Selling The Space Force Thing With "Red Moon" Scare Tactics
Is the Senate ready to protect American interests in space?, Op Ed, The Hill
“And that’s a dangerous place to be. Nobody wants to be on record as having been the one who “lost space” and enabled a “red moon.” If anything happens after November related to space that alarms the American people, the question to Inhofe, Reed, Shelby and Leahy, will be: Why didn’t you act when you had the chance? It’s becoming very clear that we are in a serious space race with China, and Beijing has begun a bold strategic initiative. When it becomes clear to the American people they are behind, they will ask why we weren’t better prepared.”
– Space Force Is Worried About Being Called Silly Names, earlier post
– DoD Seems To Be More Interested In Space Futures Than NASA Is, earlier post
– White House Wants Space Force To Be Armed Forces Sixth Branch, earlier post
Keith’s 13 Sep update: Peter Garretson, the author of this op ed tweeted a link to this prepared statement by Dr. Namrata Goswami at a Hearing on “China in Space: A Strategic Competition?” held on 25 April 2019. It makes interesting reading. FWIW The phrase “Red Moon” is not mentioned.
What can I say? That scam is at least as old as Heinlein’s “The Man Who Sold The Moon.” While there are benefits to having lunar resources or bases, we aren’t at the point where one country can monopolize them. That might become an issue in a decade, and planning ahead isn’t a bad idea. But saying vote Yes by this November or we’ll be going to bed by the light of a communist Moon? That’s just nuts.
Agreed. And fwiw China’s having a rough time developing their new heavy lift engine and are reluctant to give any definite timeframe which puts their Red Moon ambitions on hold the present.
Cheers Neil
Not to mention the numerous economic and political problems emerging that are likely to get them to focus inward again.
Agree – it would be premature to suggest such a scenario. Let’s say the US goes ahead with Artemis for a return to the Moon by 2024, but for some reason its delayed and actually happens in the late 2020s. China has ambitions for Taikonauts on the lunar surface by 2034. If the US lunar return is delayed, then Beijing could see opportunity in accelerating their plans – flying Long March IX earlier, and developing lunar spacecraft sooner. Then a real space race would emerge, and there would be potentially huge prestige for Beijing to beat the US back to the Moon in the late 2020s.
That still doesn’t mean we are under a ‘Red Moon’. Firstly, even if the NASA Artemis program is delayed, commercial space might get there quicker anyhow. Secondly, whilst clearly a setback for China to get there next, its a huge leap to suggest that one landing means they have control. To establish ‘control’ of the Moon, China would need to completely violate (or circumvent) the Outer Space Treaty and place weapons on and around the Moon such that the US could not deploy spacecraft there. There’s not evidence – yet – that the Chinese will do this anytime soon. They may very well have commercial domination in their minds, and from that, use of the Moon and cislunar space for military purposes down the track, but that scenario would take time to emerge after the first landings.
The prospect of fighting China for control of the Moon – if it were to happen – is a late 2030s/mid 2040s scenario. One would hope the US would have gotten its act together by then in terms of not only deciding on a US Space Force, but also, developing cost-effective, reliable and safe space transportation infrastructure to sustain a presence. Well within the Space 2060 timeframe – but not as early as the mid-late 2020s, let alone 2020.
To my recollection, China has not signed any outer space treaty.
You’re right though, folks should not place too much emphasis on boots on the ground or firstmanship (MY new word BTW…so dibzies) when it comes to control of something that is so hard to get to and stay on and yet so easy for everyone to see and hit with missiles. 😉
For what it’s worth, China signed the Outer Space Treaty in 1984.
My bad. I thought I read somewhere that they hadn’t.
Commercial space is expanding rapidly, and that’s a fact. The military accompanied the settlers as the US expanded west, and simillarly, we’re probably going to see the military protecting those efforts. We’re likely to have a half-dozen or more space powers within twenty years competing for resources, and maybe even settling on the moon. Even I am pretty surprised at how fast space exploitation is coming about.
“Even I am pretty surprised at how fast space exploitation is coming about.”
You could be the only one! I’m amongst those disappointed with the slow speed…
As am I, but he has a point. China has easy access to LEO and GSO, and they are very active there and even competitive, yet are not dominant. The way things are currently playing out, I don’t see them being dominant on the Moon anytime soon. Commercial Space is right now taking the deep breath before the plunge with which no government space agency will be able to compete.
