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The Military Space United States

What's the Mission of the US Space Force? (msn.com) 148

Posted by EditorDavid from the guardians-of-the-galaxy dept.
A new article in the Washington Post reports that even internally, "Space Force officials are still debating its priorities, analysts say: Is it to support warfighters on the ground? Or should it focus primarily on protecting assets in space? Or both?"

In April, the Washington Post reported that space would likely be a key part of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and one possible Space Force counter-measure would "ensure that the United States avoids 'operational surprise,' by keeping track of other countries' satellites and movements in space while also being able to 'identify behaviors that become irresponsible or even hostile.'"

To address the possibility of enemies shooting down satellites, the Space Force is also "pivoting, relying on constellations of small satellites that can be easily replaced and, to an increasing degree, maneuver." That's just one example of how the Space Force intends to ensure the U.S. maintains "space superiority," as its leaders often say, to protect the satellites the Defense Department relies on for warnings of incoming missiles, steering precision-guided munitions and surveilling both friendly and hostile forces. It also could deter conflict in space — why strike a satellite if there are backups that would easily carry on the mission...?

[Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, the commander of the 45th Space Wing] gave a tour of some of the roles the Space Force could play, offering a glimpse into its future. Soldiers and Marines already pre-position supplies and equipment on the ground, he said. Could the Space Force start storing supplies in space and then fly them to hot spots on Earth as well? "In theory, we could have huge racks of stuff in orbit and then somebody can call those in, saying. 'I need X, Y, Z delivered to me now on this random island.' And then, boom, they shoot out and they parachute in and they land with GPS assistance," he said. "It's a fascinating thought exercise for emergency response — you know if a type of tidal wave or tsunami comes in and wipes out a whole area."

The military is also working to harness solar energy in space, and then beam it to ground stations. Could the Space Force use that technology to beam power to remote areas to support soldiers on the ground? Another idea: If the cadence of launches really does double or triple and the costs continue to come down, could the Space Force start using rockets to deliver cargo across the globe at a moment's notice? Soon there could be commercial space stations floating around in orbit. "Can we lease a room?" Purdy said. "Can we lease a module?"
A former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believes the U.S. Space Force is misunderstood — at least partly because much of what it does is classified. "We fundamentally need to normalize the classification," he tells the Washington Post, "so we can have a conversation with the public, with the American people."
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What's the Mission of the US Space Force? More

What's the Mission of the US Space Force?

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  • Just a thought... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FlyingSquidStudios ( 1031284 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @04:00AM (#63652604)
    Maybe you should have figured out why you were going to spend a ridiculous amount of money to create a new branch of the military first before you actually did it. I know, I know, hindsight is 20/20.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 )

      Maybe you should have figured out why you were going to spend a ridiculous amount of money to create a new branch of the military first before you actually did it. I know, I know, hindsight is 20/20.

      That would have required the former President to actually think.

      • Good point.

      • Re:Just a thought... (Score:4, Funny)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @08:01AM (#63652960)

        That would have required the former President to actually think.

        That is completely unfair and uncalled for. The former President thought a lot... exclusively about himself and the decisions reflected his own self interest, but there was still thinking involved.

      • Re:Just a thought... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by p0gue ( 1110213 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @09:30AM (#63653248)
        Congress passed the legislation creating spaceforce, the president only signed it. About 500 voted for, 50 against. Almost unanimous. Apparently the Congress wasn't thinking either.

        • Re:Just a thought... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @09:55AM (#63653312)
          People here seem really wrong about what Space Command is. Space Command is control of space assets like military satellites and defense of all US satellites in case of attack. Space Command is not Space Marines which Trump thought it was. As such separating that duty from the Air Force as more and more satellites were launched was the right thing for Congress to do. This mirrors when the Air Force was formally separated out of the Army in 1947 as the two had separate duties and should have separate command structures.
    • Wouldn't happen. While Space Force was part of the air force, the answer to 'what should our priorities be' would always be 'whatever makes the people flying jets happiest'. The ability to determine and maximise optimum independent operational priorities *is* the reason to spin off Space Force, so the space assists aren't just an afterthought.
    • Relative to the rest of the military budget, I don't think changing the name on some letterhead cost all that much. These are questions that would need to be answered whether they were a separate branch or they were still part of the Air Force. Or it's possible that if they were still part of the Air Force, nobody would be bothering to ask these questions.
      • Personally I see there was a need for two reasons. First they were becoming larger so at some point there were going to be a huge sub unit of the Air Force. Second, the skill set and subject area expertise was different. Control of air is different than control of space. Remember the Air Force was once a part of the Army until they were formally separated that the Air Force controlled the air and the Army was responsible for the ground.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by denzacar ( 181829 )

      More like 2016.

