US Space Command Is Now a 'Warfighting Force,' Needs Permanent Home (spacenews.com) 111
Gen. James Dickinson, commander of U.S. Space Command, said that the warfighting force he leads has reached Initial Operational Capability and will need to double the size of its headquarters staff to achieve full operational capability. It also needs a permanent headquarters. Space News reports: U.S. Army Gen. James Dickinson, who was put in charge of Space Command a year ago, made the announcement Aug. 24 during a keynote speech at the 36th Space Symposium here. "We are a very different command today at IOC than we were at stand-up in 2019, having matured and grown into a warfighting force, prepared to address threats from competition to conflict in space, while also protecting and defending our interests in this vast and complex domain," he said. Dickinson said reaching initial operational capability is an important milestone for the two-year-old command. "It's an indication that we've moved out of our establishment phase."
The command is headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, and supported by two field organizations: a Combined Force Space Component Command at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; and a Joint Task Force Space Defense at Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado. [...] It was temporarily stood up at Peterson Space Force Base pending a basing decision by the Department of the Air Force. Former Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett announced in January that the Air Force had selected Huntsville, Alabama, as the new location for Space Command headquarters. Colorado lawmakers have since pushed back, claiming the decision was politically motivated and that the Air Force initially had recommended keeping Space Command at Peterson. [...] Dickinson said the command needs to have a permanent headquarters location sooner rather than later so it can move forward with its organization and plans.
The command is headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, and supported by two field organizations: a Combined Force Space Component Command at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; and a Joint Task Force Space Defense at Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado. [...] It was temporarily stood up at Peterson Space Force Base pending a basing decision by the Department of the Air Force. Former Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett announced in January that the Air Force had selected Huntsville, Alabama, as the new location for Space Command headquarters. Colorado lawmakers have since pushed back, claiming the decision was politically motivated and that the Air Force initially had recommended keeping Space Command at Peterson. [...] Dickinson said the command needs to have a permanent headquarters location sooner rather than later so it can move forward with its organization and plans.
Thunderbirds are go! (Score:2, Insightful)
grown into a warfighting force, prepared to address threats from competition to conflict in space
These guys prove that ridicule doesn't kill. Also, it proves that any old bullshit is fair game to try and get a big fat military budget.
Re:Thunderbirds are go! (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting how people are modding down for completely honest, rational descriptions of this latest military boondoggle. The Pentagon has never passed an audit, and cannot pass one ever. They wasted the money so flagrantly that they can't even tell the public where all that money went. The US taxpayers are getting shafted every single day by the military. There is nothing to fight in space, but it is a great place to spy from.
Re:Thunderbirds are go! (Score:4, Interesting)
> The Pentagon has never passed an audit, and cannot pass one ever.
Indeed. [thenation.com] Notice how Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan made excuses: It was an audit on a $2.7 trillion organization, so the fact that we did the audit is substantial.
As Frank Zappa famously said: Government is the entertainment division of the military industrial-complex.
"Funny" how literally ONE DAY before 9/11 we are told $2.3 Trillion was missing from the Pentagon?!?!?! There is no money but magically we can fund a war on terror. /s
Rumsfeld says $2.3 TRILLION Missing from Pentagon [youtube.com]
Here is the transcript of the speech Donald Rumsfeld gave about bureaucratic waste [agovernmen...people.com] that day before:
It gets worse [archive.org]:
* $5.8B of inventory "lost" between 2003-2011.
* $9B of ledger adjustments simply made up to get the books to balance in 2012, UP from $7.4B the previous year!!!
* Hundreds of thousands of contracts that have not been audited for completion
Another money pit for the Pentagon (Score:4, Insightful)
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Indeed. Let's move on from overpriced power armour to the real question: what colour scheme should this specific chapter of space marines have?
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Re:Another money pit for the Pentagon (Score:5, Insightful)
DoD has never passed an audit. This is just more of a money pit for "defense" contractors, who alreadt eat 55% of our defense budget. Space marines - what a scam.
