The thread for space cadets!

[hobbsyoyo]

Well sure, it is tenuous. But so is the connection between a submarine and a spaceship. There are a whole host of challenges that space has that water doesn't and vice-versa.

But if you are forming a military space force for the first time nobody really knows how to do it so you have to consult with the people who are in the closest field to what you are trying to do. If you are trying to send stuff from land to space, that would be people at NASA. But NASA isn't a military organization, so if you are trying to keep it in the military that would be the Air Force.

100% agreed.

Structurally a spaceship is similar to an airplane and the opposite to a submarine. It is pretty much a wingless pressurised aircraft fuselage, a light structure designed to keep air inside against much lower external pressure. High altitude planes share many problems and solutions with spaceships, and in some cases like the space shuttle spaceships are nothing but very special airplanes. Thats the reason you have aerospatial agencies conglomerates and manufacturers spesialised in both aeronautic and spatial technology. Never heard of any submarinespatial agency though.

Spaceships have very little in common with either airplanes or submarines. Radically different machines.

And spacecraft are even more dissimilar.

The materials are very similar as are the avionics (between spacecraft and planes, that is). But structurally speaking they couldn't be more different. The load forces on a spaceship are in a different primary axis and with different magnitudes than both planes and ships. Rockets will have some structural features (ribs, longerons) in common with aircraft but spacecraft and spaceships won't have those same features.

All three do have life support systems but the way they work and the extent to which they work is different between all three. Their energy sources are different, they have divergent missions and their methods of propulsion are all different.


Ship builders are aircraft builders are spacecraft builders!

Lockheed and Northrop are both leading providers of naval ships, airplanes and satellites. This has more to do with the consolidation of the military industrial complex than anything else.

The way spaceships and spacecraft are actually built is also very different from ships though somewhat like the way aircraft are put together.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well sure, it is tenuous. But so is the connection between a submarine and a spaceship. There are a whole host of challenges that space has that water doesn't and vice-versa.

But if you are forming a military space force for the first time nobody really knows how to do it so you have to consult with the people who are in the closest field to what you are trying to do. If you are trying to send stuff from land to space, that would be people at NASA. But NASA isn't a military organization, so if you are trying to keep it in the military that would be the Air Force.

When does the Air Force "send stuff" anywhere? Other than the fact that a plane goes in more or less the same direction as space there is no similarity at all, because a plane, especially an Air Force plane, is gonna be right back.

Whether it is a fixed asset being placed somewhere, or a manned craft being operated for an extended term, or establishment of a base of operations in a remote location, the Navy does that...the Air Force doesn't. Never has.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Paging @Takhisis
I am not saying that an independent space force is the solution required but I do acknowledge there are problems that need to be solved and this is one potential solution of many.

Basically because designing, building and operating spacecraft is so different from aircraft and ships, there needs to be a core of competent professionals in the military who are in charge of these processes.

Due to the US being in a permanent state of war going on 2 decades, command positions in the military are almost exclusively reserved for combat veterans. There is no combat tour of duty that someone in the USAF can do that is also a space command. The way space commands are defined (and the tours that you do in them), it precludes them from mixing. Sure, maybe you are flying a satellite that is providing communications or intelligence for combatants in a war zone. Unfortunately for the rocket jockeys, the guys on the ground are considered in a war zone, the guys flying the satellites aren't.

Ordinarily, you put people in charge of sub-groups of a miltiary branch who have a lot of experience in those sub-groups. But because the space side of the USAF is combat-deficient, the leadership roles in the space side get filled up by guys who see it as a lateral move or at best a stepping stone to their next, better combat assignment. So they have no vested interest and don't necessarily make the best decisions. Plus, they just don't know a whole lot about spacecraft and space operations, which hurts the whole service.

Moreover, as @Timsup2nothin pointed out, there isn't much the USAF is actually good at running. So throw in complete inexperience and disinterest into the normal mix of incompetent leadership and you have a mess. It doesn't help that procurement (i.e. designing, specifying and buying) rockets and satellites is a different beast from procurement of aircraft so everything becomes much more expensive than it really should be.

So the thinking goes that it makes sense to carve out the huge set of space responsibilities the USAF manages and making it a service unto itself. This way competent, invested people can run it and save the taxpayers some money and make for a better overall military.


My principal problems are that there has been no proposal to make the Space Force responsible for asteroid detection and interdiction and that the Trump administration will bungle the whole thing that it will become a taxpayer-funded orgy of wasteful defense spending.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

When does the Air Force "send stuff" anywhere? Other than the fact that a plane goes in more or less the same direction as space there is no similarity at all, because a plane, especially an Air Force plane, is gonna be right back.