I am a proponent of the Space Force because I am not picturing it as a space marine thing that so many folks envision but as a command chain and training infrastructure thing inside of which a space marine thing can be grown as the need for such a thing begins to become foreseeable.
Also all those folks out there who are eager to sign up for the Space Force should start with an good education and active duty in one of the other services…then NASA. They will all be experienced Astronaut-plus-(fill in the military blank). They will NOT be experienced Mama’sbasement-Halo-gamers.
Well, rephrase: “Even I am pretty surprised at how fast space exploitation is coming about, after decades of operating at a snail’s pace.”
I’m from the “We were promised jet packs” generation.
Yes. My reading of your comment was too narrow.
The ‘Space Security Gap’ reminds me of the ‘missile gap’ and ‘bomber gap’ of six decades ago. In all of these cases there was a large degree of wishful thinking based on incomplete or dishonest fact-gathering.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Back in the days of when the Reds made gains in space, the US responded by providing some real money for real hardware. Since it was all made in USA, many places became economic boom towns. All those people educated with GI Bill after WWII could put their skills to work (also all those Canadian engineers laid off from Avro). Plus they put in some real money towards education (natl defense education act after Sputnik) so teachers and schools can get some real stuff besides just a couple of bunsen burners. Nowadays, some people in specialized areas will benefit, many will not. And schools will continue to suffer cutbacks.
Yes! The Good Old Days of the Cold War, don’t you wish you could go back to the days of Duck and Cover, of the fear of nuclear annihilation.
Today we have a vibrant commercial space industry – with communications, imaging, weather, etc etc. Lots of towns are benefiting from the space industry – you just missed the news. Now we have SpaceX flying, Boeing is about to fly the StarLiner, Sierra Nevada is preparing the Dream Chaser. Stop moaning about the old days and look at the exciting stuff we are doing to today.
Yes it was dangerous time back then, with a few close calls. Point I was making is many more people were connected with that space program than the one now. Yes, SpaceX doing amazing things but most of us are spectators (so far BO and Boeing have yet to orbit something, DreamChaser is almost invisible). Like one of many commenters said I have yet to meet a civilian that has heard of SLS and Artemis, everyone knows about Apollo. How to get more people to buy into this new space race (lack of a better term) is difficult to answer. Distributing contracts around the country like SLS has its issues.
Same with Space Force, a lot of money will be spent but only to a few (of course if you are one of the few, it’s great). For many others the money is invisible and like Artemis it is not in the news. However, SpaceX is but for many it has no bearing on their financial situation.
However, for space buffs it all adds to some interesting history in the making.
I remember air raid drills in new York City in the early sixties. We knew “duck and cover” was useless. If someone pushed the button we would all be incinerated. Does anyone want to go back to that? Commercial spaceflight is sustainable because it produces products with practical benefits for its customers.
Well, they won an election on fear, so…..
You can bet the Chinese won’t be held back by such inconveniences as the Outer Space treaty. Time for this archaic document to be ditched by the US or we will suffer for not doing so.
They already have not been. That’s why they stood up the PLA Strategic Support Forces.
It is well for folks to remember that if it wasn’t for the “red scare” caused by Sputnik NASA wouldn’t exist today. Indeed we might be reading NACAWatch instead. ?
http://www.thespacereview.c…
“According to Robert Divine’s The Johnson Years, Reedy sent LBJ a long memo, urging him “to plunge heavily into this one”. Besides being very good politics for LBJ and the Democrats, Reedy said, “The Russians have left the earth, and the race for control of the universe has started.” Reedy argued that the nation that could conquer outer space would dominate the world of the future. “This may be one of those moments in history,” said Reedy, “when good politics and statesmanship are as close to each other as a hand in a glove.”’
‘”Johnson continued Kennedy’s dedication to the Moon landing, saying “I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon”.’
The outcome, NASA and the USAF space program, have served the nation well. Space Force will likely do so as well as commercial ventures move beyond GEO.
The US was working on launching a satellite when Sputnik launched, if Sputnik had been delayed a year or so maybe we would have had a reasonable program. Maybe we would not have sprinted to the Moon for a flags and footprints and some rocks program – we could have had a sustainable program.
