Congress Pushes To Create U.S. Space Corps
House panel votes to split Air Force, create new U.S. Space Corps, Federal News Radio
“As part of its version of the 2018 Defense authorization bill, the House Armed Services Committee voted late Wednesday night to create a sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces: the U.S. Space Corps, which would absorb the Air Force’s current space missions.”
Alabama Congressman proposes creating new branch of US military: The Space Corps, Al.com
“The proposal would put the branch under the command of the Air Force, though the commander would be a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, much like the Marine Corps’ role in the Navy. Rogers and Cooper said the Department of Defense is not able to address the challenges created by protecting U.S. assets in space, “thus Congress has to step in.”
Pentagon ‘Space Corps’ Plan Leaves Earth Science in the Dust, Wired
“The idea of creating a new military space command even as the White House takes an axe to peaceful Earth-observing systems devoted to science. The Trump administration wants to cancel five NASA earth science missions and slash NOAA’s budget for studying the Earth, weather, and oceans–including ground and space-bound sensors. Samson and other policy watchers say cuts to NASA’s and NOAA’s satellite monitoring programs are driven by the Trump administration’s hostility toward (and denial of) climate change. In fact, NOAA’s climate and weather programs observing satellites are also vital to keeping the United States safe.”
The Wired article made no sense at all. This isn’t a “guns and butter” debate. The administration will be cutting those programs with or without creating a Space Corps.
The Space Corps is intended to be a highly proficient, professional, and focused service with an analogous prestige level and specialty of the US Marine Corps and the Coast Guard. It puts the needs of the nation’s ability (including civil and commercial users) use the space commons peacefully. Any sort of military response is designed to occur when other instruments of national power fail.
The Air Force has committed to do the right thing for Mission Assurance for all users in space over and over again, but when you put up an aviation program up against a space program, the jets are going to win.
Its part of the resistance to President Trump so its not suppose to make sense.
We can debate policy or argue about our political views. I will try to stick to the former. The DOD pursued a specialized program for human spaceflight from the MOL program, essentialy an unmanned recon camera with a couple of crewmen tagging along, to a series of classified Shuttle missions including such things as sending an enlisted man into space with a pair of binoculars, apparently based on the assumption that only a human, in fact only an NCO, would have magical abilities at spotting targets that can’t be found in an automated camera or even a commissioned officer.
Meanwhile, back on the ground, after Challanger, though it took a while to implement it, DOD said “forget it” on human spaceflight. USAF is even procuring more drones than manned aircraft!!! There is no military objective in space that cannot be achieved more effectively with robotic systems, and there is nothing to be gained from expanding the bureaocracy beyond Space Commannd.
I am just pointing out why that article makes no sense. Its important to separate the wheat from the chaff and that article is a good example.
Also there is no mention of humans in space in terms of the Space Corps. Instead it will likely be all robotic as Space Command currently is.
“when you put up an aviation program up against a space program, the jets are going to win.”
The National Reconnasiance office has an annual budget of almost $6 billion, with another $7.5B for Space Command.
An F-35 costs about $100 million per plane, and (at least according to Wikipedia) over 200 have been produced in the last ten years. That doesn’t include the development costs, which probably live around $60 billion (same source.) The Department of Defense certainly isn’t ignoring space in their budget requests, but the fast airplane crowd is also doing fairly well for themselves
That’s an average of $2B for F-35 procurement per year. Not chicken feed by any measure, but about the cost of one major recon satellite per year.
Initially, I thought this an unwieldy creation of yet another DOD bureaucracy, but upon reflection I realized that the Air Force will always be dominated by the Fighter Mafia and the Jet Jocks, so after due reflection I think this might actually be a good idea. Space is not really another realm for warfare, but a realm of reconnaissance and communications. It just doesn’t fit the USAF attitude of “I feel a need for Speed” fighter jock attitude. So yea, maybe this actually does make sense. Of course, the method in which it’s being proposed, with so many members being blindsided, is dead wrong, but the idea itself might actually have some merit.
That’s why they formed the NRO several decades ago. It is a hybrid organization serving the space mission needs of DOD (primarily dominated by Air Force and Navy) and intelligence community. So the real question is what is precipitating this new space corps? Sounds to me like new people are unaware of NRO history and how screwed up they have become shrouded in secrecy. Under the new space corps NRO comes in with their “culture intact”.
DoD (essentially Air Force) space assets go far beyond reconnaissance, which is what NRO is chartered to do. DoD also has communications and navigation satellites. I think they also have reconnaissance satellites with more of a tactical and quick response focus, compared to the more strategic intelligence focus of the NRO. (That last part is speculative; I doubt anyone who actually knows how the reconnaissance tasks are divided up is allowed to talk about it.)