Whether it is a fixed asset being placed somewhere, or a manned craft being operated for an extended term, or establishment of a base of operations in a remote location, the Navy does that...the Air Force doesn't. Never has.

The air force sends rockets into space with payloads about once a month. Sometimes more.

They also have responsibility for maintaining most of the launch ranges and play a major role in the ranges they don't directly run.

A lot of the manned expeditions into space have been by lead by Air Force personnel. They even had dedicated shuttle flights just for Air Force missions. So yes, this is clearly in their sphere of responsibilities and competencies (such that anyone can say the USAF is competent at anything).

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The air force sends rockets into space with payloads about once a month. Sometimes more.

Which is what you are saying they don't do well and are poorly equipped to manage. I'm just agreeing. However, I see an alternative to making an "independent space command," because the challenges you are pointing out that are totally outside the typical Air Force Officer's career path are just normal stuff for the Navy.

Generally speaking (see what I did there?) adding an entire top to bottom command structure to stand alongside the existing towers of inefficiency isn't the ideal solution.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I mean I guess I'm just not seeing what kinds of things a naval officer would do in their career that have much in common with space stuff. Whereas there are guys and gals right now in the USAF doing this stuff for a living. They are just artificially barred from moving up the ranks.

Now that is a sign of dogged incompetence. Here they are about to lose a major scope of their responsibility and this is still a problem because they are ignoring the easy solution of promoting the competent space nerds in their ranks.

According to the book I'm currently reading, none other than Neil DeGrasse Tyson pointed this out in 2003ish when he was a chair on a space science/industrial consortium. In any case, this is a known problem that has persisted and gotten worse for decades. He advocated way back then there should be a Space Force and the argument predates him.

Speaking of incompetence -

Our government literally pays ULA (united launch alliance, a Boeing/Lockheed side project) billions of dollars a year to do nothing. I wish I was exaggerating that. Our entire space program was so mismanaged until about 2015 that the government was paying them billions just to keep the lights on at their idle factories. And oh, by the way, funneling some not-insignificant chunk of that money direclty to Russia for engines ULA never actually needed.

The only thing that has changes since 2015 is that SpaceX has ripped the bottom out of ULA's market and successfully sued the USAF to be allowed to bid on contracts. Yup, the USAF locked ULA's competitor out of the national space security launch market entirely. Why?

Because USAF generals retired out of public service life into cushy consulting jobs at Boeing and Lockheed.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@hobbsyoyo ...when's the last time the Air Force launched an unmanned drone and expected it to just stay launched?

I mean every time they launch a GPS satellite or a spy satellite. The key is they do this already. The navy has experience in autonomous systems but most of those are manned and at the end of the day they are not satellites.


Anyways, I forgot one important wrinkle.

The US intelligence services spend as much or more than the USAF on satellites but they have done so independently and will continue to do so even if the Space Force became a thing.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I mean I guess I'm just not seeing what kinds of things a naval officer would do in their career that have much in common with space stuff.

A satellite is a fixed asset in a remote location. While the technology is completely different, the logistics of that are pretty much the same as a mine or a buoy. They have to be placed. They have to be tracked. They have to be maintained. Outside of space, maintenance done "on site" in a remote location is ZERO. The Navy puts things in remote sites, keeps track of them, and maintains (or replaces as necessary) them all the time. Whole branches of the Navy tree are dedicated to those functions. Adapting the processes of those existing functions to different technology in a different remote location is not an out of this world scale task.

When a ship is deployed all the normal functions have to be managed on site, no matter where that is. For the crew to eat, logistics of providing food have to be handled. For the crew to poop, logistics of what to do with poop have to be managed. Junior officers in the navy manage logistics of food, unless they are in trouble in which case they are stuck with the logistics of poop. Air Force officers are pilots. Their experience with logistics consists of making sure they land in time for supper.

And that's just routine. I used to tell people that part of why the Navy put up with me was because when a submarine breaks down in the middle of the Pacific it isn't like you can just pull up to Radio Shack and get parts, sometimes you have to improvise, and sometimes you have to cannibalize. Naval Officers are experienced with listening to and evaluating repair plans that are not in the book, presented by technicians who they may or may not completely understand, and make decisions on their own that the people 'back at the base' might find questionable with their hindsight. When a plane breaks down an Air Force officer's involvement ends when he either walks away from the landing or gets carted away from the crash.

Operationally, the similarities are distinctly parallel across the board.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I mean every time they launch a GPS satellite or a spy satellite. The key is they do this already.

