hobbsyoyo
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That's not entirely true. Anyone can go online and pull down TLEs for space objects. I do it for my job and it requires no verification of any kind to access.
Space Force
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Timsup2nothin
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Could you do that from a Russian IP address?
Timsup2nothin
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It still points to the foulness of hegemony. Let's say that at present the data is readily available worldwide, through the largess of the US. There is no guarantee that largess continues. In fact, usually it is withdrawn eventually, after repeated uses of threats to withdraw it have worn out its value as a club. That's why any effort to reinforce such largess by applying an international regulatory body with sufficient teeth to bring the US to heel would encounter immediate resistance. A toothless international body operating as a facade that would do whatever the US demands would no doubt be welcomed by the US though.
Well, there are two sides to this view: the Army's and the Air Force's.
From the Air Force's point of view, the Army bureaucracy effectively declared war on military aviation as a viable aspect of American warmaking in the 1920s with the Billy Mitchell trial. During the 1930s, the Air Force narrative went, lack of discretionary funds stunted aviation development and left American pilots with woefully inferior aircraft at the outbreak of war. Fortunately, in 1941-42, the most prominent Army Air Corps officers successfully advocated for the merits of the force as an effectively separate institution, leading to it becoming a coequal section of the Army with the Ground Forces and the Services of Supply, with effective bureaucratic independence. On the strength of the strategic bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan, Army Air Force officers were able to push for further independence, which was granted in 1947 with the National Security Act of that year. Bureaucratic independence allowed the Air Force to focus on what was most valuable and advocate for funding on an equal basis, and allowed it to more fully develop the aspects of the force that did not have any immediate relevance to the rest of the Army (e.g. strategic bombing).
Probably the most decisive argument in favor of an independent Air Force was actually the promotional and patronage one. High-ranking Army officers were generally expected to have transferred between a wide variety of commands to include staff and line appointments in a large number of settings. This was the sort of billet that infantry, armor, artillery, airborne, and engineer officers could fill. But because of the large amount of difference between air command and ground command, cross-pollination became difficult to impossible. Air officers would effectively be barred from the highest spots. Whether this mattered to anybody except the likes of Spaatz, Eaker, Arnold, and LeMay is an open question, but those men did care a great deal and threw around their political weight enough to make the 1947 Act happen.
From the Army's point of view, the Air Force sucked away valuable funds that could have been used to improve the ground forces during the parsimonious thirties, and then broke away entirely at the outbreak of war. Although the Army had recognized strategic bombing as a viable, even valuable weapon before the war with the development of the B-17, the semi-independent Army Air Force took strategic bombing to an entirely new level by making it the overriding priority of the service. As a result, the close-air-support mission suffered and coordination between air and ground units was poor. On an individual basis, specific commands like XIX TAC were able to get past the coordination problem (in salutary contrast to the RAF/British Army, which never did), but the inevitable friction caused by operating across bureaucratic bounds made it much more difficult than it ought to have been. Army commanders continued to have unrealistically high hopes for heavy bombers in both the tactical and strategic bombing roles throughout the war, but after the war ended they were disappointed at the relatively low combat value - to them - that the strategic bombing campaign ended up providing. When the Air Force broke away formally in 1947, coordination got much worse, and the disconnect has increased to this day, to the point where the Air Force no longer possesses dedicated CAS airframes and the only things close are drones and the aging (and much-hated by USAF officers) A-10 Warthog. Army efforts to fill the gap with the expansion of combat helicopter units have had limited success.
Fundamentally, the Army views the Air Force as possessing the primary role of direct ground support. The planes and drones are supposed to make the grunts' jobs easier. The infantry soldier is still the core of the entire US military edifice and the rest of it needs to be geared in some way to supporting him or her. A growing number of officers in the Army believe that the Air Force has been delinquent in this task ever since it acquired a measure of independence. Conversely, the Air Force believes that, while the direct ground support role matters, the Air Force's other roles were impeded by bureaucratic submission to the Army. Both criticisms are at least somewhat overdrawn. There's a lot of room for improvement in US air-ground coordination, but it's still better than that of any other country in the world. And the Army did a much better job of facilitating the strategic bombing and logistical roles than the Air Force's partisans are willing to admit.