And, just to cause confusion, I’ll note that most ballistic missiles do cross the Karman line. So, in continuing the Pentagon’s long and proud tradition of turf wars, a Space Corps might claim the ICBMs.
NRO activities go beyond just reconnaissance. They are a hybrid organization and even have publically acknowledged they have cia personnel working for them. They also support other intelligence agencies and dod space efforts. Much is indeed classified- but quite a bit is not classified. Due to budget cuts and interest in emerging technologies the NRO has declassified the very existence of the organization.
The dod space community also handles communication satellites. Below is one congressional hearing on the gps coverage issues that was heavily unclassified. It gives you a small taste of just how corrupt, incompetent and arrogant the community is. Under the new space corps they are to come in with their “culture intact”. Huybrechts was in the same position as Rumsfeld was but Huybrechts was even younger and much more corrupt and dumb.
https://m.youtube.com/watch…
ICBMs are suborbital. So are anti-satellite weapons like the Navy SMII. That provides a line of definition that they can use to separate Space Force activities from the spacey stuff the other military services do.
At least I THINK ICBMs are suborbital…
Orbital versus suborbital is a reasonable distinction. On the other hand, the Space Corps might have authority over astronauts serving in the military. Suborbital flight qualify an astronaut as having “flown in space.” So your definition doesn’t seem to be universally accepted. Did I mention turf wars? Those are about how big a slice of the budget you can carve out, not rational, sensible ways to do things.
Good points.
A Space Corps employee doing astronaut training and qualification with a suborbital flight would still be part of an orbital program. Kind of like the F9 first stage being part of an orbital package even though it does not reach orbit.
Orbital bombardment (besides being a treaty violation 😉 would be an excellent example of a separate, Space Corps program.
In the end, we’ll have systems that are so spacey that slapping an Air Force insignia on them just won’t make sense.
Sorry about the second reply. I just remembered there were concept for “fractional orbit” bombardment. Those might be called orbital ICBMs.
Here’s a congressional inquiry on the dod gps communications. Steven Huybrechts was in the same position that Donald Rumsfeld had but at a younger age. Both Huybrechts and General McCasland were Air Force heading up this fiasco. Watch the congressman tear in, redicule Huybrechts and request the General to have some heads to roll. Huybrechts left shortly after this.
This gives you a small taste of the corruption, incompetence, and hubris within the dod space community. They expect to come in to the new space corps with their “culture intact”
https://m.youtube.com/watch…
How does this show the dod space community is corrupt?
As the congressional hearing points out the corruption, incompetence, and arrogance is systemic in the dod space programs. As Huybrechts states under oath his office was the providing oversight to virtually all of the dod military, space command and intelligence at the OSC level. I list here the ones that are typically systemic – not just to dod but NASA too.
1. Huybrechts arrogantly says he didn’t have time to do his job of oversight for this gps program and other programs. As congress and GAO pointed out there is a funding line for each program for Huybrechts to charge his time. Huybrechts charged his time but didn’t provide any oversight. That is FWA.
2. Complicit liability. Huybrechts engaged in the practice of complicit liability putting the government liable and responsible for the actions of the cost over runs – which were 100% ($870 million).
3. Huybrechts allowed the company to do the inherently government job of management, oversight, scheduling and even procurement of their own contract. Essentially letting industry take over to do everything like it had no self interest.
4. Industry wrote up its own performance award – receiving 100% of the award with glowing write up of being within budget and schedule- for top performance while in reality having a 100% cost over run and huge delays impacting gps coverage. Huybrechts so what arrogant attitude sure got the congressmen upset. Especially as this office at the sec def level oversaw virtually all space systems within dod.
5. Engaging in the common practice of funding the same company to fix its own problems. No effort to look into fining another company instead. Hence, it’s very profitable to screw up.
6. Incompetence. Huybrechts cites there are serious issues with the government people and industry having the competence to focus their work. That’s contrary to the glowing reports that were written and put the military mission needs at risk. In this case very significant gps down times and low coverage that other systems rely on.
7. The common practice of evolving the design while building/implementing. Congress pointed out they are well aware of the PDR and CDR exaggerating and lying with complicity of the government program managers to say a program has passed design reviews. This is one of the main reasons for cost and schedule overruns.
This doesn’t prove DOD Space is corrupt. DOD Space is much bigger.
There has been a lot of thought behind this. Rep. Rogers presented it at the National Space Symposium.
http://spacenews.com/rogers…
Rogers calls for separate “Space Corps” within the Air Force
“Despite the Air Force being a “world-class military service,” space should not be led by people who “get up each morning thinking about fighters and bombers…you cannot organize, train, and equip in space the way you do a fighter squad,” Rogers said.”
“Rogers said the Armed Services committee needs to begin debating the issue, but he does not expect radical change immediately.”