Just remember, this was another massive expansion of the size of government implemented by a Republican administration. Just like George Bush created Homeland Security.
For all their talk about small government, it sure is amazing how big, and intrusive, Republicans want their government to be.
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Tbh Congress pushed for Homeland Security under the principle of we need to look like we're doing something.
Dilbert made fun of this process years earlier pointing out how, if a business was centralized, making it distributed was the great new idea of a new CEO, while if it were distributed already, centralization was the name of the game.
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Expansion? This was a consolidation of satellite control from all the branches down to a single branch, thereby reducing the military budget by reducing duplication of missions. How do you see this as being more expensive than doing all these things 3 times?
Re: Another money pit for the Pentagon (Score:1)
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What does Homeland Security have to do with Space Command? My response was to the ignorant post about Space Command being a waste of money.
Space Command is designed to consolidate all the separate space commands the different armed forces are running. Homeland Security was just consolidating a bunch of different organizations that were previously independent, so likely costs the same as the original organizations it consolidated, maybe with some overhead for the parent organization. Totally different thi
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Big business NEEDS big government. And the GOP always loves BIG business. Where else could the big bribes come from? (But my theory is that the path to smaller government should be paved with the bones of dinosaur corporations rebuilt as little companies that aren't pretending to be too big to fail.)
(I don't think there is any Republican Party these years, but I realized I used to be an independent when the Democrats sort of mattered. Whenever the Republicans (or alleged Republicans) have been in charge, th
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The entire military is one 5th of what we've borrowed this year and last. Or is it one sixth? One eigth in a few months.
A trillion here. A trillion there. Pretty soon you're talkin' real money.
Re: Another money pit for the Pentagon (Score:1)
Shouldn't they be headquartered in orbit? (Score:5, Funny)
The command is headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado
I don't know... Space fighters should have a base in orbit or something, not in Colorado. It's like putting a naval base in Kansas
Granted, the mountaintops in Colorado put them closer to their natural habitat, but it's not the same.
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I don't know... Space fighters should have a base in orbit or something, not in Colorado. It's like putting a naval base in Kansas
Well, to be fair, that Kansas naval base made more sense when it was proposed 100 million years ago - it provided strategic support for navies patrolling the Great Inland Sea. But, what with procurement delays, political turmoil, and cost overruns, the sea completely dried up before the base ever got finished.
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Re: Shouldn't they be headquartered in orbit? (Score:1)
Italy has a ministry of finance...
Would that be Camorra, 'Ndrangheta or La Cosa Nostra?
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Merchant ships of war! In time of crisis Swiss flagged cargo ships will trade where the trading is fiercest! Swatches and chocolate to the front lines! They will even finance the purchases through combat-ready banks.
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The command is headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado
I don't know... Space fighters should have a base in orbit or something, not in Colorado. It's like putting a naval base in Kansas
Granted, the mountaintops in Colorado put them closer to their natural habitat, but it's not the same.
Cheyenne Mountain Air Station (NORAD) was home to US Space Command for over fifteen years. Peterson happens to sit about 20 miles away, so this "habitat" is far more natural than you assume.
In fact, what is truly unnatural here, is calling this a "new" concept. The only thing that appears to be new here, is the sudden demand to label this a warfighting force...apparently blood needs to spilled on battlefields we've yet to define with enemies that don't exist yet, because Greed.
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The only thing that appears to be new here, is the sudden demand to label this a warfighting force...apparently blood needs to spilled on battlefields we've yet to define with enemies that don't exist yet, because Greed.
Who's greed are you concerned about? Reading your post I thought of this...
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure."
So long as the USA is the wealthiest nation on the planet we will need to defend ourselves from the greed of other nations. So, yes, greedy people is why we need a war fighting force capable of taking war into orbit. That's because greedy nations will want to take your stuff, your freedom, and possibly your l
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Who's greed are you concerned about? Reading your post I thought of this... "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure."