Again, you site an example from space as to why they are qualified for space. The things you site from space are unique...for the air force, but have analogous things that the navy has been dealing with forever.

 

[tjs282]

Junior officers in the navy manage logistics of food, unless they are in trouble in which case they are stuck with the logistics of poop.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I sniggered heartily at this sentence. Well played, sir.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Not to worry! Trump will find the bestest person in the world with Tremendous qualifications to run the new space force. Most likely an octogenarian Textile magnate who also happens to be a fundamentalist flat-earther.

 

[BenitoChavez]

When does the Air Force "send stuff" anywhere? Other than the fact that a plane goes in more or less the same direction as space there is no similarity at all, because a plane, especially an Air Force plane, is gonna be right back.

The whole purpose of airplanes is to "send stuff". Whether it is people, food, weapons or whatever, planes transport it from one location to another. When you need to send stuff through the air to space, you contact the people who send stuff through the air, not the people who send stuff through water.

Whether it is a fixed asset being placed somewhere, or a manned craft being operated for an extended term, or establishment of a base of operations in a remote location, the Navy does that...the Air Force doesn't. Never has.

I don't disagree with you on this. Long term operation of a craft in a hostile environment is definitely a Navy thing and not an Air Force thing. However, what I'm trying to emphasize is that launching a craft into space, or the reverse bringing a craft from space back to Earth, is not trivial and should not be overlooked. It can and has gone spectacularly wrong in the past (like the Challenger and Columbia shuttles) and it takes a great deal of expertise to get it right. As Hobbs as pointed out, the Air Force does have people who have experience with this. I don't see how what the Navy done is comparable to that in any way.

Assuming the military doesn't involve NASA or some private company that has experience with rocket launches, and also assuming an independent space force isn't created, then military operations in space would have to initially be a collaboration between the Air Force and the Navy. I know the military branches have their own rivalries but either branch working alone probably won't work out well.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The whole purpose of airplanes is to "send stuff". Whether it is people, food, weapons or whatever, planes transport it from one location to another. When you need to send stuff through the air to space, you contact the people who send stuff through the air, not the people who send stuff through water.



I don't disagree with you on this. Long term operation of a craft in a hostile environment is definitely a Navy thing and not an Air Force thing. However, what I'm trying to emphasize is that launching a craft into space, or the reverse bringing a craft from space back to Earth, is not trivial and should not be overlooked. It can and has gone spectacularly wrong in the past (like the Challenger and Columbia shuttles) and it takes a great deal of expertise to get it right. As Hobbs as pointed out, the Air Force does have people who have experience with this. I don't see how what the Navy done is comparable to that in any way.

Assuming the military doesn't involve NASA or some private company that has experience with rocket launches, and also assuming an independent space force isn't created, then military operations in space would have to initially be a collaboration between the Air Force and the Navy. I know the military branches have their own rivalries but either branch working alone probably won't work out well.

You do realize that the Navy launches as many planes as the Air Force does, under more challenging conditions, right?

 

[BenitoChavez]

You do realize that the Navy launches as many planes as the Air Force does, under more challenging conditions, right?

Yes. I’m not aware of the Navy launching anything into space.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yes. I’m not aware of the Navy launching anything into space.

"When you need to send stuff through the air to space, you contact the people who send stuff through the air, not the people who send stuff through water." So I pointed out that the Navy "sends" just as much stuff into the air as the Air Force does.

When you want to send something somewhere...anywhere...to stay, it is best not to send it with people who are accustomed to being back in time for lunch. Had space militarization been handed over to the Navy in the first place, instead of the Air Force, it wouldn't have been so badly botched as to lead to calls for an independent command. The Air Force was a mistake when it was put in charge of airplanes. Expanding its purview just compounded that.

 

[warpus]

Why not just put the special forces part of the military in charge of everything? Those guys get stuff done. And your submarines seem to run with tip top efficiency, I haven't heard of an accident in forever. Maybe put those guys in charge of the planes and the space planes while you're at it.

 

[Ajidica]

I propose giving space to the Marines; mainly because it will piss all the other branches off and I'm honestly surprised the Marines haven't yet claimed they need their own space capabilities.
(I mean, how much did we have to drop on some crappy Harriers so the Marines could have their "I'm an air force!" moment?)

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Having space marines would inevitably lead to the appearance of some human-eating alien insectoids. Too risky.

 

[warpus]

But when the human-eating alien insectoids arrive, space marines is probably who you want defending Earth

 

[El_Machinae]

Humanity has a very poor track record of investing properly when it comes to existential threats

I don't remember the statistic, something like 1 in ten people was to be put under arms in order to defend against the tyranid threat