If Mike Rogers really sincerely put a lot of thought behind this he would know that the Armed Services committee and the entire DOD have been debating this issue for decades! Mike Rogers suggesting that they begin a debate just shows how grossly incompetent he is. Rogers is just another inept representative who just wants more money for his state/district. Look at the quotes below:
If the Air Force cannot or will not embrace space power, we in Congress will have to drag them there, kicking and screaming if necessary, or perhaps establish an entirely new service.
— Rep. Bob Smith, 1998
To say that there has been discontent with Air Force stewardship of space is a major understatement. [There is] rage at “Air Force shenanigans” in shorting the space budget.
— Maj. Gen. Jim Armor, USAF-Ret., 2008
[S]pace is an area where we have methodically, almost with genius, allowed bureaucracy to avoid success. The combination of the Air Force’s parochialism and NASA’s bureaucracy, we are now at least 25 years behind where we should be.
— Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, 2016
[The Russian and Chinese] space threat has developed with alarming speed. And yet, during the same time period, the Department of Defense [the Air Force] has significantly reduced research and development dedicated to space systems [by 80 percent].
— Sen. John McCain, Chairman of the SASC, 2017
American space power stagnated under U.S. Air Force stewardship a long time ago. [1] Congress observed this situation nearly 25 years ago, as the epigraphs above indicate. However, nothing substantive was done to fix the problem.
You haven’t done your research. The HQ of the Space Corps will be in Colorado Springs, while Rep. Mike Rogers is from the 3rd District in Alabama. The only major installation in the District is Maxwell AFB, but its unlikely to be greatly impacted since it already is the home of the Air University. But he is Chair of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, hence his interest.
Yes, the idea has been kicking around a long time, but I would hardly call that a debate. It’s good to finally see someone pushing it forward.
“The Air Force, which already has a space command, is rejecting the plan. ” There is a lot of jockeying for where the new space corps will be headed up and if the Navy leads instead of the Air Force.
I do think something needs to be done. The plan to merge NRO with its “leadership and culture intact” indicates NRO want to lead with minimal change. I think that would be a huge disaster.
Alabama stands to get a lot of money no matter where the space corps is head quartered. That’s not a bad thing- they have a lot of space activities going on. However, re organizing without fixing the problem can lead to something even worse than it already is. As you can see on the NRO website and if you’ve worked in or with NRO there is a lot of aircraft systems being developed. The technologies need for drones and aircraft systems, communications, navigation…are related and NRO is involved in those too. So there could be some unintended consequences- in light of the AF being thought of as all planes and pilots dominated. The problem is more complex especially since the AF has a space command and leads NRO.
Unfortunately, I sense a lot of happy talk and jockeying for money and power at the root of the plans being discussed with little understanding of what the problem is and how to fix it. The comments by congress that they will force it whether they like it or not indicates the discussions are not healthy, detailed, and productive. In fact, I think the lack of productive discussions is indicative of representatives wanting more money and power for their districts in times of shrinking budgets but not willing to delve into the details to find a workable space corps.
How does his Alabama district stand to get a lot on money? Neither Decatur or Huntsville is in his district. Or do you think they will build something new in his district?
The Air Force sent me to Auburn University- so I’m quite familiar with the area. NRO and all the intelligence agencies are heavily classified so it’s not always obvious.
However, it is interesting that Auburn University offered a mini course this year:
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Auburn, or OLLI at Auburn, is giving prospective members an opportunity to take two four-week evening courses during a winter mini-term. The courses, An Inside Look into the U.S. Intelligence Community and Palette Painting, will be held on four Wednesday, Feb. 15, March 1, March 8, and March 15. Enrollees also are invited to a special Mardi Gras Social on Feb. 22.
The intelligence community class will focus on the big five: Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency. Presenter Frenchy Fortin will also discuss the role of NSA in cyber warfare. He served 20 years in the U.S. Air Force and worked as a defense contractor for almost 30 years with the intelligence community and U.S. Special Operations. The class will meet from 4-5:30 p.m.
Also, Auburn University brought in new chairmen who have interesting intelligence backgrounds.http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/03/au…
So Auburn University will get rich as a result?
As the link below describes how we have heard about $900 toilet seats. NRO has $200 million light switches. Ever wonder how you spend that much? Where does the money really go? When I was a lieutenant in the Air Force, shortly after graduating from Auburn with EE degree. I was a project officer in Los Angeles. NRO was hq out there at the time, but was so secret it wasn’t publically known like it is today. I noticed some really weird engineering stuff in the proposal to continue work as well as weird stuff in their ongoing reports. Prior to my jointing the Air Force I graduated from California state with a bs in applied math and took a lot of accounting/business coursework since I ha had much of my math degree coursework completed while I was in high school. My dad was an accountant and I would help him pull together multimillion dollar farmers accounting records. Farmers would come in with shoeboxes of accounting receipts and records. Pulling together a balance sheet was a lot like a big jigsaw puzzle. Because I was so good at this, I was asked to help on a city embezzlement case. It was the largest dollar amount in the country- over $12 million. I figured out how she did it- and it was a very clever scheme.