Yeah - that was big when O'Blama was president.
So, yes, greedy people is why we need a war fighting force capable of taking war into orbit.
It's all great to rattle sabers, and really enjoy making your neighbor die - but here's the problem with your lust for war in space, and being in a hurry to defend what's your's.
Anyone that knows even a shred of orbital mechanics, understands what happen when in righteous anger, we smite our enemy in orbit.
Lots of itty bitty pieces that return to smite not only our enemies, but us, and even our trustworthy allies.
And it's not even that predictable - som
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"O'Blama"? "Lust"? "Righteous anger"? I have a feeling you are having a discussion with an image in your head and not me. I don't know what you are talking about. It's possible I don't know what I'm talking about. It's because I was unsure where the comment on greed was going that I started my last post with a question, followed by my interpretation of the goals of the US Space Force.
I agree that a battle in orbit would be bad. We need a Space Force to prevent such battles, and minimize the damage t
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"O'Blama"? "Lust"? "Righteous anger"? I have a feeling you are having a discussion with an image in your head and not me. I don't know what you are talking about.
I can see that - relax a little bit. I'll try to use less triggering words.
The very reason that I used those terms is because the whole idea of creating space debris is really stupid. Because that is 100 percent certain to do that. It's possible I don't know what I'm talking about. It's because I was unsure where the comment on greed was going that I started my last post with a question, followed by my interpretation of the goals of the US Space Force.
I agree that a battle in orbit would be bad. We ne
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IOW, you m support the creation of space debris.
What gave you that idea? I explicitly pointed out a primary mission of the Space Force is to protect friendly assets in orbit, that means keeping debris from knocking them out. You really are having a debate with some imaginary person.
Allow me to explain to you. Any country with orbital access can nullify another orbiting object by launching an exceptionally low technology weapon.
Right, and the least likely nation to pull such a stunt is one with billions, if not trillions, of dollars invested in orbital assets. You know who just might pull a stunt like that? Someone like North Korea, Iran, maybe others. How do you propose we prevent this? Maybe
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IOW, you m support the creation of space debris.
What gave you that idea? I explicitly pointed out a primary mission of the Space Force is to protect friendly assets in orbit, that means keeping debris from knocking them out. You really are having a debate with some imaginary person.
So how do you protect "friendly assets?"
Explain how a military force is going to protect friendly assets without creating debris.
My point is this and this only - militarization of space will end up causing military action in space. If you don't believe that - that is fine. Peace out.
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That brings another bit of wisdom to mind... "If you seek peace prepare for war."
Our species has a more than fair chance of ending itself right here on this dying rock, forever addicted to warmongering greed that has been going on for thousands of years.
Carving lines into other planets with blood? Yeah, tell me why that particular flavor of human stupidity should be allowed to escape the vacuum of ignorance surrounding this planet. We would already be a multi-planatary species had we not pissed away a few million man hours killing each other, ironically arguing over what happens when
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Have you been watching the news? Pretty sure the military industrial complex of the USA isn't in the war starting business right now. If it were then there's all kinds of reasons to go shooting brown people in hot sandy places.
Of course I'll look like an ass if there happens to be reports of shooting but I'll take that gamble.
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Cheyenne Mountain Air Station (NORAD) was home to US Space Command for over fifteen years. Peterson happens to sit about 20 miles away, so this "habitat" is far more natural than you assume.
In fact, what is truly unnatural here, is calling this a "new" concept. The only thing that appears to be new here, is the sudden demand to label this a warfighting force...apparently blood needs to spilled on battlefields we've yet to define with enemies that don't exist yet, because Greed.
I can hardly wait until the first battle in space happens. It will be the last battle in space for a while.
What's more, it likely won't be all that high tech.
Pick your enemies orbital shell, and put a few bags worth of playground sand into a retrograde orbit. Then sit back and watch. Any country that can reach orbital velocity with a hundred kilos can play that bastard's game.