There's been a lot of talk about how the incipient Space Force ought to be independent for the same bureaucratic reasons that the Air Force demanded independence back in the 1940s. There hasn't been a whole lot of talk about the Space Force's mission and how it connects to the rest of the American military. I think that any argument in favor of an independent Space Force ought to marshal the actual combat-related reasons for independence.
It seems you are right, USA does share space debris info (after filtering out sensitive data), while Russia does not. From what I read in Russian sources, there are talks about making combined database. My guess is that in current situation people just don't bother to do it, since two databases are nearly identical.
Timsup2nothin
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@Dachs gives a very cogent review. I'd like to point out the obvious error that was made by the military, since it illuminates the issue at hand very well.
There is no question that the naval air services exist in conjunction with the fleet. The naval equivalent of combat air support is unquestionably their primary mission, and because of that they were left in the capable hands of the Navy so that mission would be better coordinated. When the Air Force was split off independently from the Army the reasoning revolved around the mission of strategic bombing, which suffered under army management, and the bad consequence was that the ground support mission suffered under air force management. Obviously, the army should have been allowed to do what the navy did, maintaining their own internal capability to perform the ground support mission, while letting go of the strategic air command function to the appropriately independent air force.
Just like army officers are expected to rotate through and be familiar with armor, artillery, and other units that support infantry, they could rotate through command of ground support air.
There is no question that the naval air services exist in conjunction with the fleet. The naval equivalent of combat air support is unquestionably their primary mission, and because of that they were left in the capable hands of the Navy so that mission would be better coordinated. When the Air Force was split off independently from the Army the reasoning revolved around the mission of strategic bombing, which suffered under army management, and the bad consequence was that the ground support mission suffered under air force management. Obviously, the army should have been allowed to do what the navy did, maintaining their own internal capability to perform the ground support mission, while letting go of the strategic air command function to the appropriately independent air force.
Just like army officers are expected to rotate through and be familiar with armor, artillery, and other units that support infantry, they could rotate through command of ground support air.
hobbsyoyo
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Working on the other side of the fence from the Air Force guys I can give some of the industrial complex management issues that plague the USAF in space operations if anyone is interested. But much to @Dachs point I cannot give concrete examples of tactical space failures due to bureaucratic issues with the USAF. I only know they are an alleged reason for a Space Force but the fact that I can not list them out is probably telling of the truth of the matter given my obvious interest and motivation in knowing these things.
Put another way:
I can tell you how space force missions relate to the rest of the military but I could not tell you what specifically that the Air Force has screwed up on that front. I do know how these are massively screwing up R&D and acquisitions but those failures alone probably don't justify the split.
Put another way:
I can tell you how space force missions relate to the rest of the military but I could not tell you what specifically that the Air Force has screwed up on that front. I do know how these are massively screwing up R&D and acquisitions but those failures alone probably don't justify the split.
hobbsyoyo
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FriendlyFire
Codex WMDicanious
Well in earth orbit the space combat might be all remote control drones, it would be expensive for manned spaceships
But deep space combat will eventually be fought, it will be long range and lethal.
The Space Force would be primarily responsible for the 1st Satellite War right?
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-military’s-worst-nightmare-russia-attacking-our-satellites-28992
There's 1900 satellites in orbit, with 178+ being US Government Satellites, 166+ being US Military Satellites, and 495 US Commercial Satellites that might get some dual use in the event of a war.
https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/space-weapons/satellite-database
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USA_satellites
Would blowing up any of them be a declaration of war?
Perhaps not if the nuke detector satellites were left alone.
Anyway, it costs like $100 million to shoot down a satellite from the ground, and those are ones in low orbit. (247km USA, 865km China)
Blowing up all US satellites would then cost $100 billion?