So tell us who “conquered” space? Who is denied access today? No one? Are the Communists worried about going to bed under a Free Moon tonight? No?
The U.S. Navy was working on launching a satellite, not NACA. Without the “Red Scare” U.S. space exploration would have likely been a friendly race between the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force. Recall that most of the polar research in that era was made possible by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force. Not surprising as the tradition of the American military exploring frontiers goes back to the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
So without Sputnik NASA wouldn’t exist. NACA would likely have provided a supporting role, as it did with the X-planes, but it wouldn’t be the lead agency. But the desire to make propaganda points by having America space exploration done by a civilian agency, as opposed to the military services used at that time by the Soviet Union, resulted in what at the time was considered a somewhat radical idea, but drawing on the example of the A.E.C., a civilian government agency devoted to the peaceful exploration of space.
The X-15 was America’s first fully reusable manned spacecraft. Without Sputnik it might have been the first step in a path toward sustainable spaceflight.
Is there someone creative enough to make a NACAWatch? A few pages of typed text with hand-drawn diagrams?
Also note back then US had superior airpower and bomber forces. When Sputnik first flew, Eisenhower was not that worried because it was just a radio transmitter. R7 was a terrible ICBM and we could have flattened the launch site if need be. Of course he couldn’t tell people the U2 photos he had at the time. There were those planning of human spaceflight, not a man in the can but a winged vehicle which X-15 will investigate. What if Sputnik never happened? What materials would have been developed? What shapes would they realize work best of space planes?
A documentary shows Eisenhower in front of the press reacting to Sputnik and not being that concerned about it, remarking it doesn’t have much capability. But everyone reacted, “the old man doesn’t get it!”
There were perceptions that drove programs including the Missile Gap. Soviets first to put a satellite into space, first animal into space, first man into space. Meanwhile US jumped way ahead in recon satellites (predicting when and where was a toughie) and communications satellite. But there was perception of losing the space race.
Some say we are losing the space race to China because they landed on the far side of the moon with a rover. They are decades away from a close encounter with Pluto. But they are focusing on the moon while US focuses on the Space Force. Which is better? Another topic I guess.
I think that the President has one view of a Space Force, whilst those people who are more informed have a different view, one with perhaps more reality. I’ll explain before I am accused of simply bad-mouthing the Oval Office.
The space force imagined by the president (and as I imagine he imagines!) will require an energy density not possible with chemicals. In fact, humanity’s space efforts will remain on the bare edge of possible and require stunning amounts of sacrifice until physicists solve some very fundamental issues.
So, as someone else has already said here or in a different thread, the Space Force will mostly be young warfighters sitting at computer terminals, controlling satellites powered by Hall thrusters (an exaggeration, I know). This is the reason that the creation of a space force isn’t particularly troubling.
Don’t underestimate what someone sitting at a computer console and controlling something can do. A drone attack just (Sept. 14) took out a sizable fraction of Saudi Arabia’s oil production capabilities. It isn’t hard for me to imagine space warfare involving people sitting at computers controlling Hall-effect powered satellites and either striking communications and surveillance satellites, or possibly other Hall-effect powered satellites. I agree that probably isn’t what the President is thinking of, but it would be a major escalation from the current situation.
Was it Gen. Kwast on thespaceshow.com that mentioned someone can deny the use of RF spectrum to counter the US instead of trying to build better spacecraft? [or air vehicles]
Both PLASSF and the “Space Troops” have Cyber War and Electronic warfare under their tasking as well as Space War. That leaves laser communications as a substantial strategem when jamming in the RF domain is enabled.
I have no idea. But you can always do better jamming when your transmitter is along the line of sight between the sender and receiver. Parking a small electronics warfare satellite next to a big, expensive communications satellite isn’t a bad way to do that. Removing such a satellite would remove the jamming.
Yes, and it’s another hit on the Chinese economy, which is by far the world’s largest importer of oil with Saudi Arabia being one of their big suppliers. Wonder how many more hits the Chinese economy will be able to take before they are forced to slow down on their ambitions in space.