Rather than try to make Star Wars a how to guide, we need to cooperate to be certain to have space be a peaceful place - human
the stargate is there (Score:3)
the stargate is there
Re: Shouldn't they be headquartered in orbit? (Score:1)
battlefields we've yet to define...
The battlefield is Earth, dumbass - space is the high ground.
...with enemies that don't exist yet
I'm sure Taiwan's relieved to hear that.
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The only thing that appears to be new here, is the sudden demand to label this a warfighting force...apparently blood needs to spilled on battlefields we've yet to define with enemies that don't exist yet
The enemies (or at least adversaries) exist already, we've been fighting proxy wars with them for ages and merely expect the fight to escalate to the next level whether it makes sense or not. Many wars which have been fought already made little sense, so why would that not continue into the future? Best to prepare.
I still don't know that it needed to be broken out from the air force at this point, and I object to any additional unnecessary spending, but conceptually it would have had to have happened sooner
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It's like putting a naval base in Kansas
Long ago I applied for a job at a Navy base in Indiana. The base was there because on a flat plain they can test radar on a flat as water surface without getting their feet wet. Isn't the Navy basic training base also landlocked?
If the Space Force is supposed to have a base in space then is the Air Force supposed to have a base on some huge airship floating a mile in the air? Where should this floating Air Force base be floating? Over DC? Over Colorado? Just keep moving like a navy carrier group patro
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It's like putting a naval base in Kansas
Long ago I applied for a job at a Navy base in Indiana. The base was there because on a flat plain they can test radar on a flat as water surface without getting their feet wet. Isn't the Navy basic training base also landlocked?
China Lake (which is dry) is the main Navy test base. It is in the high desert (altitude 2300 feet or, in /. terms, 6.4 football fields).
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What are you talking about? Sloshdotters have little truck with football fields.
The altitude of China Lake is 343.88 smoots. That's in /. terms.
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Even Florida or Texas which is closer to the equator may be more logical choice.
However until we start seeing some real results, such as Space Force taking out Enemy Nations Satellites, and protecting our allies own. Cleaning up Space Junk in orbit, as well protect against asteroids that may fall to earth or hit our satellites. UntiIl then I am still skeptical that it is just a waste of money, in a poor attempt to deflect a persons in power overall very poor performance with an upcoming election.
I am all f
Re: Shouldn't they be headquartered in orbit? (Score:1)
Space fighters should have a base in orbit or something, not in Colorado.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is in agreement.
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The command is headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado
I don't know... Space fighters should have a base in orbit or something, not in Colorado. It's like putting a naval base in Kansas
Granted, the mountaintops in Colorado put them closer to their natural habitat, but it's not the same.
Well... what else is now legal in Colorado... Something well suited for space cadets.
Of course they need more space (Score:2)
Sounds like bureaucracy in action (Score:4, Insightful)
A boondoggle sucking up tax dollars, doing an awful job, more interested in expanding its own influence than doing anything useful, and certainly most interested in fighting all other branches of the state for budget.
Ah OK, cancel all that - its military and cannot be questioned or held to account in any way.
Re:Sounds like bureaucracy in action (Score:4, Insightful)
So it's working as designed, what's your complaint?
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A boondoggle sucking up tax dollars, doing an awful job, more interested in expanding its own influence than doing anything useful, and certainly most interested in fighting all other branches of the state for budget.
In all seriousness, I wonder if people said roughly similar comments when the US Air Force was separated from the US Army many years ago. I'm pretty anti-Trump, but everything he did wasn't crazy and he may have been a visionary here.
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A boondoggle sucking up tax dollars, doing an awful job, more interested in expanding its own influence than doing anything useful, and certainly most interested in fighting all other branches of the state for budget.
In all seriousness, I wonder if people said roughly similar comments when the US Air Force was separated from the US Army many years ago. I'm pretty anti-Trump, but everything he did wasn't crazy and he may have been a visionary here.
I really hate the some people were wrong once so they are wrong again. So unless the only targets are on the ground, the great idea is going to create a lot of debris. And it doesn't matter who created it. Any destroyed spacecraft will wreak revenge on other spacecraft.