Geostationary orbit is 36,000km up and needs a hefty missile to shoot down satellites I'd imagine.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...ltra-hot-space-lasers-punch-holes-CLOUDS.html
There hasn't been 1 shot fired in anger in space yet.
If there is I can imagine swarms of tiny satellites being sent up.
1 real and 10 fake!
Then terrorists would launch 1 million tiny ball bearings in a reverse orbit, sending Earth back to the dark ages as all satellites slowly get destroyed! (or run out of fuel dodging)
Nobody gets to have satellites.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-military’s-worst-nightmare-russia-attacking-our-satellites-28992
There's 1900 satellites in orbit, with 178+ being US Government Satellites, 166+ being US Military Satellites, and 495 US Commercial Satellites that might get some dual use in the event of a war.
https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/space-weapons/satellite-database
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USA_satellites
Would blowing up any of them be a declaration of war?
Perhaps not if the nuke detector satellites were left alone.
Anyway, it costs like $100 million to shoot down a satellite from the ground, and those are ones in low orbit. (247km USA, 865km China)
Blowing up all US satellites would then cost $100 billion?
Geostationary orbit is 36,000km up and needs a hefty missile to shoot down satellites I'd imagine.
Satellites would become more useful if the 'laser punching through clouds' technology works out.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...ltra-hot-space-lasers-punch-holes-CLOUDS.html
Gnn, massive bandwidth boost.
There hasn't been 1 shot fired in anger in space yet.
If there is I can imagine swarms of tiny satellites being sent up.
1 real and 10 fake!
Then terrorists would launch 1 million tiny ball bearings in a reverse orbit, sending Earth back to the dark ages as all satellites slowly get destroyed! (or run out of fuel dodging)
Nobody gets to have satellites.
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FriendlyFire
Codex WMDicanious
Billy Mitchell ideas also included taking away funds from the Army and Navy, as he through that Bombers would win the future wars all by themselves.
And that US bombers would not need any fighters for escorts are they would be well armed enough to defend themselves.
Air force was misused during ww2, they kept attacking the wrong targets as they looked for Germans Achilles heel from ball bearing factories to bombing cities to transports, to bridges until only very late did they find and bomb the Germans fuel production. Before that the airforce was better off supporting the US army, and directly bombing the German army, they did spearhead several major mass bombings with great success for the US army and it should have been repeated. It was the normandy breakout and the bombers literally wiped out 2 German divisions off the map.
Plus airforce like the Navy kept hording US manpower, It got so bad that during battle of the budge Eisenhower was screaming at the airforce to release its AA crews for Infantry duty. Honestly Eisenhower should have forced the airforce to comply but the US got away with this. The Navy also went fully bat[censored] crazy I think it built like 200 cruisers which would never find enough sailors to put into operation.
The US had a serious problem with distributing materiel during and before WWII. It wasn't even really a logistical issue; they rarely had an issue getting supplies where they were needed. They simply supplied the wrong materiel to the wrong people. The best example is obviously the stupid aerial build up in the Philippines during 1941. This bled across into intelligence as well; MacArthur in Manilla got fancy coding machines, Kimmel and Short in Hawaii didn't.
Yeah, I agree with a lot of this. The advocates of strategic destruction in the AAC and AAF certainly overstated their case by a dramatic degree, yes. And the USAAF badly, even catastrophically, mismanaged bombing operations up to about the end of 1943. But once the Americans successfully adjusted, they basically destroyed the entire Luftwaffe in about six months while simultaneously creating the preconditions for the successful invasion of Normandy. They also perpetuated monstrous war crimes by attacking the civilian populations of Germany and Japan.
I do have a comment about the battlefield use of heavy bombers, though.
