How Did the Navy Get Space - and not the Air Force

[cubby]

Fun question for you sci-fy people (including me). The question is how did the Navy get consistent "ownership" of outer space while the Air Force is left in atmospheric conundrum?

Most, if not (literally) all, science fiction books have the Navy as the military arm commanding in space. The obvious answer is that vehicles in space are called ships, i.e. spaceships, and the Navy always gets the boats/ships. Along with commensurate ranks/etc. - i.e. Commander, Admiral, Ensign (those are NOT in order, I know - just examples).

But it's also flying - in space - so how does the Air Force consistently get kicked to the side when it comes to military "ownership"?


On a side note: will space, colonization, and the dominance of the Navy/Marines in all aspects eliminate the need for the Air Force in the future?


Edit: could a mod remove the "confused" portion of the title - I thought it would translate to an emoji, lol. Thanks!

[Kujako]

Spaceships, not spaceplanes.

[cubby]

Spaceships, not spaceplanes.

Yeah yeah, I mentioned that. Have some fun with this, but also be mildly serious. Need an intellectual break from the "Politics" forum.

[Tyrianth]

But it's also flying - in space - so how does the Air Force consistently get kicked to the side when it comes to military "ownership"?

Being pedantic but... It's not flying in the slightest. You can't fly in a vacuum.

[Yvaelle]

Well, part of it is likely that the sort of people trained to live and function effectively on spaceships, are probably closer to seaman than pilots.

Living on a sea-ship is probably pretty similar to living in the cramped and cloistered quarters of any early spaceship. Meanwhile, flying through atmosphere in gravity is ~nothing like flying through space, so the skills of fighter aces has virtually no bearing on the ability of a computer to calculate and control thrust vectors in space, or gravitational slingshots, or so forth.

You might want some fighter aces on your battlestar galactica type ship, when you need to get into an in-atmo dogfight with the uppity locals - but generally all the skills of the current air force are useless in an environment without air.

At least the navy is used to rum, sodomy, and the lash - which I presume will be as equally true of 22nd century spaceman as it was of 19th century seaman

Plus, Admirals are way cooler than Generals - so there is that

[cubby]

Being pedantic but... It's not flying in the slightest. You can't fly in a vacuum.

Maybe you can't, but I sure the fuck ca- . . . oh, yeah, whoops - that's a good god damn point. More akin to a submarine-ish. Interesting.

[Kujako]

Yeah yeah, I mentioned that. Have some fun with this, but also be mildly serious. Need an intellectual break from the "Politics" forum.

Well... there are a lot of reasons over time. Starting with where the first round of spaceships had to "land". From there you get things like GPS, being Navy, which requires satellites, and so on.

https://www.nap.edu/read/11299/chapter/5

[WintersLegion]

Yeah yeah, I mentioned that. Have some fun with this, but also be mildly serious. Need an intellectual break from the "Politics" forum.

To me the fact that they are ships is what's really important the whole setup would be the same as it already is for the Navy in that they have a large crew that stays with the ship.

[Yvaelle]

Oh also! The Navy is probably pretty underutilized by the 22nd century, because ocean-travel probably falls off pretty steeply when we have future planes and hyperloops

[Piglord]

Watch Stargate. That show is 99.9% zoomies.

Also, what Kujako said.

[I Push Buttons]

You said it yourself, ships.

Same reason why a lot of science fiction refers to soldiers within the universe as marines.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

It's because the Navy already has established protocols, training, terminology, and experience with large crews on equally large vessels. The Air Force does not. Hell, the Navy even has about 3/4th as many fighter jets in service as the Air Force does, and the better (and more experienced) combat pilots to boot. And that's just with aircraft carriers, nevermind the Navy's superior experience with submarines and three-dimensional tactics.

Which would you rather have controlling planetary defense on large starships with equally large crews and (in some franchises) combat vessels? And which of those two existing services fit the role better?

Honestly, the Air Force is just a glorified intelligence-gathering service for the most part these days. Even the Army gets more action than them with their drones.

[draynay]

Theres no air in space.

[stabetha]

"AIR"force, there is no air in space.

- - - Updated - - -

Theres no air in space.

damm you...

[Slicer299]

Fun question for you sci-fy people (including me). The question is how did the Navy get consistent "ownership" of outer space while the Air Force is left in atmospheric conundrum?

Most, if not (literally) all, science fiction books have the Navy as the military arm commanding in space. The obvious answer is that vehicles in space are called ships, i.e. spaceships, and the Navy always gets the boats/ships. Along with commensurate ranks/etc. - i.e. Commander, Admiral, Ensign (those are NOT in order, I know - just examples).

But it's also flying - in space - so how does the Air Force consistently get kicked to the side when it comes to military "ownership"?


On a side note: will space, colonization, and the dominance of the Navy/Marines in all aspects eliminate the need for the Air Force in the future?


