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Space Force

Darth Jar-Jar (Bush II) did the same thing, remember?

He got in trouble and started talking about outer space to try and change the subject.

Republicans do it because it works. Did Bush's proposal actually go anywhere or accomplish anything? Of course not. He only made it to change the national conversation for a brief period. No one actually gave a shit about what he proposed.
 
A Space Force? Let's look at some history and use it to judge what might become a Space Force.

The first United States Army was the Continental Army, created by the Second Continental Congress in 1775. After the Revolutionary War, it was disbanded except for some 80 soldiers because the American revolutionary leaders considered standing armies a threat to republicanism. They didn't want to be up against some military coupmeister. Congress authorized a First American Regiment at this time, but that was about it. Most of the infant United States's army was state militias. But after the defeat of General Arthur St. Clair's army in Ohio by some Native Americans in 1791, Congress authorized the creation of a standing army, the Legion of the United States, and it was renamed the United States Army in 1795. However, the creators of the US Constitution carefully specified that a civilian was to be the Commander in Chief of all the US's armed forces: the President.

Likewise, the first United States Navy was the Continental Navy, and it was also disbanded after the Revolutionary War. But to stop smuggling, the US Congress established its Revenue Cutter Service in 1790, and to fight the Barbary pirates of North Africa, the US Congress established the US Navy in 1794. The RCS eventually became the main part of the US Coast Guard in 1915.

The first United States Marine Corps was the Continental Marines, complete with being disbanded after the Revolutionary War. It was restarted in 1798.

Turning to the United States Air Force, it originated as the US Army Air Forces in 1907, but it only became independent in 1947.


So the US Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard are almost as old as the US itself, while the US Air Force is much more recent -- and it originated out of the US Army.
 
How about we actually put some people living in space (or at least find some people already there) before we jump the gun and start sending soldiers there to defend (or kill) them.

Seriously, this is so stupid.

Maybe the US needs a "Mantle Force" too.

You know, to protect it's interests near the Earth's core.
You never know when some pesky mole person is going to start taking all the good magma for himself.
 
zorq said:
How about we actually put some people living in space (or at least find some people already there) before we jump the gun and start sending soldiers there to defend (or kill) them.

Seriously, this is so stupid.

Maybe the US needs a "Mantle Force" too.

You know, to protect it's interests near the Earth's core.
You never know when some pesky mole person is going to start taking all the good magma for himself.
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What, you're just going to send innocent people up there without having soldiers there to protect them first? You monster. What if some Mexicans sneak into orbit to rape and kill them?
 
Underseer said:
Darth Jar-Jar (Bush II) did the same thing, remember?

He got in trouble and started talking about outer space to try and change the subject.

Republicans do it because it works. Did Bush's proposal actually go anywhere or accomplish anything? Of course not. He only made it to change the national conversation for a brief period. No one actually gave a shit about what he proposed.
Click to expand...


Remember Dan Quayle and going to Mars? Wheeeee!
 
Let us now look at what might become a US Space Force.

The US Air Force has a Space Command in it, and it dates back to 1982. So the Space Command could be spun off as a US Space Force, repeating the history of the US Air Force itself.

The USAF Space Command is in charge of the following:
  • Launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg AFB, and elsewhere.
  • Military communications satellites
  • Military weather satellites
  • Military navigation satellites (the GPS originated as that)
  • Incoming-missile early-warning systems
  • Spy satellites
  • Antisatellite-weapon research

Spy satellites go back a long way, to the US Corona ones in 1959 and the Russian Zenit ones in 1961. Some of them have impressive size, like the KH-11 ones, roughly the size of the Hubble Space Telescope. As far as anyone can tell, they are big telescopes, but aimed at our planet.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
Random Person said:
Kinetic bombardment would likely skirt this problem since tungsten rods aren't armament.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
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Good luck aiming a rod to hit a target.
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That is not the problem. The problem is the cost of large and heavy tungsten metal rods in orbit is prohibitively expensive. It will never be done for that reason.
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Ah, now you've done it.
Someone'll tell Cheato that Obama would never have spent the money on Tungsten rods and...
 
There is also a curious problem. The US has been joined by Russia and China in researching antisatellite weapons. Yet President Trump has a fondness for their leaders and the leader of North Korea, a fondness that he does not have for his fellow leaders of democratic nations. Consider Angela Merkel confronting him at the recent G7 conference.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
Don2 (Don1 Revised) said:
President Trump vowed on Monday to make space great again.

Speaking at a meeting of the National Space Council, Trump ordered the Pentagon to immediately establish a national “space force” that would become the sixth branch of the armed forces.

“We are going to have a space force,” Trump said in Washington D.C. “An Air Force and a Space Force. Separate, but equal.”

This is not the first time that Trump has floated the idea of establishing a “space force.” The president mentioned the idea in May during a ceremony at the White House honoring the Army Black Knights college football team.
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...hment-space-force-as-6th-branch-military.html

This is definitely something we need to do. In 200 years.
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If space cadet Trump really wanted to do some good, he would establish a project to be better able to scan for incoming asteroids and large meteors, and start studying how to deflect the inevitable Big One.
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This. If he'd try to start a multi-national Asteroid Watch, and negotiate acceptable procedures for using various methods (including nukes) to change the orbits of dangerous space rocks, I'd say it was the first worthwhile thing he's done. If he pushed for a program to explore and mine asteroids and comets, I'd be all for it.

But Reagan's version of Star Wars never flew, and Rump's won't, either.
 
zorq said:
How about we actually put some people living in space (or at least find some people already there) before we jump the gun and start sending soldiers there to defend (or kill) them.

Seriously, this is so stupid.

Maybe the US needs a "Mantle Force" too.

You know, to protect it's interests near the Earth's core.
You never know when some pesky mole person is going to start taking all the good magma for himself.
Click to expand...

Excellent idea. The mole people must dis-mantle their WMDs!
 
Opoponax said:
In all seriousness, if Trump proposed the idea of mining the asteroid belt, I'd totally agree with him. But Space Force? Is there any legitimate reason for this? I feel like somewhere, there's someone who can say, "Actually, this makes sense because..."
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You can bomb your enemies from space! You don't even need explosives, you just redirect a smallish asteroid on a randezvous with say Pyong-Yang and you can easily get a megaton without angering China or South Korea with any pesky fallout.
4e8788e90b7f21412f89d6ef2768b110.jpg

Vault Boy approves!
 
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Jobar said:
But Reagan's version of Star Wars never flew, and Rump's won't, either.
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Well Reagan's Star Wars was really just a missile defense program. Renewing that would be worthwhile to defend against North Korean and Iranian missiles (when they develop the bomb). It failed in Reagan's day because it was 80s tech and because the task was to intercept thousands of missiles launched at the same time. With Little Kim we are only facing a dozen or so missiles at most, and we have better tech than the Gipper had.
 
Trump says he’ll “reopen NASA”. Today, he is proposing that the United States commit itself to the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the planet his supporters are living on. - Rocky Mountain Mike
 
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