So on this weird proposal I was working on i bee lined it to the procurement officer to get all the financial records as well as back engineering and financial reports. In going over the financial I figured out how they spend huge dollar amounts on such trivial items. Catherine Austin Fitts discusses this too – she was the head of Hud. As Oliver north regarding the Iran contra money said- HUD was a “candy store”
I don’t know if Auburn University itself stands to gain- but some certain individuals often do. In my experience university’s aren’t all that enthused about dod and NASA student programs. Hence, they probably don’t get much out of it. The local community benefits from the students paying rent, groceries… Hence congressmen and senators like that a lot.
The $900 toilet seats and $200 million dollar didn’t go to the toilet seat or light switch manufacturer either. So where does the money go? What is the laundering process? Unfortunately I can’t say in a public forum. I can say the IG doesn’t look hard when presented with all the documents. In my case as a project officer I basically handed over such a thorough unraveling they had to do something- or risk it blowing up and tainting them. In Catherine Austin Fitts case she had unraveled a big fraud- and She even received death threats. In another fwa I was involved in as a whistleblower- the lab commander perople were smuggling out $100 million dollar equipment from a classified Sciff in the middle of the night. The FBI was called in and people wiretapped and followed around for over two years. The base IG was harassing me so bad that the secretary of the defense criminal investigator office come over to order the base IG to cease and desist harassing me. I was told to be careful and put an alarm on my car- one of their tricks the IG does is to place drugs on your car and arrest you going out the gate when they could search your vehicle. The base IG tried to trick one of the under cover guys into paying for a prostitute. Basically when he was filling up his car with gas a lady solicited him – and he said sarcastically “lady all I have is $2 ” and the base IG pounced and arrested him. He was let go later. Suffice it to say if there is a $200 million light switch there is a lot at stake and the corruption runs deep.
It is interesting that big fraud surrounds itself around little things like toilet seats, hammers, and light switches. Another cheap thing are students. The people doing the fraud are very greedy- they try to have as little money be used up on the front item being used as possible so more goes to where they want it. This incredible greediness is often what leads to it being caught.
I don’t know if this auburn university sudden interest in the intelligence is based on anything. It simply could be more money for the students, university, and community. It could legitimately the intelligence community wanting high quality students as cheap as they can get them. I know a lot don’t feel the expense of the Ivy League students is worth it and look to top universities and cherry pick their best students as a cheaper alternative. That legitimately benefits the community with student paying rent and groceries as well as the university. There is an element of prestige too. So legitimately senators and congressmen want all this in their disctricts. But I’ve seen a lot of illegitimate stuff to know they piggyback on legitimate stuff as a front to deep and gross FWA. If someone has to get $200 million illegetimately they are always looking for cheap fronts. Students are considered cheap labor. Hence are attractive for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. As Catherine Austin Fitts points out the drug smuggling and corruption in our black budgets are intertwined and embedded in our communities.
https://www.discourse.net/2…
https://solari.com/blog/
The US is likely to respond to space-related security issues about the same way we did for WW1 and then WW2 – at the last minute.
The wisdom of a Space Corps notwithstanding, are you not selling the AF short? Are you saying they lack the ability to be evolve? If so, how do we populate this Space Corps if not from existing AF oaks (ed: folks) – and wouldn’t they be better to say where they are, developing the desired capabilities from the existing AF?
I suppose on some level at least operating in space is a lot more like driving clipper ships across the sea; in this sense, space has more in common with the Navy than AF.
Military organizations during peacetime are infamously bad at internal reforms and reorganization. There is some merit to the idea of scrapping the existing structure and starting over. Even if it’s the same people, the titles, responsibilities and chain of command would be different enough to allow some improvements. But if it’s just giving the existing organizations a new name, without any internal restructuring, I don’t see it as nearly as useful.
For human spaceflight, which I don’t think is involved in this Space Corps idea, I’d say navy submarines are the most similar military service. It combines living in an enclosed environment for long periods, sophisticated sensors and high tech electronics, nuclear power and (in some cases) rocketry.
An interesting side issue to this Space Corps idea is its impact on NASA astronauts. Being an Air Force test pilot (or at least a pilot of some sort) is a traditional career path to becoming an astronaut. How would that change if the Air Force were no longer involved in anything spacey?
Why would it change? Most of the early astronauts were test pilots before the U.S.A.F. started getting into spaceflight.
Actually what the Space Corps would do would be more in line with the operation of robotic spacecraft like MRO or LRO.