Edit: could a mod remove the "confused" portion of the title - I thought it would translate to an emoji, lol. Thanks!

That does varry. In real life, the US Air Force has more sway/control over NASA and it's the Air Force that develops any and all space based weapons. NASA themselves will take qualified pilots from any military service, but most of the original NASA astronauts were Air Force test pilots. Neil Armstrong was one of the few Navy pilots in the early days of NASA. But the other two Astronauts on Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were Air Force pilots. Pilots who want to become astronauts will also almost always enlist in the Air Force over any other branch, as it allows for the easiest transition into NASA. Since they never have to get deployed at sea.

That holds true in the Stargate and Stargate SG-1/Atlantis/SG-U Science Fiction universes. With the Air Force controlling the Stargate program and the Air Force commanding all of the space capable fighter craft and interstellar ships the US eventually builds.

[Endus]

Air Force is focused on relatively short-duration, mission-oriented craft, which generally have 1-5 crew at most. Spaceships in science fiction are generally long-duration vessels meant to be on their own for months or years, with crews in the dozens if not hundreds; much more comparable to the Navy.

Plus, in terms of comparable narratives, the ocean was always "the edge of the world", and the ships sailing off out of sight of land were venturing into the unknown, historically. That has a pretty direct narrative connection to space as a similar frontier, in a way that manned flight does not; manned flight is a big technical achievement, but it didn't take us many new places that we couldn't have already reached or seen, by other means.

There's really very little connection between military science fiction and modern-day air forces, other than that space is arbitrarily "up" from a ground-based perspective, which is obviously meaningless to any society that isn't primarily ground-based to begin with.

Just as a for-instance, take Battlestar Galactica. There's the main ship, the Galactica itself, which is a "ship". The Vipers are "planes". They can't survive without "landing" back on the Battlestar. They're used for short-range sorties, but aren't the main class of vessel that's self-sufficient.

[Dareous]

Fun question for you sci-fy people (including me). The question is how did the Navy get consistent "ownership" of outer space while the Air Force is left in atmospheric conundrum?

Most, if not (literally) all, science fiction books have the Navy as the military arm commanding in space. The obvious answer is that vehicles in space are called ships, i.e. spaceships, and the Navy always gets the boats/ships. Along with commensurate ranks/etc. - i.e. Commander, Admiral, Ensign (those are NOT in order, I know - just examples).

But it's also flying - in space - so how does the Air Force consistently get kicked to the side when it comes to military "ownership"?


On a side note: will space, colonization, and the dominance of the Navy/Marines in all aspects eliminate the need for the Air Force in the future?


Edit: could a mod remove the "confused" portion of the title - I thought it would translate to an emoji, lol. Thanks!

Normally in sci-fi the navy controls the giant battle cruiser style ships and the air force that pilots the small fighter crafts. Some sci-fi shows go with the three branches of military being combined into one united space force, along with say NASA being the leading command unit.

Star Trek's Starfleet is like the new NASA, outside of the military influence, and they use the military along side their own people as like a special strike force.

[CalasEU]

Well, part of it is likely that the sort of people trained to live and function effectively on spaceships, are probably closer to seaman than pilots.

Living on a sea-ship is probably pretty similar to living in the cramped and cloistered quarters of any early spaceship. Meanwhile, flying through atmosphere in gravity is ~nothing like flying through space, so the skills of fighter aces has virtually no bearing on the ability of a computer to calculate and control thrust vectors in space, or gravitational slingshots, or so forth.

I think this is the main reason why, too. In most sci-fi universes, people live on spaceships very similar to how they do on ships. Air Force pilots don't really live in their planes. They fly them for a mission, then land them.

[ro9ue]

Spaceships, not spaceplanes.

^ Best funny comment of thread.

Well, part of it is likely that the sort of people trained to live and function effectively on spaceships, are probably closer to seaman than pilots.

Living on a sea-ship is probably pretty similar to living in the cramped and cloistered quarters of any early spaceship. Meanwhile, flying through atmosphere in gravity is ~nothing like flying through space, so the skills of fighter aces has virtually no bearing on the ability of a computer to calculate and control thrust vectors in space, or gravitational slingshots, or so forth.

^ Best probably correct comment of thread.

[unbound]

Any serious foray into space in the near future (say 50 to 100 years) will be much closer to being on a submarine overall than flying.

It will be in cramped quarters requiring them to work as a team and understand their duties for each element of the spacecraft. Just like a leak on a submarine would prove fatal to the entire crew, you have the same problem with a leak on a space craft.

In the further future, and thinking in terms of something like space battles, it will be much closer to operating an aircraft carrier than flying. In addition to the previously mentioned submarine environment, launched aircraft will have to follow the space equivalent of carrier deck operations, not fixed runways.

Once we start colonizing planets, I would expect Air Forces to be formed on each of those planets.