Space Force

[Keith&Co.]

Trump Space Farce

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[Keith&Co.]

Good luck aiming a rod to hit a target.

It's been done.
Selenium rods on the front end of a Trident II missile.
A meter of metal at reentry velocity with the Trident's ever-increasing precision... Fuck up your whole afternoon.

 

[Artemus]

I saw very brief mention of the "Space Force" before I left for home yesterday and decided on the drive that I must have seen it on a parody site. Nope. How does The Onion stay in business when they have to compete against this reality?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Good luck aiming a rod to hit a target.

It's been done.
Selenium rods on the front end of a Trident II missile.
A meter of metal at reentry velocity with the Trident's ever-increasing precision... Fuck up your whole afternoon.

I’m thinkinn the missile part could complicate the treaty issue, or future treaty issue to cover the gap.

 

[Random Person]

Good luck aiming a rod to hit a target.

It's been done.
Selenium rods on the front end of a Trident II missile.
A meter of metal at reentry velocity with the Trident's ever-increasing precision... Fuck up your whole afternoon.

I’m thinkinn the missile part could complicate the treaty issue, or future treaty issue to cover the gap.

The idea is that they are dropped from satellites.*




* I just read the article, I have no idea if it's true.

 

[bilby]

Good luck aiming a rod to hit a target.

It's been done.
Selenium rods on the front end of a Trident II missile.
A meter of metal at reentry velocity with the Trident's ever-increasing precision... Fuck up your whole afternoon.

I’m thinkinn the missile part could complicate the treaty issue, or future treaty issue to cover the gap.

I'm thinking the missile part renders a 'Space Force' redundant, as the existing services already have ballistic missiles based in underground silos and on submarines, where enemies cannot readily locate and destroy them in a preemptive attack.

In space there's nowhere to hide; Putting weapons into orbit is an expensive and pointless excercise, when you could instead keep them hidden somewhere at the bottom of the gravity well until they are needed.

It's not like there is some place on the planet that the USA couldn't annihilate right now, but which a Space Force would be able to target; And there really aren't any worthwhile targets off planet that are out of reach for existing forces either.

What is the Space Force supposed to be for?

 

[Keith&Co.]

I’m thinkinn the missile part could complicate the treaty issue, or future treaty issue to cover the gap.

Just saying you can aim rods.
Now, convincing everyone that death satellites overhead are NOT weaponizing space, that's a job for better diplomats than Trump has yet deployed...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I’m thinkinn the missile part could complicate the treaty issue, or future treaty issue to cover the gap.

Just saying you can aim rods.
Now, convincing everyone that death satellites overhead are NOT weaponizing space, that's a job for better diplomats than Trump has yet deployed...

I knew rods attached to missiles could be aimed, I meant more about simply launching a piece of mass to Earth on its own.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I’m thinkinn the missile part could complicate the treaty issue, or future treaty issue to cover the gap.

I'm thinking the missile part renders a 'Space Force' redundant, as the existing services already have ballistic missiles based in underground silos and on submarines, where enemies cannot readily locate and destroy them in a preemptive attack.

In space there's nowhere to hide; Putting weapons into orbit is an expensive and pointless excercise, when you could instead keep them hidden somewhere at the bottom of the gravity well until they are needed.

It's not like there is some place on the planet that the USA couldn't annihilate right now, but which a Space Force would be able to target; And there really aren't any worthwhile targets off planet that are out of reach for existing forces either.

What is the Space Force supposed to be for?

Protect America from Space Immigrants and Space Free Trade.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I’m thinkinn the missile part could complicate the treaty issue, or future treaty issue to cover the gap.

The idea is that they are dropped from satellites.*




* I just read the article, I have no idea if it's true.

You can’t just drop something from orbit and hope it hits a target.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I knew rods attached to missiles could be aimed, I meant more about simply launching a piece of mass to Earth on its own.

Um...and the difference between a missile's equipment section and a death satellite would be...?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I knew rods attached to missiles could be aimed, I meant more about simply launching a piece of mass to Earth on its own.

Um...and the difference between a missile's equipment section and a death satellite would be...?

The tech required to launch a rod and hit a target without any stabilization or propulsion a rod.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I knew rods attached to missiles could be aimed, I meant more about simply launching a piece of mass to Earth on its own.

Um...and the difference between a missile's equipment section and a death satellite would be...?

The tech required to launch a rod and hit a target without any stabilization or propulsion a rod.

That's kinda what i''m asking. What tech is required?

 

[bilby]

The tech required to launch a rod and hit a target without any stabilization or propulsion a rod.

That's kinda what i''m asking. What tech is required?

I would have thought that you could hit pretty much any target you want to from orbit, using something similar to the existing JDAM. It's going to need some modification to survive reentry, but if the payload is just a big hunk of metal, ablating some of that as a heat shield shouldn't be too difficult to arrange.

It's still going to be less stealthy, more vulnerable, more expensive, and less compliant with international treaty obligations than existing weapons, while not being any more powerful, effective or accurate than those exising systems, though.

So it's possible, but pointless.

 

[Bronzeage]

At this point, the only thing in favor of a Space Force seems to be that Trump wants one. What's favorable point number 2?

Space Armies are cool.

in the real world, though, it would make more sense to combine the existing forces just due to the duplication of effort in the training pipelines and admin functions. It would also open up more general billets for people looking for a shore duty near or in their hometown.
But they've been suggesting that for a gazillion years. Trump wants something new and sexy to stamp his name on.

This is pretty much Trump's contribution to all the projects which bear his name. He has no idea what is involved and doesn't care. He'll let the little people work out the details.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I would have thought that you could hit pretty much any target you want to from orbit, using something similar to the existing JDAM. It's going to need some modification to survive reentry, but if the payload is just a big hunk of metal, ablating some of that as a heat shield shouldn't be too difficult to arrange.

Yeah, the D5 missile essentially already launches a satellite into orbit, just not into a stable orbit. The equipment section positions itself so that the payload is in the desired trajectory, disconnects from the warhead (or the rod) and then the ES tiptoes away from the warhead that's falling ballistically to go do boom-stuff.

The only difference for a satellite would be a bigger rocket to get into stable orbit, and a bit more fuel for maneuvering.

 

[ZiprHead]

Not 'mere.' They're a very important part of the Navy. marines were invented so that sailors wouldn't get hurt. Yep. Well, some of them know it. Some just get all kinds of upset until you prove it.

Marine - Muscles are required intelligence not essential.

Marine - My Ass Really Is Navy Equipment.

The only reason they are on board Naval vessels is because sheep would be too obvious.

I always heard it as "rides in Navy equipment."

I could probably get more from my brother. He was a Navy corpsman in a marine unit.

 

[ZiprHead]

I’m thinkinn the missile part could complicate the treaty issue, or future treaty issue to cover the gap.

The idea is that they are dropped from satellites.*




* I just read the article, I have no idea if it's true.

Would you like to know more?

 

[marc]

Somehow I see this as being similar to how people in the military are trained to deal with Trump:

Show

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/0jdQqjcsfC8[/YOUTUBE]

 

[KeepTalking]

Yes, the fatal flaw is that Trump proposed it. But then again there were people who opposed creating an Air Force that is separate but equal to the Army.

There is an international treaty forbidding this. And we don’t have the money for our terrestrial military to try and create space crafts and weapons.

We spend more than the rest of the world combined. We could cut our defense budget in half and still spend more than the next two biggest military budgets combined. We could divert half the defense budget to this and the only thing we'd lose is we'd have to pull out of a few of the places we shouldn't be in anyway.

One of those places would be space.