Most of the early astronauts were test pilots before _anyone_ started getting into spaceflight. The modern vehicles are, in general, not all that much like aircraft. Arguably, they require an operator or flight engineer more than a pilot. Also, arguably, if they are operational vehicles rather than X planes, a _test_ pilot isn’t what the job calls for. If we admit that test pilots no longer have exactly the ideal skills, and the Air Force is no longer involved with spaceflight (i.e. if some Space Corps were actually established) then it isn’t clear if being an Air Force pilot has any relevance.
I believe there are slightly more Navy than Air Force pilots in the Astronaut corps.
I wonder how SpaceX views employees it will hire to drive space capsules? And the Martian transporter?
At some point we move beyond testosterone-driven test pilots, don’t we? And expect to hire professional pilots and flight engineers?
I don’t believe SpaceX has said much about crew selection. I understand the crews going up to ISS will be all-NASA. However, I’m not sure about the qualification flights. And, if Musk is serious about going to Mars, SpaceX should be thinking about selecting or recruiting crews. But I haven’t heard anything about their plans or criteria.
Sounds like you overdosed on watching the “Right Stuff”. Most test pilot work today requires learning how a new aircraft is designed to work, comparing it to how it actually works and finding out how to fix the problems. Exactly the skill set needed in debugging a spacecraft. The quick thinking and problem solving skills of test pilots saved more than one mission. Gemini 6, 8 and Apollo 11 and 12 come to mind as starters.
While that’s true, I’m not sure how applicable it is to modern spaceflight. Unlike the early missions, a Dragon flies itself to the space station. That’s not going to change when with the Dragon 2 and having people onboard.
Understanding the technical details, seeing if things are working the way they should, and figuring out how to fix them if they aren’t, those are all valuable skills. But they aren’t unique to test pilots. Test pilots learned the technical details of _airplanes_ not, for example, life support systems or spacesuits. If the quick reflexes aren’t required (to fly the ship) and they background focused an unrelated field, I’m not sure why they would be the best candidates.
Here’s the thing…in addition to the funding fights that we’ve been talking about here, it is also about having top brass with experience in the strategic thinking of a particular battlefield. While Space Corps would not (yet) be a fighting service, a seperate command structure allows for the development of that experience base so that if (when) we go into combat on that battlefield we’ll have someone in charge who’s spent a career there and understands how the military doctrines for that battlefield were developed so that they can be adjusted intelligently.
Logistics, asset protection, communication, transportation… everything about that battlefield is different from air, land, or sea.
A compelling argument for sure. I would only point out that the AF evolved out of the Army. Any sort of space force would similarly evolve?
fcrary and I were just talking about that elsewhere in this thread.
You are correct…and only after it became its own thing did it become pivotal. Even in recent years I’ve heard some generals who came out of infantry and armor careers claim that air power still isn’t pivotal.
BTW…After Pearl Harbor you’ll probably never hear Navy say that.
Instead of Pearl Harbor, I’d say the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse. That was three days later, and the key difference is that those ships were at sea and not taken by surprise. Pearl Harbor could, arguably, be blamed on other factors. The Prince of Wales and Repulse were all about air power versus big gun ships.
I expect folks could have said the same about the U.S. Army in the early 1920’s. But aircraft were not cavalry with wings, at least not until the emergence of helicopters in the late 1940’s.
In terms of being like the Navy, that is only if human spaceflight is involved. But so far there has been no credible argument made for humans in military spacecraft.
You just reminded me of what the Air Force used to be in the opening salvos of WWI. I think they were called the Army Air Corp and its job was reconnaissance and communication.
It was the Army Air Corps until 1947. The Army was not exactly overjoyed with the change.
Yes. I remember that in the lead up to WWII we found that we we’re behind Japan and Germany on air power and did a reorganization to clear that up.
Er… 1947 was two years after the Second World War ended. Before the war, most US aviators were is serious denial, or self-important dismissal, of the quality of Japanese aircraft and pilots.
I remember seeing a documentary about that. When our guys were trying to push the building of our own torpedo bombers, one of the admirals snidely offered to stand on the deck of the target during the demonstration.
The plan is to fold in the national reconnaissance organization with their “culture intact”. So this means NRO doesn’t need to change. Don’t these politicians understand it is the NRO has been a major part of the problem over the decades?
Their “culture” of corruption, incompetence, and hubris will permeate, infect and ruin the entire space corps. See congress inquiry below. The space organizations like NASA all have serious problems- but it’s not anything even close to how bad NRO is. Nro just shrouds itself in secrecy.
If the new space corps is going to be successful all need to take a real deep hard look at them selves and change for the better.
https://m.youtube.com/watch…
You seem to have good information. What do you suggest? The few times when the DOD has actually become more efficient were when the services were unified into a single force rather than being fragmented into many.
