# Trump wants a US space force **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 18, 2018, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341 "2018-06-18T21:48:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/142 "2018-06-27T00:09:36Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > I bet many like you laughed at the ideas of using balloons in war, yet look at the air force now. > > The same type of thinkers said going to the moon was impossible. > > You can look up the navy laser weapons on youtube. Verison 1.0 if you will, and use whatever image you have to see where they can lead to. And while you’re at it look up magnetic rail gun weaponry. Yes, I do think you can hit targets below from space. > > If this board has archives going back to the 1990’s, I bet there are plenty of threads where people used humor and were proven dead wrong decades. I’ma help you out here, Silver Lining. Did you notice in those cool videos how close the lasers were to their targets? That’s because lasers disperse in atmosphere. Research on using lasers to get rid of space junk suggest that the space junk will get vaporized–only the vaporization will be caused not by the laser, but by the atmosphere. The lasers would target chunks of space junk just enough to slow them/deflect them from their orbit, letting gravity pull them toward the planet, where they’d shine briefly and brightly as they burned up on re-entry. Rail gun weaponry is a possibility in space, sure. We’d need to become an international pariah in order to use it, as treaties prevent it–but sure, we could do it. The Soviets already built a system for putting nukes into low-earth-orbit, but they respected the treaties they signed enough not to use live warheads. You may be okay with becoming outcasts from the international community in order to fulfill one of Trump’s fantasies. I’m not. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/143 "2018-06-27T00:35:27Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > I bet many like you laughed at the ideas of using balloons in war, yet look at the air force now. Good thing FDR established the United States Air Force in 1940. We might not have won WW2 otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/144 "2018-06-27T01:41:00Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > I bet many like you laughed at the ideas of using balloons in war, yet look at the air force now. The first airplane flew in late 1903 – by the late '30s, aerodynamics and engine design had become very sophisticated. The first laser was built almost sixty years ago, based on theory that was forty years old. If laser weapons were practical, they would be all over the place by now. > [@](#): > > The same type of thinkers said going to the moon was impossible. That is just inane. The scaling of technology from Goddard to Saturn V was sensible; the scaling of lasers to long-range weapons use is not. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/145 "2018-06-27T01:46:32Z")
I would think any type of ballistic weapon (rail gun) in space is going to have the whole problem with the old action/reaction thing. Needing xtra fuel to keep it in the proper obit. Perhaps it would be small enough to not matter. As batteries and solar panels get more efficient, perhaps a laser may some day be able to do this. And by ‘this’ I mean clean up space junk. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/146 "2018-06-27T03:09:02Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Who are you going to listen to? Some egghead scientist with all of his ivory tower educamacated book learn’n? or are you going to listen to a true blue American who doesn’t take **know** for an answer and thinks with his gut. good one ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/147 "2018-06-27T13:07:10Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Silver Lining** : > > I bet many like you laughed at the ideas of using balloons in war, yet look at the air force now. The Air Force does not, in fact, use balloons, at least not to any significant degree. I’m a little lost as to what your point is. As to orbital laser weapons, in addition to the power supply issue, there’s also range. It’s a common misconception that laser beams don’t spread out: In fact, they follow the same inverse-square law as any radiant energy. They just do so at a very small angle. But it’s still enough to get significant spread at a few hundred miles, the minimum range you’d need for a space-based weapon. And in practice, it’d usually be much longer than that, because you _can’t_ move things around at will in space: Each satellite has its own orbit, and will remain in that orbit, and will move along that orbit at a speed that’s fixed by Newton’s laws. You can change an orbit, but it costs large amounts of fuel every time you do it. Tough luck if your target just stays inside for the few minutes every hour and a half that that satellite is overhead (and they will know when those few minutes are, because this weapon satellite is going to be really big and obvious). And it gets even worse, because those hundreds-of-miles ranges are through atmosphere. We think of air as perfectly transparent, but even without clouds (which usually cover most of the planet’s surface), there’s still some absorbtion. That absorbtion heats up the air that the beam is passing through, which will cause enhanced convection all along the beam path, which will cause extreme twinkling, enough that your beam won’t stay on target long enough to deposit significant energy. None of which is to say that orbital weapons are impossible. There are a number of methods that would work, and in fact our most formidable weapons already can fairly be described as orbital. They just won’t be laser weapons, any more than the current Air Force uses balloons. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/148 "2018-06-27T13:16:10Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > None of which is to say that orbital weapons are impossible. There are a number of methods that would work, and in fact our most formidable weapons already can fairly be described as orbital. They just won’t be laser weapons, any more than the current Air Force uses balloons. Someone in the 1980s remarked that the best way to use an orbiting laser against a city was to drop the laser on it. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/149 "2018-06-27T14:27:31Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > The first airplane flew in late 1903 – by the late '30s, aerodynamics and engine design had become very sophisticated. The first laser was built almost sixty years ago, based on theory that was forty years old. If laser weapons were practical, they would be all over the place by now. While the laser idea is goofy, this is not a reason why. Electric cars were initially more popular than internal combustion driven cars in the early days of motoring, but it’s only in the last ten years or so that they’ve become competitive. Some technologies take longer to develop than others. