much

- ...or even being in an open war ?
Not that many.

  - how many countries and/or large entities with lots of resources are actively busy to try to hack each other's resources for financial gain and/or power purpose ?
Just open the news papers on the scandal du jour.

See the trend ?
That's what I was pointing at. In the current era, there are way much more lucrative way to attack and militarize than hurling nukes at each other be it from orbit or directly.

Trump. Not just a cunt, a fucking idiot too.

[Maritz]

The air force already does all the military space stuff. All genius orange traitor Trumpski is doing is creating an extra bureaucracy. Well done, nice move, good and smart there from Moscow Donnie. Bigly!!

Roll on November, let's hope the US returns to US control soon. Get those stupid and hateful little MAGA fucks sidelined in the way they ought to be in a civilised nation (which you actually used to be, believe it or not).

ideas

[nten]

You can model ideas like gut bacteria. Sometimes symbiotic, sometimes pathological, spread mostly by inheritance but altered wildly by what you consume.

Also, evolution doesn't favor anything, it has no agenda. Traits that are good enough to make babies persist. Birth control may change some aspects of which male personality traits work for reproduction, but in general, humans haven't changed that much behaviorally since we used ochre on stone walls. Changing ourselves is a lot harder than changing our world. Especially changing our motivations, and getting rid of war seems like an unlikely route for evolution to take.

Extension of borders into space

[Anonymous Coward]

This creates a volatile situation where satellites that are not just meant for spying are flown over sovereign territories. It makes the possibility of conflict much higher, as nation states perceive that their national sky borders extend to space.

OTOH, most of what they'll put into orbit will be corporate branded entangled-photon emitters in the IR range, which are unknown to most people - and far more powerful than any missiles or space mines or whatever else they'd launch into orbit in the name of "space security".

Re: "History proves that peace only comes through

[Anonymous Coward]

It was quite peaceful in Germany. Just in those other countries it got a bit rowdy.

Right here is some clothing options. Space Pants

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwpmqMnngRk

End of the world with a stupid space force

[Anonymous Coward]

Great..the US wants to threaten other nations and is behind in this nonsense. Maybe God is on their side? Um..nope..the big military powers are going to kill us all with their engineering bullshit. Pence is a moron and the bossthat he kisses ass with is a senile ignorant twat. You people are determined to destroy the planet instead of cleaning up after yourselves as you supply others with the last generation of weapons of war and love the goddamned Saudis..oh great...reactionaries love one another...now the Russians are afraid of a future attack and the Chinese who could and should have been a great partnership with the industrial might of the West have been kept out of things such as ISS so will go it alone. Someone decided the Chinese are the enemy..easy..every failing flailing society needs some one to blame.. you have them..The trouble is..they are much better at planning for their future than the US which is run by libertarian bullshit. We are all going down for the count if all of you lose control of the military industrial complex...Eisenhower warned the world a long time ago but no one was listening.

Military tech trickles down

[Anonymous Coward]

So getting our boys all up in space's space will likely advance research and travel tech considerably for civilians. E.g., where do you think GPS came from?

There're likely new industries to discover.

We could even get gundams (note: these should not be sold in Chicago).

If Space Force doesnt tickle your fancy, boy, you aint right.

Peace only comes through strengt

[nimzo]

"History proves that peace only comes through strength" says the Vice-President of a country that has been at war 222 years in the last 239 years.

Really?

[gerald.edward.butler]

Then why are we almost out of Phosphorous for agriculture? Why are the oceans experiencing routine "Red Tides" that are toxic with massive ocean life die off? How long do you think that can continue?

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why are we almost out of Phosphorous for agriculture?

The same reason we're always seem to be running out of a lot of other things: Jevons paradox. We're consuming resources faster simply because we can, not that we have to. In other words, resources aren't stressed, we're just binging on resources while going's good.

In the unfortunate event resources are scarce, we'll just have to stop binging. Not binging doesn't mean we'll all start starving in droves and must fight each other for the scraps. People will just have to scale back.

Yes, a lot of people won't like scaling back, but when push comes to shove they'll have to, and no they're not gonna go to war over it (as much as many may joke they would today)

Think of this way: how often do you see people become criminals, stealing and killing and waging war for survival, the moment they lost their job? Not even a lot of poor people who live paycheck to paycheck would go through with it. Most people tighten their own belts first, and try to find other solutions before resorting to violence.

Why are the oceans experiencing routine "Red Tides" that are toxic with massive ocean life die off?

Because nature is nature? Red tide isn't a recent thing. The earliest human recorded one was back in the 1500s. We hear more about them now because we have better tools to detect them.

How long do you think that can continue?

Quite a long time. And as above, even in the event resources becomes less abundant, people have this funny tendency to try to find other solutions before resorting to violence (many may try to find solutions and alternatives long before we run out, one "easy" way to help the phosphor problem is to consume less meat, which takes up way more agriculture)

Most people just aren't as hardcore Spartan warrior as you, Gerald Butler.

Re:Really?

[gerald.edward.butler]

Do you seriously believe that people/nations don't go to war in a massive way when resources get tight? Have you read ANY history? You want to believe that people are at heart good. They are. That is true. But, when they're up against a wall, things get ugly. Fast. Cambodia? WWII? China before WWII with war with Japan? WWI? Are you kidding? Millions upon millions died. More due to starvation/disease than bullets, but, when people start starving, bullets start flying. It has nothing to do with me being "Hard Core". You totally miss the point. You want to believe in a fantasy that doesn't exist. I know reality. I've seen it personally. When people go hungry, things get ugly. Fast. Most people will not "tighten their belts".