Again I have to ask who would fill the ranks of the “Space Corps”? Drone operators, former Astronauts? Then the next question that will surface is what material is being built or is already in Orbit for this force to take control of?
I don’t think you understand how the USAF operates and why the new space corps is being proposed. Here’s a quote from the attached article
“The problem is far worse than simple competition between air power and space power. The Air Force has figured out a clever way to rob from the space budget in order to pay bills on the aviation side, and then get more money from Congress.”
The new space corps is going to be run by NRO, allowed to keep their “culture intact”, and they will likely love to have as many other organizations come in under them so they can gobble up their money and use it however they see fit in accordance with their “culture”. Looks like everyone is running low on other people’s money.
http://warisboring.com/amer…
Why do you say the Space Corps will be run by NRO? Your linked article says that NRO will be incorporated into the Space Corps. As stated before, there is more to space than just intelligence. Communications and navigation are extremely important aspects, different than intelligence gathering. It makes no sense for comm and nav to come under NRO since their operations are generally unclassified.
Here’s a quote from the article:”The NRO should be incorporated into the Space Corps with its leadership and culture intact.”
There is a lot of jockeying for who will lead. NRO and their supporters think they should lead and keep to their current culture.
On the NRO website peruse it and check out the resumes of some of the people- comm and navy are classified and part of NRO. There is aircraft and satellite systems too. Some comm and nav is unclassified. Some things NRO does are unclassified too- but it’s still under their command.
Another thing to consider. NSF and NIH are also under the influence of NRO too. One example was the adaptive optics. A book and articles on the Jason’s group came out not too long ago. Basically favorite contractors were picked and non favorites blocked or even funded to do wild goose chase research. NRO didn’t other countries might not engage be doing this. Researchers in France came out with some interesting papers – and the DOD decided to declassify too. Understandably, many top notch scientists were upset to find out their ideas weren’t funded and who did get funded. The group I was working with in the Air Force was the group that delivered the working deformable mirrors. It was most interesting that even internally there was a lot of upset over which groups actually produced working hardware for operational aerospace systems. It wasn’t the favorites that got lots of funds that produced working systems. There were epic turf wars over who was allowed to produce working hardware. An those that went off and did it caused an big upset.
NRO somehow feels like they have to pick and chose who is allowed to be produce. It’s also actually more profitable to the contractors to screw up- so there is a profit motive associated with not producing.
The recent movie entitled “a good american” shows an very good example of this culture happening within NSA. NASA does this too- but not yet to the degree of NRO and NSA.
You keep repeating the same lines, but not answering questions. Incorporating NRO in this space command is not letting them control it which is what you claimed.
Here’s a link below that explains NRO culture better. An excerpt that Dave Thompson gave as a speaker at the
Space Technology Hall of Fame Dinner”
https://www.discourse.net/2…
“Over the past decade, the NRO has posted a sorry decline into mediocrity and aristocracy. Today’s NRO is a rogue agency arrogant and holier than thou.And you know when you are holier than thou then you had better be holy. Just ask the Catholic Church’s bishops about that.The NRO staff is a know-it-all about everything. You’ve dealt with them – you can’t tell them anything”
Congress plan to keep NRO leadership intact and keep its culture means they are to be in charge. The NRO will not tolerate being subservient- because they thing they are holier than thou. It appears Congress isn’t even going to try to get them to change their ways. As I stated this means their “culture” of corruption, incompetency, and hubris will infect the entire new space corps
Here’s another excerpt so you can see where the new space corp will end up:
I’m sorry, but I can’t find where in the above referenced articles it say the NRO will be brought in to the Space Corps, much less with “leadership and culture intact”. The Wired article makes a claim about NASA (!) hiring SpaceX to launch NRO spacecraft, but that is the only thing I saw about NRO. Could you kindly point me in the right direction?
1. In the links below Dave Thompson as a speaker in the Space Hall Of Fame symposium states that NRO is rogue organization with a holier than thou culture. That jives with my personal experiences with them as well.
https://www.discourse.net/2…
2. Here is a link where one plan is to have NRO be brought in with their leadership and culture intact. http://warisboring.com/amer…
3. Although the words indicate NRO coming into the space corps as a box it really means NRO would be in charge and head it up. In the eyes of the holier than thou NRO they will not tolerate to be subservient to any organization- nor will they tolerated just being an equal division to other divisions. Here is another link to a bigger plan where NRO heads up a new Space Agency and heads up the space corps. They even propose folding in parts of NASA under their the new space agency and its space corps and other parts of NASA go to other agencies. That is along the lines of the visions of grandeur NRO thinks of itself. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they suggested it in the first place. https://wikileaks.org/gifil…
4. Here’s one example. I was invited to participate in a DARPA program meeting. To make a long story short, the darpa manager was trying to get funds from NRO. He was trying to pull together a team with contractors. One contractor had connections with NRO. The darpa program leader saw this as a threat to his program. Bottom line- the darpa program manager was forced to be subservient to NRO and equal to a contractor. This company wasn’t even sucking up to darpa as what used to be customary. Now everyone including darpa is sucking up to nro in the space community. The intelligence now has their own version of darpa called iarpa.