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A boondoggle sucking up tax dollars, doing an awful job, more interested in expanding its own influence than doing anything useful, and certainly most interested in fighting all other branches of the state for budget.
Sounds like you're describing the entire DoD. Seriously, what a ridiculous waste of money for the actual capabilities provided. The grunts are fine, but - as Afghanistan amply demonstrates - higher-level capabilities are basically nonexistent.
Ideally, one would scrap the entire bureaucracy, fire every officer over O4 or O5 (because after that, promotions depend increasingly on politics), and start over. Give the military a clear mission statement, and keep the politicians out of the decision making.
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Spain, WW2, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, El Salvador, Iran, Afghanistan 1, Nicaragua, Afghanistan 2, Iraq: Nation-building or the much-assumed peace from the barrel of gun, has not been the point of US invasions, invited or forced: It's preventing terrorism (against US interests), protecting US corporations (mostly oil-producing corporations), or destroying opposition to winner-takes-all capitalism (Eg. communism, marxism, socialism).
Keeping politicians out is impossible when the US president can 'declare' war
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Sounds like a peacetime military, is what that is.
I mean, our "wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq barely occupied what, less than a half a percent of our population?
The main way the enemy fought for the bulk of each is to hide bombs in trashcans and beside the road?
No, this is what you get when you have a first-world military that's been SUCCESSFUL at deterring peer-level wars for 70 years. The military bureaucracy becomes a cash cow and power-ladder, whose senior staff are more concerned with parking spaces, t
A Permanent Home? (Score:4, Insightful)
Pluto would be ideal. Or, failing that, maybe Alpha Centauri.
The further away from us, the better.
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I was more thinking of a place with cushioned walls for the ones who came up with that crackpot idea.
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Dude have you ever BEEN to Alpha Centauri???
They've got cushioned walls like everywhere! It's some cultural thing they do.
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Yeah - when I was on Alpha Centauri it sure looked like a padded room.
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"Common Time" by James Blish
https://apbsal.blogspot.com/20... [blogspot.com]
Convenient for the Stargate (Score:2)
Of course it should be kept at Colorado Springs so it's near the Stargate in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.
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No, bring it to San Francisco and name it StarFleet Communications
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Space is "high terrain" like it or not. (Score:4, Interesting)
It must be militarized. Moral examples don't work on humans so the only security is the credible ability to inflict overwhelming violence. No one reading this can make the slightest difference in the nature of humanity. We are a savage (in the original sense, not the insulting sense) race who evolved to be effective killers. You may not like that but you make no difference.
Space ops would be a natural extension of the Air Force but the USAF is meatbag-piloted aircraft-centric. Military illiterates please recuse yourselves.
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Actually, what we really are is lazy. Like, well, any species, if you can get away with not wasting resources on your sustenance, you don't. If you can somehow make someone else sustain your useless existence, that's what you do.
So any pork barrel you can get away with is fair game. And this isn't really anything but pork.
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The US has the most to lose from a militarization of space. All it would take is for a country with rockets like say, North Korea, to launch a missile into low earth orbit with a payload of few tonnes of ball bearings and a few kg of high explosives, and the damage to US assets would be enormous.
States like North Korea have bugger all up there to get damaged, but the US and other industrialised nations have trillions of dollars of assets up there, and the more militarised space becomes, the easier it will
Re: Space is "high terrain" like it or not. (Score:2)
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> I think you under estimate the vastness of space.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. -- Douglas Adams
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The US has the most to lose from a militarization of space. All it would take is for a country with rockets like say, North Korea, to launch a missile into low earth orbit with a payload of few tonnes of ball bearings and a few kg of high explosives, and the damage to US assets would be enormous.
Finallly, someone that gets it. The problem is that all it will take is a few kinetic ultra low tech debris launches into the orbit of whoever you are trying to take out, and you got it. Launch a lot, and even if they somehow evade it - it's going to take a lot of fuel. Launch your explosive with a shrapnel shield to break up will make it nice and random.