Although the Americans and British repeatedly used heavy bombers in a tactical role during the Normandy operations and throughout the rest of the summer and fall of 1944, the actual record of those bombers was rather mixed. Carpet bombing was supposed to facilitate a rapid advance during the British GOODWOOD offensive, for example, but despite intensive bomber attacks the ground assault stalled within days with high casualties. Other heavy-bomber attacks were carried out on the German fortress positions throughout the fall, such as Calais and Metz, with nugatory effect. The fact of the matter was that heavy bombers were imprecise, delivered a relatively small payload, and could not adjust fire like CAS or artillery. Using them for tactical support of ground troops was an egregious mistake that got dozens of Americans killed by friendly fire (including LTG Lesley McNair) and wasted assets better used elsewhere.
Pretty much the only success story for the advocates of tactical heavy bombing runs is the opening assault of Operation COBRA on 19 July 1944, in which Eighth Air Force dropped bombs on the positions of the Panzer-Lehr-Division shortly before US VII Corps attacked. As the COBRA lore has it, the bombers so totally wrecked the German forces there that the Americans were able to zoom straight through the hole and never look back. Reality was a bit different. Although Fritz Bayerlein, CG of Panzer Lehr, claimed in his memoirs that he "had no division" after the American bombing runs, that "no division" continued to put up quite a fight from the bomb craters. They retreated slowly, counterattacked periodically, and only relinquished two kilometers of ground by the end of the day on 19 July. Bradley's headquarters initially assumed that the offensive had started to sputter. What really broke things open for the Americans was MG J. Lawton Collins' decision to commit his mobile exploitation force, First Infantry Division (temporarily motorized) and Second Armored, the next day. Although the mobile troops went in earlier than anticipated, they increased American momentum dramatically and made the great encirclement happen.
Even the supposed great success story for tactical heavy bombing, then, didn't amount to much. Heavy bombers were simply inappropriate for battlefield use. The Americans did some very clever things with close air support and tactical bombers, especially the inventive idea of "armored column cover" used in France by MG Elwood R. "Pete" Quesada's XIX Tactical Air Command. Mass attacks by B-17s and B-25s were not clever, and they were not especially useful.
The most useful way in which American heavy bombers were employed in France was in the so-called Transport Plan, an Allied bombing offensive directed at the railyards, marshaling yards, railway bridges, and other key choke points in the Nazi military infrastructure network in France. The Transport Plan so severely damaged German mobilization and supply capability that the Allies were able to actually build up in Normandy faster than the Nazis, despite having to ship their troops across the Channel. Significant railway use was effectively impossible. Although the Allies' efforts to break out of Normandy early failed, they were able to outmass the Germans and wear down the enemy forces, which is the sort of thing that would normally be unthinkable for the attacker in an amphibious invasion. Now, the Allies did pay the price for the Transport Plan in September when they liberated France and were left with a smoking ruin where the excellent prewar French railway network had been. The much-decried gasoline and ammunition shortages of the fall had a great deal to do with the Transport Plan bombing runs. But they were necessary consequences of something that the Allies had needed in order to win at all.
The Transport Plan was one of the things that doctrine writers pointed to when the Americans developed the concept for AirLand Battle in the 1980s. One of the more revolutionary aspects of AirLand Battle was a coherent use of airpower in operational depth. In Vietnam, American bombing was selected mostly by unimaginative quantitative methods: they aggregated targets of military importance from reconnaissance and put them on a list to be checked off, regardless of their value or their relevance to whatever the Americans were doing on the ground. The Air Force and Army fought virtually separate wars in Vietnam, yet another casualty of the split between the two services, and AirLand Battle was designed to improve coordination, first by reaching the standards of World War II and then going beyond them. At any rate, the Transport Plan was the only time in the war that anybody actually used airpower at operational depth for synergistic purposes, and it was a smashing success. For their part, the heavy bombers were much better at destroying large, stationary targets than they were at attacking diffuse, spread-out masses like German panzer divisions.