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/150 "2018-06-27T15:17:01Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Someone in the 1980s remarked that the best way to use an orbiting laser against a city was to drop the laser on it. They won’t be saying that when the laser has a cool Space Force logo on it! ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/151 "2018-06-27T15:22:05Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > I bet many like you laughed at the ideas of using balloons in war, yet look at the air force now. > > The same type of thinkers said going to the moon was impossible. > [@Carl Sagan](#): > > They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. Silver lining, I don’t think anyone is arguing that laser-based weapons aren’t going to be a thing in the next few years, especially for point defense against missiles, and disabling light targets like UAVs and speedboats. But you seem to be handwaving away some rather serious engineering challenges for orbital satellites (powerplant, maintenance, atmospheric beam dispersion, mobility) Even other facts that you take a face value like “satiates(sic) reading a license plate from space”, are suspect, given hard physical limits of angular resolution based on mirror size. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/152 "2018-06-27T15:22:21Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > And while you’re at it look up magnetic rail gun weaponry. [Okay](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ae3ap5/this-is-why-the-navy-cant-have-nice-railguns), [I did](http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/06/04/Navy-Abandoning-Railgun). ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_lining](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@Silver\_lining](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_lining)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/153 "2018-06-27T23:30:30Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > Silver lining, I don’t think anyone is arguing that laser-based weapons aren’t going to be a thing in the next few years, especially for point defense against missiles, and disabling light targets like UAVs and speedboats. But you seem to be handwaving away some rather serious engineering challenges for orbital satellites (powerplant, maintenance, atmospheric beam dispersion, mobility) Even other facts that you take a face value like “satiates(sic) reading a license plate from space”, are suspect, given hard physical limits of angular resolution based on mirror size. Nothing I said is harder than putting a man on the moon and returning him back to the earth. In the military what we see is often years behind what they have. For example If I were to say there are laser weapons cable of doing what you said 8 years ago, would you believe it? Probably not. The read a license plate from space of course would depend on the angle. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/154 "2018-06-28T01:13:55Z")
Mr. **Linings** : A couple of points to consider. 1. If a space-based weapon can attack a target on Earth, then that weapon is probably vulnerable to Earth-based weapons. The ground weapons can be much more powerful, much better shielded, and cost a tiny-fraction of the space weapon’s cost. A miniscule-tiny fraction. 2. If nations have achieved a respite from a hot arms race (and even signed treaties) it is usually a good thing. The U.S. and Canada could easily hurt each other, but that doesn’t mean we need to immediately start lining the border with medium range missiles. Frantic, endless escalation is not the surest path to national security. It can be, in my non-expert opinion, an excellent way to reduce national security. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/155 "2018-06-28T01:25:08Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > Mr. **Linings** : A couple of points to consider. > > 1. If a space-based weapon can attack a target on Earth, then that weapon is probably vulnerable to Earth-based weapons. The ground weapons can be much more powerful, much better shielded, and cost a tiny-fraction of the space weapon’s cost. A miniscule-tiny fraction. I believe the advantage is that the target country doesn’t that the satellite has a 1920s style death ray. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/156 "2018-06-28T14:22:28Z")
That _might_ work for the first shot (though I doubt it), but it certainly won’t work for the second. And if the weapon is only good for one shot, then we’re right back to dropping it on its target. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/157 "2018-06-28T14:27:40Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > Nothing I said is harder than putting a man on the moon and returning him back to the earth. In the military what we see is often years behind what they have. There’s a reason we haven’t been back to the Moon for 40-odd years. Just because we _can_ do something doesn’t mean it is practical to do so on a long-term basis. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_lining](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@Silver\_lining](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_lining)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/158 "2018-06-28T15:13:55Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > There’s a reason we haven’t been back to the Moon for 40-odd years. Just because we _can_ do something doesn’t mean it is practical to do so on a long-term basis. On a long term basis, the moon has a lot of helium-3 , which could be used for a energy fuel, and rare minerals to be mined. The photos and pictures we have are very old. And the trip is only 3 days to get there. If we are to go to Mars with Human Beings, I think we need to go back to the moon first. Getting out of orbit with current technology however remains expensive and difficult. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/159 "2018-06-28T15:46:33Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > The read a license plate from space of course would depend on the angle. Contrary to what you may have seen on CSI (“enhance!”), even the latest spysats are still governed by the laws of physics. Even assuming the plate is mounted on the roof of the vehicle, at visible light frequencies, the resolution needed to resolve individual license plate characters (say 2cm) from a LEO distance of 200 miles would require a minimum mirror diameter of 11 meters. Good luck fitting that inside a payload fairing. ---
**Author:** ![Ontos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Ontos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ontos)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/160 "2018-06-28T16:00:24Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Good thing FDR established the United States Air Force in 1940. We might not have won WW2 otherwise. Actually, he created the Army Air Forces. The United States Air Force was created in 1948. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341/161 "2018-06-28T16:22:15Z")
> [@Ontos](#): > > Actually, he created the Army Air Forces. The United States Air Force was created in 1948. whoosh [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-a-us-space-force/816341.md?page=9)