      Elections. Consequences. Russian puppets... [wikipedia.org]

    • No the need for a new branch is there. To be clear Space Command has a distinct purpose: maintenance, control, and defense of space assets. The question being posed is what are their first priorities. The obvious answer is always "Yes to all above" but for practical purposes doing everything first does not work out well.

    • Maybe you should have figured out why you were going to spend a ridiculous amount of money to create a new branch of the military first before you actually did it. I know, I know, hindsight is 20/20.

      Actually it started because they noticed they were already spending a ridiculous amount of money on space across various military and intelligence organizations. At time redundantly, and at time with info silo'ed within. Unifying all those orgs under one parent was deemed beneficial. Then they had to decide what to call it, and that's where it got a little odd.

  • Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @04:03AM (#63652608)

    Is it to support warfighters on the ground?
    Or should it focus primarily on protecting assets in space?

    Seemed the Army and Air Force was handling those pretty well ... What about assets at sea? Oh, right, we have a Navy and Marines. Maybe the coast? Nope, Coast Guard. So far it seems their biggest reason for being is so a (now former) President could say "Space Force".

    • That's probably why the former president did it, but it's still an organizational change that makes sense. It's the same reason that the Air Force was split from the Army.

      Of course, the former president will always tout it as a grand accomplishment and amazing leadership decision that only he could make, when it was basically just taking a department and changing who the head of the department reports to.

      • Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @05:58AM (#63652748)

        it's still an organizational change that makes sense.

        If the change made sense, we wouldn't be three and a half years into the existence of Space Force and seeing internal memos that show they still don't have a good grasp on what they should be doing.

        • Probably because we have yet to ever have a war where assets in space were directly threatened. There have never been any battles fought in space. That means everything is hypothetical at this point. But while no one yet knows what space combat will look like, it's pretty clear that it WILL be a big part of any future war between major powers. Creating the Space Force was the correct thing to do.

          • That's like arguing that because everyone eventually gets cancer everyone should start chugging chemo today, without contacting any kind of expert or making some kind of a plan about it.
            Better safe than sorry.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Well, I think currently the Space Force is in charge of GPS - formerly a role taken up by the Air Force. Which makes sense I suppose - the Air Force was in charge of the ground and space assets (the ground assets of GPS compute the required orbits and any corrections that need to be sent from each satellite, and then those corrections and new almanac data are then uplinked to the satellites to send down for each GPS receiver).

          But other than that and maybe taking over some spy satellites

          Other than that, I do

          • Other than that, I don't see what they have in their day to day duties other than making sure GPS stays working.

            I am pretty sure that Space Force is in command of US military satellites. They are also probably keeping tabs on Russian, Chinese, [other foreign power] military satellites. I do not know if these satellites have any offensive and defensive capabilities against each other or ground assets but that is also something Space Command should be in charge of knowing. In the event of war against Russia or China, could those countries use their satellites against non-military but U.S. assets like communications an

        • They do not have a good grasp of priorities and leadership. Trump was never going to be a good leader in this regard. He just signed the act to separate and declared victory. Also as new organization there is not clear direction on which priorities are first. I would think both the two mentioned priorities are important; which one should they focus on right now is the issue. Should the current administration set clear priorities? Yes they should.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      Eh, the Air Force spawned out of the Army Air Corps. Since then the Air Force was decidedly the primary military asset for satellite resources used by all of our agency. The Marines started out as a segment of the Navy, and some would argue that their paychecks do still, in fact, say Department of the Navy on them. Pretty much anything that was not mobilized at sea or based on land got shuffled into the Air Forces' domain. It seems logical that as demand for running and maintaining LEO assets increases, the

    • So far it seems their biggest reason for being is so a (now former) President could say "Space Force".

      "Space Force" is the name of the technique aides used for getting him into and out of his golf cart.

