Why do you say humor aside, and then post those humorous suppositions?
NASA is already on it.
Clearly in the threat category of space pirates, the critical question is not one of orbital physics, economics, or sociology, but whether the person fighting the space pirate wears a uniform of Air Force blue or Space Force midnight.
Ar! There be women aboard!
Th’ LASERs is ready for firin’ Cap’n.
Ar ready for firin’, you Dutch built bugger, ar ready for firin’.
Up jumps a Grey with his hairless head
Saying “you play the cribbage and I’ll space Zed”
Singing blow the sun westerly, let the mass driver fly
By a gentle nor’wester how the lasers do fry…
NASA was gutted by Obama, and they are not a military branch.
Educate yourself on the below link. Laser weapons are real, and they will only get better. Putting them in space is logical for defense.
[quote=“Silver_lining, post:107, topic:816341”]
Educate yourself on the below link. Laser weapons are real, and they will only get better. Putting them in space is logical for defense.
[/QUOTE]Humor; it is a difficult concept.
Laser weapons are real. Orbital laser weapons are fantasy.
… which is why it always sounded odd to me when Law & Order used very similar words in their introduction.
In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.
NASA is a non-military organization, yes, but they have always done jobs for the military. Roughly half of all the satellite launches by NASA were for military satellites. And a great number of astronauts are military officers. Even if these goals being talked about were important and real, I don’t see why NASA cann’t be adapted to handle it, with just minor changes. But I’m more worried about what such a Space Force would be capable of doing. If you have a laser that can shoot down spacecraft, it’s a walk in the park to shoot down other satellites, or take out a Humvee in Afghanistan. If you thought drones put too much power into the hands of the executive branch, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
A few things to unpack here.
Firstly, yes I consider mocking trump here, and the actual proposal, to be two separate things.
I was mocking trump because he sounded like a fucking five year-old and it still amazes me that there is no adult in the room to convert his random thoughts into something presidential.
But secondly, on the proposal, yes we should be investing money in things like asteroid defence.
The question is whether a “space force” is the right approach.
For example, if a Chicxulub-sized asteroid were headed for earth (again), the best approach might be painting one side of it white; not a manned mission and not blowing any shit up.
So what use is a military force?
For the other concerns, they won’t happen overnight. If some country is dumb enough to try to build military infrastructure in space, we’ll have many years to counter that threat, indeed be ahead of it, before there are star destroyers parked over, I dunno, Nebraska.
No weapons of mass destruction in outer space? So I’m not allowed to use my pressure cooker up there?
I think we’re all aware of that.
That said, it’s just rearranging the org chart :shrug: . What would interest me is adding new capabilities or new missions to the military, and this doesn’t affect that even if it eventually happens.
Uh, will they accept space cadets?
But the Nazi’s did build a space ship – it just wasn’t saucer-shaped. They called the V-2. VonBraun commented after their first successful launch, “The test was a complete success, but we hit the wrong planet.”
How were they gutted? Spending for NASA has been in a very slow decline since 1991, but as a percentage of the budget it remained slightly more stable under Obama than it did during the GWB and Clinton administrations.
Boy, that second chart really shows that Robert Heinlein knew what he was talking about when he said the planets are ours, COD.
This administration is deeply anti-science. They only want to hear what they want to hear, which is not what the scientific community will tell them. Scientists are going away from government because they are troublemakers, so they are left with patsies, yes-men and liars.
Ignorant people do not fare well in space, but that is how the Space Force is being set up at this point. It is a sure path to failure – or perhaps it will be like it was with Werner Heisenberg, whose careful work on an atomic bomb was calculated to go nowhere because he did not want the program to succeed and put such a weapon in those hands. Or researchers will just collect grant money and “make progress” on otherwise fruitless endeavors (which could yield actual side-benefits but never achieve the stated goals).
What about space pirates? Are they real? 'Cause I have a, uh, friend who might be interested in joining such an organization.