FriendlyFire
Codex WMDicanious
Goodwood was because the British didnt hold a strong front lines, the Bombers target box was too large.and the Germans on seeing the mass bombers went out from their defensive lines to hug the British managiing to escape the mass bombing
Plus a lot of the bombing innovations came late in the war, things like earthquake bombs that the Britished used to great effect against fortfied targets. You didnt need massive waves of bombers to terriable damage
I also wouldnt blame the allied bombing of cities, as the pandoras box was already unleased by the Germans. In a total war situation the civic restrictions were peeled away one after the other
We of course have the advantage of hindsight and look through the fog of war something that wasnt avaliable to bomber command
Plus a lot of the bombing innovations came late in the war, things like earthquake bombs that the Britished used to great effect against fortfied targets. You didnt need massive waves of bombers to terriable damage
I also wouldnt blame the allied bombing of cities, as the pandoras box was already unleased by the Germans. In a total war situation the civic restrictions were peeled away one after the other
We of course have the advantage of hindsight and look through the fog of war something that wasnt avaliable to bomber command
Oh dear I don't know, I guess my feeling is I'd much rather look to find ways to have fewer theatres for waging war rather than looking to open up new ones. I feel sad thinking that no matter what we do, someone's always thinking "how can I use this to kill people?"
I'm sorry I'm not directing this at you specifically @hobbsyoyo, I just mean in general why does everything need to be militarized, you know what I mean?
I'm sorry I'm not directing this at you specifically @hobbsyoyo, I just mean in general why does everything need to be militarized, you know what I mean?
hobbsyoyo
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Unfortunately this really isn't about whether or not we should have a militarized space environment; that cat got out of the bag in the 50's. The question is now who gets to shape that theater and to what extent.
Completely sympathize btw. If I can spend the rest of my career working in space but not on military projects I would be a happy (and extraordinarily lucky) retiree.
I was going to say pensioner but that's dead. Thanks Obama
Completely sympathize btw. If I can spend the rest of my career working in space but not on military projects I would be a happy (and extraordinarily lucky) retiree.
I was going to say pensioner but that's dead. Thanks Obama
Article on the ABC just today.
Source.
Source.
How likely is war in space and what will it look like?
There's been a lot of talk lately about the likelihood of countries taking to space to wage war.
When someone as powerful as US President Donald Trump announces the formation of an American space force, it's not hard to see why the military-minded have described war in space as an inevitability.
But is a real-life Star Wars really something we can expect soon?
Steven Freeland, who specialises in space law at Western Sydney University, doesn't think so.
"We've had humans utilising space for military purposes and for a whole range of other amazing things for 60 years — and we haven't had warfare in space," Mr Freeland said.
"We've got treaty law that makes it clear space is to be utilised for peaceful purposes."
According to Professor Freeland, the consequences of space warfare for countries that are reliant on satellite technology would be significant.
Even one day without access to space would be a disaster for the United States, Australia, Russia or China, he said, because they're so dependent on it.
"The more that you are dependent on something, the more vulnerable you are if that thing were to be compromised," Mr Freeland said.
Is a 'space force' really necessary?
GPS satellites (which are owned by the US) control many things we take for granted; sewerage, traffic and aircraft navigations would collapse if these were compromised in space battle.
So is Mr Trump onto something when he says the US needs a space force?
Some in the US believe if the country's space assets are vulnerable, then it must have mechanisms in place to protect them.
"All of that sort of talk has an effect, because other countries will look at that and react to that," Mr Freeland said.
"If you have talk about domination and making sure your assets are protected against anyone else, that has dangers of ratcheting up the possibility that others will react in a similar way."
It can be likened to the Cold War concept of mutual assured destruction, where neither the US or USSR would launch a nuclear attack since doing so would all but guarantee retaliation on the same scale.
Mr Freeland, however, is optimistic. He hopes for a realisation that when it comes to space, we are all in this together.
extensive tracking projects in place to monitor it.
But there's as much propaganda regarding space debris as there is debris, according to Mr Sach.
"A lot of those tracking capabilities could also be used to track other people's satellites — it's a wonderful cover for all those sorts of activities," he said.
We can be friends in space
Setting up international treaties to protect peace in space is a challenge, but Professor Freeland is optimistic it can be done.
To explain, he recounts a recent trip to a United Nations conference in Moscow.