5. So to me the words keeping their “leadership” and “culture intact” means congress doesn’t want to take them on and make them change their ways. If they don’t change their ways they will remain the rogue, holier than thou organization on steroids that thinks they are in charge of everything and not subserviant or equal to any other organization. This means the taxpayer will have to continue to pay for efforts like $200 million light switches Dave Thompsons article points out. I too have many examples of how NRO is incompetent and currupt.
Great to hear a new, and passionate, voice hereabouts.
So the species needs to move war from its ancestral cradle on Earth to outer-space. Nice! SNAFU.
If it wasn’t for World War I and World War II we would probably still be flying in biplanes and rockets would be just for fireworks. Real progress is always driven by competition, extending it into space will move space technology forward much faster.
I would say it is not the wars per ce but rather the level of investment during the wars that drives technological progress. The wars did not magic the bomb, rockets, jet engines, etc. out of nothing, there was already a framework of knowledge and tech present to enhance/drive through the greater investment. Money makes the world go round (or at least the rockets that go around it).
Yes and no. Technology development during wars is a result of investing money and a widespread understanding that results are urgently needed. In theory, that could happen without a war. (The Apollo program may or may not be an example, depending on your views of the cold war.)
But can you name anything other than wars, which produce this sort of investment in technology with the same, widespread feeling of urgency? I can’t, and that might be a condemnation of human nature. But it seems to be true.
Yes, one only has to look at the relative progress of China and Europe over the last 1,000 years. China often came up with good technology, but when it was no longer fighting the Mongols their progress lapsed. On the other hand the constant fighting between the European nations resulted in a constant stream of new technology in terms of guns, better metals, ships, etc.
An argument can be made that the Chinese have learned that lesson.
Perhaps, but they still have the same form of centralized decision making that could turn inward instantly with a change of who is running the nation. That is what happened with their great fleets in the 15th Century, new emperor, new goals, and it not only did they burn the great ships but even made it illegal to build any ship, government or private, with more than one small sail.
There are different perspectives on that. The large Chinese exploration fleet was, ironically, similar to our Apollo program, an expensive endevour meant to show the flag and boost the prestige of its leaders. It wasn’t oriented toward developing a sustainable economic model based on trade. This may have been the result of a lack of understanding of the potential for and needs of international commerce, but the government was, like Nixon with Apollo, faced with an expensive program that didn’t seem to be providing any economic return.
That was because trade was tightly controlled by the government. When the Chinese government determined that the rest of the world was too primitive to produce anything of value they decided to write it off.
According to Wikipedia, there were established trade routes even before the voyages and a fair amount of commerce afterward with southern asia. The major factors that caused the expeditions to end were the variations in support by successive emperors (sounds familiar) and the need for vast amounts of money for defense against a series of Mongol invasions that began early in the Fifteenth Century, maybe an instance of war working against exploration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
All true.
I make the point about the Chinese, if you will forgive me, because certain anti-central planning themes run through your comments. In the case of the Chinese, the central planning is paying off huge dividends; and if it continues, particularly with respect to infrastructure, this will truly be the Chinese Century, mostly because they have focused on fundamentals and not changed direction.
In defense of anti-central planning themes, central planning in China also produced things like the “Great Leap Forward.” That caused a famine which killed fifteen to thirty million people, depending on who you ask.
Central planning works well for implementing infrastructure based on existing technology on a massive scale. It weakness is discouraging disrupting innovations.
computers/mobiles(cell phones)/TVs/fridges/cars/solar panels/nuclear power stations
These I would say are things that have come on leaps and bounds (in terms of development) without the driving force of a war to back them. You can quibble about a couple of them but their development into highly sophisticated products happened outside of wars. The driving force was pretty much money and the need for individuals to make it/spend it.
Indeed, the ever increasing sophistication of mobiles alone will account for one of the greatest impacts on human social and economic developments.
p.s. I just don’t think that is very clear cut. Wars can focus resources but to say that we’d be no where without them is weak. We are/have to be better than that.
I was thinking of the focusing of resources, and the speed of the development it produces. We certainly can make technological progress without wars. But it doesn’t seem to happen as quickly.
Nuclear power was a spinoff of reactors for navel ships developed during the Cold War. So were the advances in electronics that made computers and mobile phones practical.
