Trump floats the idea of a 'Space Force' in speech to military members in California

[GennGreymane]

https://www.aol.com/article/news/201...rnia/23384986/

President Trump on Tuesday floated the idea of a new branch of U.S. armed forces – the “Space Force.”

“My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air, and sea. We may even have a space force,” Trump said during his address to military members in San Diego.

“I was saying it the other day because we’re doing a tremendous amount of work in space,” Trump continued. “I said maybe we need a new force. We will call it the Space Force, and I was not really serious and then I said, ‘what a great idea.’ Maybe we’ll have to do that. That could happen.”

While it’s unclear how serious Trump is about the idea, social media users have already shared their thoughts.

[Captain N]

Well that's not how I pictured Starfleet Academy starting out...

[rogueMatthias]

Is this another one of those threads where Trump makes a joke and then we end up with 20 pages of people taking it literally and getting really angry about it?

I can start you off..

"I Can't believe he's wasting the US budget on this"

"I'm just waiting here to see how all the Trumpsters are going to defend this one.."

"Oh yeah it's a JOKE, just like how he was joking about throwing out the 22nd amendment"

"See, I told you he was authoritarian, now he's trying to take over space too"

"Oh yeah, so this is another 'nothingburger' right? haha. INB4 BUT HILARY!"

"Trump just does whatever Putin tells him to, damn those commies think they can take over space too now with their hacking"

[Marcellus1986]

Is this another one of those threads where Trump makes a joke and then we end up with 20 pages of people taking it literally and getting really angry about it?

I can start you off..

"I Can't believe he's wasting the US budget on this"

"I'm just waiting here to see how all the Trumpsters are going to defend this one.."

"Oh yeah it's a JOKE, just like how he was joking about throwing out the 22nd amendment"

"See, I told you he was authoritarian, now he's trying to take over space too"

"Oh yeah, so this is another 'nothingburger' right? haha. INB4 BUT HILARY!"

"Trump just does whatever Putin tells him to, damn those commies think they can take over space too now with their hacking"

Oh look another one of these brainwashed troglodytes making excuses for a shitty president.

[rogueMatthias]

Oh look another one of these brainwashed troglodytes making excuses for a shitty president.

Yeah that's a great example too.

[Marcellus1986]

Yeah that's a great example too.

Of people like yourself? Yeah it is.

[Canpinter]

Wouldn't that violate like a ton of international agreements?

[Garnier Fructis]

Is this another one of those threads where Trump makes a joke and then we end up with 20 pages of people taking it literally and getting really angry about it?

So I've asked this multiple times, but how do you know when he's joking or not? It's been pointed out that some of his previous 'jokes' have actually happened.

So it seriously just looks like anything that makes Trump look like a clown must be a joke to you.

[alexw]

Well that's not how I pictured Starfleet Academy starting out...

Maybe something like this?

[Wyrt]

I see he has been partaking of the legalized weed in California.

[Anevers]

Maybe something like this?

I would rather it be this.

[draynay]

I would rather it be this.

Considering the realistic quantity of assholes serving on Spaceballs, it seems the most likely as well.

[Ashnazg]

Gonna be similar to Starship Troopers

[Skroe]

Trump, being a complete and utter idiot, likely mangled something he was briefed on earlier, which is that the United States Congress considered legislating into existence a new "Space Force" during the last round of budgeting, and may do so in the future. It would be a peer-service alongside the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

But it did not happen. Not yet any way. It's a controversial idea.

For those who don't know, the military / defense community space program is significantly larger than the civilian one. But unlike NASA, with it's $19 billion a year budget, the military space program exists under no-single umbrella. The services all have their own assets and interests in space, along with civilian agencies like the NRO and NGIA. There is a lot of money, but it's also spread widely.

The "Space Force" plan was a proposal to put them all under a unified umbrella, to reduce contracting waste, reduce inefficencies and duplications (particularly in technologies), and to establish a clear line of responsibility for the domain. These are similar to the arguments that saw the USAAF spun off from the Army after World War II into the USAF.

The proposal has more legs because it is expected Space to be a combat domain in the next major war. For those who don't follow this stuff or don't know, the US Military and NRO, as much as it is publicly known, has been basically closing out it's existing contracts on Satellites, but not ordering large, multi-billion dollar monolithic ones like they used to. Instead, they're rapidly and aggressively shifting to a highly distributed approach. The idea is twenty satellites that are small and cheap doing what one does now. Why? Because in a War with Russia and China, the US Military expects to lose things like our earth observing satellites, GPS and space based communications infrastructure. it will only take one anti-satellite missile to take down such a system. A distributed approach will be much harder to defeat.

Congruent with this is DARPA''s program to build a low mass reusable single stage to orbit satellite launcher that can be flown once a day, for ten days straight before repairs.

Put all this together: in the next major war, the US military expects to lose a lot of what it has in space right now, and it wants to ability to rapidly replace it The Darpa program would be better for this than even the Falcon 9 or some Falcon Heavy's.

So if this is going to be a thing, the thought is, it should all be under one umbrella for responsibility and budgeting purposes. The counter argument to this is that nobody knows Navy, Air Force or Army space needs better than the Navy, Air Force or Army, and if responsibility is taken out of their hands, then their needs might not be as met (or met as well). We've seen this, for example, in how the Army simply LOVES close air support provided by things like the A-10, and have been encouraging the Air Force to embrace even lighter, cheaper, low altitude aircraft for counter-insurgency missions, but the Air Force rather focus on things like high end fighters and strategic bombers (in reality, both are needed). THe Army, however, cannot buy or fly the A-10s, and the Air Force also cannot neglect its core air supremacy and also it's space missions. So a Space Force may be all of this infighting, for all services.

There is also the argument that the US military is more centralized in this domain than it appears, through the Air Force's outsized space-based role, and the Unified Commands that all services are a part of. Unified commands did not exist as we think of them now, after World War II.


So yes, Trump is the dumbest of the dumb and talks out of his ass because that is is way, but he's broadly referencing something rather interesting. War is certainly coming to space in the next 20 years. The US is and must do it from both angles - develop technologies like highly distributed satellite systems that are difficult to defeat, to anti-satellite weapons and orbital bombardment weapons of our own, while simultaneously developing defenses against those systems.


In my opinion, you can't do a space force without a wholesale major reorganization of the DoD as a whole, which is long over due. It would largely involve carving up the services, particularly the Air Force, and reorganizing responsibilities. The Army would get to fly things like the A-10 and "anything in support of Air-to-ground" roles. This may even include things like denuclearized B-52 and B-1Bs. The "Aerospace Force would be organized around air and strategic defense above 10,000 feet. This means nuclear bombers, fighters, and all military space.

And this still, a super sloppy, barely serious proposal, because the other cross-domain issue is cyberwarfare. Shall there be a uniformed "Cyber service" too? A clearing house for all Cyber-issues. There very well may have to be. The DoD has been wrestling with that for years. It's the exact same issue. Should one group be responsible for securing everything from warship cybervulnerabilities, to the US intelligence community's IT infrastructure, to providing spectrum-supremacy on the battlefield for the Army? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on your perspective.

[zorkuus]

Will cadet sponespurs dodge a draft to the space wars?

[Deleted]

Trump is dumb. The US won't have a "space force".

Elon Musk will.

[Vankrys]

Trump's prototype for his space force

[announced]

hopefully Trump talks about building a giant Death Ray next or an ion cannon, haha this is hilarious.

[Flarelaine]

Trump's Space Force will be Space Farce.

[Kujako]

In space, no one can hear your try to weasel out of service due to bone spurs.