"Russia and America are not the best of friends at the moment, however there was a US astronaut training at the cosmonaut centre outside Moscow, who is about to go to the International Space Station," he said.
"In space, the US and Russia and others are cooperating. It's a different context."
hobbsyoyo
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I think the Space Force is DOA with the incoming Congress. Top Pentagon officials have put together a plan for the creation of an independent Space Force that they have forwarded to the National Space Council for vetting. After that it will likely be up to Trump's allies in Congress to propose legislation to enact the plan. That much will happen but I can't see a Democratic house taking up the issue, especially with Republicans moving to gut the budgets of social programs left and right.
A Space Force should ensure that the use of outer space is denied to American enemies while guaranteeing access to the US during times of war. In times of peace, the USSF should work to retain technological and material superiority over potential enemies. It should also work to integrate the space assets of US allies into broader networks accessible to the whole for common defense.
A primary combat mission of the USSF would be to provide intelligence (optical, hyperspectral, signal, etc) to US commanders. This intelligence should cover both tactical and strategic theaters. This intelligence should be analyzed by trained professionals (and their armies of algorithms) to process the raw data into actionable, quantitative analysis disseminated to all branches of the US military and its allies.
Another primary mission is to provide reliable, resilient and distributed communication systems for strategic and tactical use by the US military and its allies.
Additionally, the USSF shall provide counter-space services such as electronic warfare/counter-warfare, 'kinetic' anti-satellite weapons, rapid response (launch on demand) capabilities and proximity operations-capable satellites.
The US ICBM based nuclear fleet and its attendant infrastructure should also be the responsibility of the USSF.
A secondary (i.e. non-combat related) function of the USSF would be to shepherd and maintain the US space industrial base as needed to fulfill the primary missions. The USSF should also maintain ground-based infrastructure (ground stations, mission control centers, radar tracking installations, optical tracking installations) to ensure primary mission success. Research centers, officer universities should also be established for or transferred to the USSF, again to ensure primary and even secondary mission success.
The failures of the USAF have been in their inability properly maintain the industrial base and to ensure ongoing superiority of US forces in space by mismanaging investments in (or failing to invest at all) in key technologies. To my knowledge, they have executed on the primary missions well enough though for the money they spend should be doing considerably better but don't due to all the bureaucratic failings outlined before.
I'd like to revisit this and give it a go -
A Space Force should ensure that the use of outer space is denied to American enemies while guaranteeing access to the US during times of war. In times of peace, the USSF should work to retain technological and material superiority over potential enemies. It should also work to integrate the space assets of US allies into broader networks accessible to the whole for common defense.
A primary combat mission of the USSF would be to provide intelligence (optical, hyperspectral, signal, etc) to US commanders. This intelligence should cover both tactical and strategic theaters. This intelligence should be analyzed by trained professionals (and their armies of algorithms) to process the raw data into actionable, quantitative analysis disseminated to all branches of the US military and its allies.
Another primary mission is to provide reliable, resilient and distributed communication systems for strategic and tactical use by the US military and its allies.
Additionally, the USSF shall provide counter-space services such as electronic warfare/counter-warfare, 'kinetic' anti-satellite weapons, rapid response (launch on demand) capabilities and proximity operations-capable satellites.
The US ICBM based nuclear fleet and its attendant infrastructure should also be the responsibility of the USSF.
A secondary (i.e. non-combat related) function of the USSF would be to shepherd and maintain the US space industrial base as needed to fulfill the primary missions. The USSF should also maintain ground-based infrastructure (ground stations, mission control centers, radar tracking installations, optical tracking installations) to ensure primary mission success. Research centers, officer universities should also be established for or transferred to the USSF, again to ensure primary and even secondary mission success.
The failures of the USAF have been in their inability properly maintain the industrial base and to ensure ongoing superiority of US forces in space by mismanaging investments in (or failing to invest at all) in key technologies. To my knowledge, they have executed on the primary missions well enough though for the money they spend should be doing considerably better but don't due to all the bureaucratic failings outlined before.
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