The wild part is you don't even have to launch with a trajectory that looks like you are trying to take them out. Just a "something something satellite
Re:Space is "high terrain" like it or not. (Score:5, Interesting)
We are a savage (in the original sense, not the insulting sense) race who evolved to be effective killers.
The word "savage" derives from a Latin word for "wood", as in wooded, woods, woodland, forest, trees. Is that the meaning you intend? I'm not sure that makes sense.
In colonial times the aboriginal Americans were considered "savage" in that they tended to live in the woods. The shift in meaning came as the interactions between these woodland dwelling people and European immigrants became less friendly.
Space ops would be a natural extension of the Air Force but the USAF is meatbag-piloted aircraft-centric.
Indeed, operating in space is something of a natural extension of operating in the air. The Space Force is considered a semi-independent branch of the Air Force like the Marine Corps is to the Navy. If I were in charge I would have called it the Space Corps for this reason, to carry on this parallel, but I wasn't elected POTUS. I guess my application to be on the ballot was lost in the mail.
This pilot centered nature of the USAF has caused problems. One is in the USAF they have more drone crashes on landing than in other services. The cause was discovered to be the pilots in the USAF were more likely to manually land than others. They considered themselves pilots first, and drone operators second. Other services tended to allow the drone autopilot to land, and fewer crashes resulted.
I recall an interesting commentary on how a space force should be modeled more like a navy than an air force. In both the air force and navy there is an inherent independence of each vehicle/vessel/whatever but in the navy they have more of a need for coordination among vessels, larger crews, and more time to consider their actions. In orbit things slow down, and the motions look more like ships at sea than jets in the air. It would be interesting to do some kind of A-B testing to see which kind of "culture" is more efficient in a space force. The likelihood of any such experimentation happening though is slim to none.
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Indeed, operating in space is something of a natural extension of operating in the air. The Space Force is considered a semi-independent branch of the Air Force like the Marine Corps is to the Navy. If I were in charge I would have called it the Space Corps for this reason, to carry on this parallel, but I wasn't elected POTUS.
More importantly, if we had a Space Corps we could have had Space Marines. I can't believe we had the opportunity to have Space Marines and missed it!
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More importantly, if we had a Space Corps we could have had Space Marines. I can't believe we had the opportunity to have Space Marines and missed it!
They decided to call a member of the Space Force a "guardian", was "marine" taken? There's "soldier", "airman", "sailor", and...? I think that's all of them. ;^)
I find "guardian" both a bit silly and generic. For one a guardian, at least to me, implies an almost passive role. I'm thinking, "do not fire until fired upon" as opposed to a "go get 'em" attitude. That may be intentional. It's also a bit close to "guardsman" which is what I would call someone in the National Guard or Coast Guard. In the en
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More importantly, if we had a Space Corps we could have had Space Marines. I can't believe we had the opportunity to have Space Marines and missed it!
They decided to call a member of the Space Force a "guardian", was "marine" taken? There's "soldier", "airman", "sailor", and...? I think that's all of them. ;^)
I find "guardian" both a bit silly and generic. For one a guardian, at least to me, implies an almost passive role. I'm thinking, "do not fire until fired upon" as opposed to a "go get 'em" attitude. That may be intentional. It's also a bit close to "guardsman" which is what I would call someone in the National Guard or Coast Guard. In the end aren't all members of the US military a "guardian"?
Technically, as I recall, a member of the Army National Guard is a soldier, and a member of the Air National Guard is an airman, neither a guardsman. Is a member of the Coast Guard also a sailor? A quick search of the internet came up with just more people asking the same question, and informal suggestions like "coastie".
It's all in good fun. As an Army veteran I have great respect for all that served and while they may not admit it readily we all know all of us answers to whomever occupies the Oval Office regardless of branch.