  • [Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, the commander of the 45th Space Wing] ... "In theory, we could have huge racks of stuff in orbit and then somebody can call those in, saying. 'I need X, Y, Z delivered to me now on this random island.' And then, boom, they shoot out and they parachute in and they land with GPS assistance," ...

    ... burn up in the atmosphere. Has he heard of heat shields/tiles, etc? There's a reason things de-orbiting Earth don't simply use parachutes from the start -- and supersonic parachutes are tricky even on Mars with its much less dense atmosphere. He's commander of Space Force?

    • Not to mention that it costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $10k to put 1 kg into orbit. We don't need ways to make emergency supplies more expensive.

      • Not to mention that it costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $10k to put 1 kg into orbit. We don't need ways to make emergency supplies more expensive.

        A cost analysis without a benefit analysis is useless.
        The word "benefit" is another way of saying "a cost you don't have to pay because you took prior action".

        It may cost $10,000 to put 1kg of useful material in orbit.
        What will be the cost to have 0kg of useful materials on the ground and the capacity to deliver 0kg of materials to their needed destination because your assets were captured/vaporized?

        However, I agree with your overall point.
        I think there is a 99.9% chance the general knows exactly the absurd

        • I think there is a 99.9% chance the general knows exactly the absurdity of what he is saying.

          Indeed. I think that fixating upon him not mentioning heat shields and not the "in theory" part. "In theory" means that if you don't account for a boatload of issues like cost, it would work. I'd also assume that he basically just summarized the start of the journey as "shoot out" and the end as "parachute in".

          There are even theoretical emergency supplies that would be worth $10k/kg in the right spot at the right(very little notice) time.

          If Musk gets the price down to $1k/kg, perhaps in relatively low or

    • and supersonic parachutes are tricky even on Mars with its much less dense atmosphere. He's commander of Space Force?

      You do know that parachutes when used in de-orbiting are not used for 100% of the de-orbit, right? They are generally used for the last part when the payload nears the ground. I do not know a single Mars lander that did not use a parachute for part of the landing. I would guess a former Air Force general knows how parachutes work.

      • I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. The General made it sound like the only thing used would be a parachute, which isn't really going to work from orbit. Any descending payload is going to get very warm w/o some sort of shielding way before a parachute deploys -- then it's going to be going really fast, perhaps too fast for even a supersonic parachute to work in Earth's denser atmosphere. That and the cost of lofting stuff into orbit makes his idea rather impractical. He said it was "theore

        • Simplist answer is that he wasn't describing the complete system, just the first and last steps, because, as you say, theoretical, so no real need to describe everything a working system would have. So first step - "Boom"- things happen rapidly, but most likely a rocket firing to eject the payload from the satellite and slow it down for re-entry. Depending on the power of the rocket, you might not actually need significant heat protection because we're going for fast and accurate, thus the less aerobrakin

        • The General made it sound like the only thing used would be a parachute, which isn't really going to work from orbit.

          No you assumed that the only thing used would be parachutes as the General did not exhaustively list every step of de-orbitting.

          For example if an Army General were to talk about deploying troops in the scenario, "In theory, we could have soldiers on standby and then somebody can call those in, saying. 'I need troops delivered to me now on this random island.' And then, boom, they parachute in and they land with GPS assistance," would your first quibble be on how the Army General needs to learn about airpla

  • Come, you *know* what their mission is (Score:3)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @04:52AM (#63652672) Homepage

    The Space Force is a military organization. The Space Force obviously has war-fighting, direct or indirect, as its primary mission.

    Indirect means things like maintaining satellite networks: GPS, surveillance, and so forth.

    Direct means weapons. Example: "rods from god". Second example: if you can beam microwaves to transmit power, you can also focus them to fry targets. I'm sure you can think of other examples...

    People are perfectly comfortable with bombs and machine guns and even ICBMs. They understand that the Army, Navy and Air Force break things and kill people. However, as soon as you talk about space-based weaponry, people get their panties in a twist.

    Wouldn't it be nice if space were a peaceful place? No weapons, no war? Also, I want a unicorn for my birthday...

    • However, as soon as you talk about space-based weaponry, people get their panties in a twist.

      Maybe because we signed a treaty saying we wouldn't put weapons there [armscontrol.org]?