Kennedy did not propose the Moon Race to settle space or to militarize space. The Moon Race was conceived by Kennedy as a symbolic substitute for a perilous race in nuclear arms that could have destroyed the world. Its goal was to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. Period. History unfolded exactly as he and von Braun had hoped. Russia was undermined in both resources and prestige, and with the landing of Apollo 11 America led the world. It was a master stroke for its time, but times have changed.
China is not going to the Moon to attack the US with a rain of nuclear missiles. This is strategically absurd. For the same cost a much larger force could be based on Earth. Any attack from the moon would be obvious days in advance and invite retaliation on Earth.
The Chinese government is using its space exploration program to market its technological capabilities to its foreign customers and show its domestic audience that it has “joined the club” of world leaders. A race would serve no purpose for China. If they lost they would look foolish. If they won, they would further antagonize their larget customer, the US. As my Chinese friend says, “If you want to race to the Moon, go ahead. We will not race with you. You will be racing by yourself.”
“China is not going to the Moon to attack the US with a rain of nuclear missiles”
Quite correct.
“…show its domestic audience that it has “joined the club” of world leaders.”
Not quite correct. It is to show that China is resuming its old pre-industrial dominance of its cultural milieu, which is now the whole world.
” A race would serve no purpose for China. If they lost they would look foolish. If they won, they would further antagonize their largest customer, the US.”
Indeed, when the strategy was started, Xi, like most people they talked to here, assumed there would be no race, just as there would be no reply to PLASSF, because the next President of the US would be as likely to oppose China as a 6 years old child would be to oppose Santa Claus. Their electoral expectations were unfulfilled.
“We will not race with you. You will be racing by yourself.”
Indeed, the presumption has been that China will simply outlast any US sprint ahead, and keep growing its politically allocated presence throughout the Solar System. The assumption is that market-based growth *must* always be approved of and enabled by the State, as in China today, and that markets will not last as the formational structure, in the face of continued Chinese State persistence. This would leave the Solar System with a predominantly State-oriented cultural influence and economy, that would be far more friendly to Xi’s concepts of the revived Chinese domain of “All Under Heaven”.
I substantially doubt these expectations will be fulfilled any more than their electoral expectations were, because they resume the old pre-industrial belief in the Primacy of the State as opposed to that of industrial networks, …but only as long as those networks are defended. That is what Space Force will eventually be called on to do beyond Cis-Lunar Space.
China’s economic success is the direct result of its adopting unrestrained capitalism, not state micromanagement. China’s remaining government owned industrial organizations are drains on the economy at a time when the primary demands of the Chinese public are for stability and economic growth. Until recently the economic benefits of free trade overwhelmed the expensive and risk of military confrontation, but the need of the Trump administration for an existential enemy has put the US in the unprecedented position of throwing away decades of effort in establishing a mutually dependent relationship between our country and China and creating in its place what may well become a new cold war. Having lived through one cold war with the world minutes from Armageddon, I think starting another is inconceivably shortsighted.
“China’s economic success is the direct result of its adopting unrestrained capitalism, not state micromanagement.”
“China’s remaining government owned industrial organizations are drains on the economy at a time when the primary demands of the Chinese public are for stability and economic growth.”
These 2 sentences directly contradict each other. Unrestricted capitalism does not contain such drains on the wealth of society. Those drains are used to keep the CCP in power.
“Until recently the economic benefits of free trade overwhelmed the expensive and risk of military confrontation, but the need of the Trump administration for an existential enemy has put the US in the unprecedented position of throwing away decades of effort in establishing a mutually dependent relationship between our country and China and creating in its place what may well become a new cold war.”
The problem with this statement is that it ignores what officers in the PLA were doing for 14 years before Trump ever became President, which was advocate turning Space into a threat environment for US MilSpace assets. They started activating this during the Obama Administration, in 2015, by standing up the PLASSF, tasked with just these goals. They have synched well with Xi Jinping’s desire to restore the old dominance of China throughout its cultural space, which because of the industrial world’s technology now includes the whole of Earth.
“Having lived through one cold war with the world minutes from Armageddon, I think starting another is inconceivably shortsighted.”
Having done the same, I also believe it is short-sighted. I simply ascribe its start to the period you wish to ignore, just as the Obama WH wanted to ignore the PLASSF, and told those informing them “talking about it will just make things worse”. It is Xi Jinping, and his American sympathizers, who are incredibly short-sighted.