I believe the US Coast Guard is more para-military unless activated in wartime and seconded to the US Navy. And they are not part of DoD for legal reasons: The military is prevented from civilian law enforcement activities due to Posse Comitatus laws, whereas one of the Coast Guard's primary missions is civilian law enforcement.
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I recall an interesting commentary on how a space force should be modeled more like a navy than an air force. In both the air force and navy there is an inherent independence of each vehicle/vessel/whatever but in the navy they have more of a need for coordination among vessels, larger crews, and more time to consider their actions. In orbit things slow down, and the motions look more like ships at sea than jets in the air. It would be interesting to do some kind of A-B testing to see which kind of "culture" is more efficient in a space force. The likelihood of any such experimentation happening though is slim to none.
They got their patch from Star Trek, why not the rank structure. From a serious perspective, Navy's traditionally, for large powers, are used for power protection and maintain sea lanes open for passage. It seems Space Force has a similar mission and thus Navy ranks make sense.
Space Corps is a way better name... (Score:2)
Just saying... The Emperor protects?
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It must be militarized. Moral examples don't work on humans so the only security is the credible ability to inflict overwhelming violence. No one reading this can make the slightest difference in the nature of humanity. We are a savage (in the original sense, not the insulting sense) race who evolved to be effective killers. You may not like that but you make no difference.
Now explain to us how any country can orbit a big bag of sand in a retrograde orbit, and it won't have any effect.
The concept that we have to start killing people in space because it's awesome and just natural aspect of humanity.
Are you willing to give up anything that is done by satellites now just to satisfy your blood lust?
If I asked an army general to cook me dinner (Score:2)
My kitchen would be a warfighting force too.
Space junk (Score:1)
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At least that increases the chance by some magnitudes to get rid of them prematurely. Those rockets tend to blow up from time to time.
Re:Space junk (Score:4, Interesting)
the US military & playboy billionaires are going to pollute low earth orbit with space junk.
Isn't one defining feature of "low Earth orbit" that nothing stays there for long without repeated boosts to make up for atmospheric drag? The ISS is in LEO and it needs to get a boost occasionally or it would burn up in the air.
One orbit that get people concerned are polar orbits, like when China tested an anti-satellite weapon on a weather satellite. That put a lot of debris that passes over the poles where all polar orbits pass, by definition. Another orbit is geostationary/geosynchronous orbit as that's valuable space to park something. While it is technically a near stationary orbit the satellites "wiggle" over a spot on the Earth and those wiggles can overlap and therefore the satellites could collide.
There's certainly valuable orbits to be concerned about with junk accumulating, I am not so sure anything considered "low" is in that category. If I'm mistaken then I'd like to hear why.
Oh, and the US military doesn't often play in LEO. That's space that is easier to get shot down, and being unstable orbits means needing constant station keeping corrections. Navstar GPS sats are in quite high orbits specifically to make them hard to hit. Given that their function is to advertise where they are means finding them is not terribly difficult. The hard part is, in theory at least, having a big enough rocket to get there. Shooting something down from LEO has been done with high flying jets carrying a rocket, not some Saturn V kind of launch.
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So... you didn't make any effort to learn anything at all about this, but spent four paragraphs bloviating about what you imagine might be true? A true slashdotter for sure.
It is not as if anyone ever heard of the the Kessler Syndrome [wikipedia.org] nor that programs are in place to mitigate the risk by deorbiting dead satellites.
No, the need to boost to stay in orbit is not a "defining feature" of low Earth orbit. An orbital period of 128 minutes or less is [wikipedia.org] which extends up to 1200 miles. Only altitude below 400 miles ex
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He just asked a simple question. A perfectly reasonable one that a lot of people would be wondering. "Won't stuff in LEO experience drag?". He even asked to be corrected if he was mistaken.
You could have just civilly answered his question like an adult, but you decided to be an insulting and insufferable asshole for no reason at all instead. A "true slashdotter" indeed.
-1 Flamebait.
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spy sattelites are typicall in LEO, it allows to take better pictures, but more importantly to move around the globe quicker.