      • Did you read your own link? The The Outer Space Treaty banned *nuclear* weapons in space. As long as you don't put WMDs in space, weapons are perfectly legal.
        • Ok, how about just avoiding Kessler Syndrome? That seems like a good enough reason to not have weapons in space to me.

          • Ok, how about just avoiding Kessler Syndrome? That seems like a good enough reason to not have weapons in space to me.

            It would be nice to avoid that. I suspect that on day one of the war so many humans lust after, GPS will go away in a few minutes, Recon sats next. Then the debris clouds will take out communication sats, then StarLink and its brethren.

            The biggest hope is that we come to understand that orbital shells really don't have boundaries, so it's a case of Mutually assured destruction.

            Are humans that smart? It seemed to work in the cold war, but it's a tough slog, and humans are a nasty bunch who have a fair

        • What else would you want to put into space? Some assault rifles? We're talking about a place where a few 100 kms are a distance that doesn't even register.

        • Re:Come, you *know* what their mission is (Score:5, Informative)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @08:08AM (#63652982)

          The The Outer Space Treaty banned *nuclear* weapons in space

          It didn't exclusively do that. The treaty is longer than one line.

          Here's a relevant line:
          "the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind;"

          The only reason a separate line called out nuclear weapons was because it was signed right in the middle of nuclear weapon hysteria. It wasn't actually necessary since placing nuclear weapons in space would have breached Article I anyway.

    • Direct means weapons. Example: "rods from god".

      So Spaceforce's very existence is to breach the Outer Space Treaty which was drafted largely at the behest of the USA?

      • So Spaceforce's very existence is to breach the Outer Space Treaty which was drafted largely at the behest of the USA?

        Well it's certainly not to defend against actual threats from space: big dinosaur-killer-sized rocks hitting the planet. NASA apparently handles that.

        https://www.nasa.gov/planetary... [nasa.gov]

      • Only if the weapon met the definition of "mass destruction". "Rods from gods" taking out an entire city would be a WMD. Taking out an enemy air force base or their space command HQ may not be.

    • The Space Force is a military organization. The Space Force obviously has war-fighting, direct or indirect, as its primary mission.

      Indirect means things like maintaining satellite networks: GPS, surveillance, and so forth.

      Direct means weapons. Example: "rods from god". Second example: if you can beam microwaves to transmit power, you can also focus them to fry targets. I'm sure you can think of other examples...

      People are perfectly comfortable with bombs and machine guns and even ICBMs. They understand that the Army, Navy and Air Force break things and kill people. However, as soon as you talk about space-based weaponry, people get their panties in a twist.

      I think what makes a whole lot of us concerned is that there is hella lot of collateral damage to be had - not just the warfighting parts. And it's a weird sort of war. It will be like instead of engaging in battle directly with your enemy, you just blow up random towns, and leave the areas around them uninhabitable. But just like WW2, eliminating the enemy resources will be a big part.

      So let's say WW3 goes total war like we can do and have done - and let's say that the group who is losing goes Nerobefe

      • Don't worry, you can't actually fight a world war with sticks and stones. They don't have the range and the logistics don't work out - if you've been reduced to that you can't transport an army overseas.

        • Don't worry, you can't actually fight a world war with sticks and stones. They don't have the range and the logistics don't work out - if you've been reduced to that you can't transport an army overseas.

          Good point!

    • "The Space Force obviously has war-fighting, direct or indirect, as its primary mission."

      That's about as useful as saying "The primary objective of our company is to sell stuff and make money."

    • Something not generally known to the public is what offensive and defensive capabilities military satellites have against each other. This is part of the Space Command mission to know for example, lasers from satellites is not only possible from adversaries but which are the capabilities and defenses.

  • What's the Mission of the US Space Force?

    Dunno ... I'm still chuckling at the fact that the USA now actually has an official force of Space Cadets [urbandictionary.com].

    • Don't knock military intelligence. They did manage to avoid the use of the prefix "space" with "cadet." Maybe they should've called them "applicants" or "contestants"?

  • Aliens (Score:3)

    by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @06:16AM (#63652768)

    It's aliens.

  • Needs to happen with like 90% of US govt docs.

