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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.
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.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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.
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.
Life is not for the lazy.
The only plus side from this is it may lead to technology to colonise beyond Earth... that's the only plus side I see.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Indeed.
[July 1 2018] Trump's border wall not worth government shutdown, say lawmakers
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
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.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
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.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!