Nuclear power, in fact, goes back further than that. Power production was a side effect of using a pile to produce synthetic radioactives, in order to make atomic bombs. Not that you’re wrong about the military connection. It was just from a hot war, not a cold one.
Wartime brings a unified purpose, no more, no less (well, urgency, too).
Unified purpose can be the result of other social forces, however: the development of the internet, for instance, from a crude net to the wonder it is today; and the myriad technical toys available are all driven, not by war, but by social pressure/acceptance. The invention of a truly usable mobile phone stands out, but so do self-driving cars, for instance. Urgency is part of the picture here as well, given the exigencies of modern marketing.
But remember, the roots of the Internet were in DARPA for military use. Private researchers had no interest until it was proven by DOD.
I agree, the money spent on ARPANET was motivated by the need for DOD to communicate with researchers at universities and contractors. It was something many civilian researchers wanted to do also, but there was no money for the infrastructure that would have to be installed by the telecom companies.
Another example of governmental research being worthwhile, wouldn’t you say? 🙂
Military research is usually beneficial because of its applied focus.
It might be impossible to appreciate the revolution that has ocurred in just the past five years, without a war. But Musk (and soon Bezos) burst onto the stage with guts, money, determination, and real ideas. The Cape went five years without a single real commercial launch. Now they come so fast it’s impossible even to watch them all. Watching a booster lauch, separate, and actually descend straight down through the night, engines blazing, with a sonic boom followed by a perfect landing, was just icing on the cake.
In science almost none of the revolutionary advances (LHC, Hubble, Webb, planetary probes, etc.) have any military application. If we wait for war to accomplish what we could have done all along, we are just being lazy.
Actually, Hubble had quite a bit of hardware heritage from military reconnaissance satellites. I hope that some of the stories about large deployable structures on classified satellites are true and this has been fed into the development of the Webb telescope (but I doubt the last part.) The use of penetrators to get a sensor a meter or so below the surface, used (well, failed) on Deep Space Two and proposed for other planetary missions, was actually done during the Vietnam war, dropped from aircraft to emplace seismometers along the Ho Che Minh trail (for traffic monitoring.) But I agree that the Large Hadron Collider has few military uses or heritage from military projects.
Forgot about Hubble. But I was more disappointed that there was no direct followon to Hubble. Webb took a totally different approach, with the inevitable complications. How much would it have cost to build a duplicate Hubble with updated subsystems? I also saw an excellent presentation on a medium aperture telescope for the ISS, transportable on normal logistics flights, but it was not funded.
I actually don’t see any need for a Hubble follow-on. The mirror is fine (well, no worse than ever, and current instruments are designed to compensate.) The gyros are working, but would need to be replaced in a while. The rest of the bus is in good shape.
The end of servicing missions had nothing to do with HST itself, or with the potential for future instruments which could be installed on it. Servicing missions ended because NASA decided the Shuttle wasn’t safe to fly, unless it was going to an orbit which could dock with ISS. They made a one-time exception for servicing mission four.
I see absolutely no reason we couldn’t do a SM5 using the Dragon 2 (or CST-100.) It might take some modifications to allow EVA work, but that may be desirable for other applications as well.
The last Hubble servicing mission cost $1.1 billion. Are you saying that would not be enough to equip and launch the remaining NRO telescope? The CST has nowhere to store large payload elements. The Dragon might be able to do it using the trunk. But an unmanned launch of a new telescope could be cheaper than a manned launch for a servicing mission.
Actually NASA does have two in storage. It just needs to find the money to launch them.
https://www.space.com/16145…
Spy Satellite Telescopes Donated to NASA ‘Came Out of the Blue’
The two telescopes have main mirrors that measure nearly 8 feet wide (2.4 meters), making them comparable to the veteran Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched into orbit 22 years ago. Grunsfeld called the donated optical hardware “very high quality.”
One of those NRO-donated telescopes is under development as WFIRST (Wide Field InfraRed Space Telescope.) The optics aren’t quire ideal for most astronomical applications; the field of view is huge. And, not shockingly, it’s over budget (in my opinion due to requirements creep.)
As far as I know, the second telescope is still in storage. Some of us were hoping for a HST-quality UV telescope, but the money there, it would have taken more work, and the scientific value wasn’t broad enough.
Actually the Hubble Space Telescope benefited greatly from spy satellite technology. And nearly all of the early space probes launched on converted ICBMs. Indeed, it was the V-2 that pioneered science in near Earth space in the 1940’s.
So yes, science benefited greatly from both World War II and the Cold War.
I would add Jobs to your list.
My point above is that certain social movements can be substituted for the effect of war; that for instance an insatiable public for communication is as powerful a focusing agent.
Not social movements but capitalism. Mobile phones are the classic example of free market competition at work.
“Free” market being the key word. Much of that progress happened after monopolies based on land-line-only communications stoped being viable.