  • Inertia (Score:3)

    by Alypius ( 3606369 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @06:41AM (#63652802)
    Bureaucratic inertia is a bitch. When SF was created and basically manned by the AF, DOD really didn't take it seriously and thought it would be a temporary experiment. Now that budget lines have been drawn and promotion/retention are at risk, they're left scrambling to justify their own existence.

    Douglas Adams' quip about how space is big doesn't go far enough. These days, space is the one true joint warfighting domain because of its extreme potential to affect terrestrial operations.

    • When SF was created and basically manned by the AF, DOD really didn't take it seriously and thought it would be a temporary experiment. Now that budget lines have been drawn and promotion/retention are at risk, they're left scrambling to justify their own existence.

      What are you talking about? The US military has untold numbers of surveillance and communication satellites to maintain and defend. That does not include the GPS system which is used by many civilians. And satellites do not last forever and require to be replaced as their orbits degrade or they break down . There has always been a need for someone for this purpose.

      • Of course; I've worked on some of those programs. The problem is that every satellite program is heavily stove-piped and jealously guarded. The creation of SF didn't change anything; it will take SECDEF actual (and maybe Congress) to shift ownership, and that's just for DOD assets, to say nothing of other national assets and civilian programs.

  • They should just watch the Netflix Space Force series...

    Everything will be clear then...

  • ...where no one has gone before.

  • to make Trump look cool for having created it.

  • We need them to get into the Asteroid Belt, ASAP, and I'm not kidding. It would be ideal for them to be able to *stop* anyone including us from flinging large rocks at Earth targets, but I'd settle for a realistic securing that ability for ourselves and making sure that if someone else does it we can at least know exactly *whom*. MAD unfortunately isn't going away any time soon, and it's just going to get worse.

  • The Space Force reminds me of a story from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy trilogy.

    Extraterrestrial humans who migrated to Earth in ancient times brought an odd and satirical assortment of people with them.

    One group was a small group of military men

    After landing on an Earth empty of other people their first order of business was to declare war on another continent, despite it being unpopulated.

    In 2023 the hypocrisies of Republicans to their own platforms is well established. Nothing says fisca

  • ...to make the universe great again.

  • Why would the US military divulge what it's doing? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TomGreenhaw ( 929233 ) on Monday July 03, 2023 @11:38AM (#63653604)
    Even if they did, could you believe that it's not misinformation? As long as they obey international law it's only logical to assume we don't and shouldn't know what their mission is. Our government reps, screened for clearance oversees this for us.

    The US Navy's mission is to keep sea lanes open and unimpeded for international shipping. Clearly, the US Space Force has the same mission, to keep orbital space open for use by all countries so that international commerce is unimpeded.

    In the event of war, a hostile country might consider targeting GPS and communications satellites. The US Space Force is a counter to that. It Is only logical to assume that space planes would deploy new satellites or host the communications, surveillance and GPS roles. As stealthy moving targets they would be a far harder target. This is a huge deterrent for anybody that desires to make war in space against the US, or anywhere else for that matter.

    • it's only logical to assume we don't and shouldn't know what their mission is.

      Yikes

      Our government reps, screened for clearance oversees this for us.

      Double-yikes. There has been ample evidence, going back decades, that our government reps are not doing this oversight -and- the various TLAs and military branches are actively and deliberately concealing things from oversight.

      How can our government reps have oversight over things they don't have sight of?
      This isn't some super simple NTFS where you can just go to a top level container and force inherited Owner/View permissions on all child objects anywhere down the path. Just like with malware, in the

      • I agree with you. We deserve and should demand better people. I'm describing how the the system is designed to work and you're describing its failures. There are really a lot of good people running things, but that's without fanfare.

        IMHO, the way we select leaders is flawed. When the Supreme Court decided in Citizens United that donations are protected free speech, it opened the floodgates of dark corrupt and foreign money. I think campaign donations should only be allowed for those who can actually vote

  • IMHO, it's more about budgeting initially. There was a time when there was no Air Force. Air operations had to compete with ground operations for funding. If the powers-that-be in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corp didn't want to make air operations a priority, they didn't get funded. Space operations have had to fight for funding against other priorities. So now they only have to justify their budget before Congress. Make no mistake, space is a battlefield. Being able to knock out your opponents satelli

  • Until we have space colonies, trying to be there without paying taxes to earth.
    Then do a lot to try to make the colonies pay such taxes and hope they don't drop a few colonies on earth.

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