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spy sattelites are typicall in LEO, it allows to take better pictures, but more importantly to move around the globe quicker.
Ah, yes, of course. I remember something about certain polar orbits would be used so they could get a kind of 3D view by having a site off to the left a bit and then off to the right on the next pass so they can get heights of buildings and such. This must also be helpful in looking down valleys but I speculate. Keeping the sun behind the cameras and other sensors was important too.
There must be a solar tracking orbit that is quite crowded, now that I think about it.
Blood Budgets. (Score:2)
So this "new" space force (USSPACECOM existed for over fifteen years near Peterson at NORAD, this is hardly a new concept), suddenly needs to be defined as a warfighting force? Did someone shoot the horse in front of the cart in order to create an enemy here?
"Warfighting"...I guess that's how you get the trillion-dollar budget instead of those pesky multi-billion dollar "cold war" budgets that were soooo 20th Century.
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Did someone shoot the horse in front of the cart in order to create an enemy here?
Step 1: release grainy footage of ‘UFOs’
Step 2: Say we can’t take the fight to Aliens
Step 3: ?
Step 4: Profit!
To Infinity and Beyond!! (Score:1)
...sez General James "Buzz Lightyear" Dickinson. 'Nuff said.
Warfighting... (Score:2)
..could be interesting, the USA has signed an agreement to be responsible for any damage their spacecraft cause in any other territory regardless of the reason ...
Goodbye neutrality? (Score:2)
Does anyone remember when the US signed treaties with other countries that space would not be militarized and would be utilized by all for peaceful purposes?
Me neither.
its not an Army or a Navy or a militia (Score:1)
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Dichotomy (Score:2, Insightful)
Trump: Space Force!
The Entire World: What a stupid idea! I mean there's already a show about how stupid this is.
Biden: Lets give it an extra $2 Billion.
Being a better president than Trump is a pretty low bar, but Biden keeps hitting it with his knee.
or in other words (Score:1)
No One Has Noticed the Link Is To A Google Story (Score:2)
The "space command" link the TFS as I write this has this link address: https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com].
We see now diligent the whole slashdot crewe is this morning.
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Yeah I noticed that too. Almost as bad as the 3 dupes they posted last week.
BROKEN links and correct one (Score:2)
Why is "has reached Initial Operational Capability" link to the wrong article??? It takes you to "Google Says Staff Have No Right to Protest Its Choice of Clients"
It should link to: https://spacenews.com/dickinso... [spacenews.com]
Editors: You had ONE job.
Star Wars 2.0 (Score:2)
This is just an "upgrade" to the old star wars defense program/idea:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
50% of our budget is military (Score:2)
If your family spent 50% of their income on guns and ammo, you'd be called crazy. But as a country this is exactly what we're doing. We spend half of our discretionary spending on our military. I'm a combat veteran, and I still love the military, but we really need to reexamine our national priorities, and I'm not sure if we even know what those priorities are, other than spending more and more money what we cannot afford on our military. Meanwhile, the American people cannot afford healthcare, education, h
We could have had, we could have had... (Score:2)
I religiously watch "For All Mankind" because it's a giant, zillion-dollar version of all those articles about what We Could Have Had, if we'd just spent the military budget on space, way back when.
But, just trimming off the excess fat, for the $70B *increase* to the military budget that Trump pushed through (on bipartisan greased wheels, who says there's no agreement) last year, which was followed *another* 5% increase this year, well above inflation as usual, We Could Have Had:
* Free College was estimated
Permanent home (Score:1)
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I'm pretty sure as far as Europe is concerned you can take it and ship it over to the US.
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Remember when the President was touring it, and Trump the builder was astonished at how high quality it was?
HA HA "trump the builder" more like "Trump the non-payer of building contractors". I guess he should know what solid architecture looks like, though, since he's fucked over so many contractors.
Triggered, snowflake? (Score:2)
Aww, I hurt a poor wittle twumpykins feewings