For F-s sake, we have people running around "Burning Coal" with over-sized trucks for fun and could give a shit less about clean air, clear water, etc. But, those same people, when resources get thin, will absolutely put you in a ditch with a bullet in the back of your head. That is what happens. It sucks. But, that is the way the world works. Make no mistake, everyone is nice, until they're not.

Tools will be tools

[Ol Olsoc]

I would love to hear Pences knowledgable insightful analysis of the results of the first space battle. Say 25 ships destroyed by presumably nuclear weapons.

The effects of a satellite destroyed by a regular explosive device puts a large region out of use. The Electromagnetic pulses of nucs, and the debris orbiting the earth from large vessels destroyed will make this clusterfuck of an idea pointless after it's first use.

Not to worry. With a stable genius at the helm, I'm sure he has some plan to mitigate the effects of large and tiny chunks orbiting. Perhaps the Evangelicals who approve of everything he does will pray and their gawd will rain them down on whoever dear leader is pissed at that day.

This isn't even trying to troll. This is just an idea that is so stupid that it makes spontaneous generation look like a Nobel winning idea.

Inner Core Force

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget about protecting outer space and the border. The U.S. must protect the Earth's inner core from illegal lava aliens!

Highway to nowhere

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like building a highway to nowhere. Republicans want to increase the military budget by 8 billion dollars, so they dream up some wacky outer space force fund to dump your tax paying money into.

Lunar Space Force!

[Anonymous Coward]

50 years ago, we went to moon, and never went back. Did we need a Lunar Space Force? No.
Do we need a Mars Space Force? No. Does space need to militarized? No.

Stop wasting our money, you idiots.

Re: "History proves that peace only comes through

[LynnwoodRooster]

Peace and harmony - Springtime for Hitler and Germany!

Quit whining!

[nyri]

What! I came to see how nerd are glamouring over such a huge pile of pure AWESOMENESS but I just find bunch of whiners about arms race and burecracy and shit.

It's called SPACE FORCE and it sounds funking awesome. Like Death Star or something.

Nerds! It's you time to ENJOY the moment.

Re:Quit whining!

[Anonymous Coward]

>_ pure AWESOMENESS but I just find bunch of whiners about arms race and burecracy and shit.

We're whining about DEATH, son. The kind of death in which your brother won't cry about you because he'll be dead, too.

And your parents will become atoms.

But... for your delight, there will be no bureaucracy -- because there will be no bureaucrats, either. Rejoice! The tapes will have recorded your names or something.

Yeah, extremely awesome.

Yeah, right...

Just use boomers...

[TiggertheMad]

Because objects have to be pretty big to make it through the atmosphere without exploding. Most meteors don't make it to the ground, because they aren't large enough. It is probably cheaper just to put a MIRV on a sat than it is to build your own faux 15 meter meteor.

US to be *sanctioned* by Russia!

[Anonymous Coward]

If come August 22 the US put silly undeserved sanctions on Russia because of their crazy domestic narrative, sanctions that amount to economic war, then Russia will block the delivery of RD-180 engines.
This will teach the US a lesson maybe but even if it doesn't, you can strike Boeing from your list.
This'll be temporary though, as they'll postpone until building a rocket with an engine from Amazon..

More funny but unlikely would be if Boeing unveils a cloned RD-180 engine. It would be more than humiliating as it recalls North Korea using a cloned RD-250 engine.

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[Anonymous Coward]

"The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities...It is best to win without fighting."

This does describe US bullying more than anything.
Though not quite : those who surrender to US demands may be at the mercy of an attack by the US anyway (see Libya)

Today, Iran and North Korea have vowed never to surrender or more accurately they figured they're in a good enough position not to surrender.
Now what?

Iran can fuck things up in the Gulf enough for you to regret it, North Korea can probably kill 10,000 Americans in 24 hours. Your turn.

What do you think would have happened if in 1939 the allies had stronger militarizes than Germany? What would have happened if the allies had adapted to the technological advancements instead of fighting the previous world war?

One argument is the allies should have attacked during remilitarization of the Rheineland. That was in 1936! But that wasn't done. Such thing isn't that cheap. I wasn't there, not an expert.
Could they have done diplomacy? Keep out and we'll ease Versailles Treaty some. Or would the Allies have initiated WW2? What's the unpredictable outcome? (Hitler dying of old age, or USSR running over the whole continental Europe). You might as well play the old video game, Red Alert.

Re:"History proves that peace only comes through s

[Anonymous Coward]

"If their forces are substantial, prepare for them; if their forces are strong, avoid them."

A corollary employed by Syria and Russia lately : if you're attacking a weaker foo, leave them a way to escape (so they're the ones that face strong forces and they get a way to avoid them). If you don't leave them an escape they'll find themselves with a choice of dying or fighting to the death, so you'll make more a mess than necessary.

Of course they have to mop up some of the Al Nusra, foreign Jihadi and ISIS anyway.
Still if you're interested, beginning very shortly you might get to follow or witness Russia and Syria winning the final stages of a war.