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Military Space

Bridenstine Talks About Space Force When No One Else Will

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 28, 2018
Filed under ,
Bridenstine Talks About Space Force When No One Else Will

Keith’s note: I tuned into the Politico Space thing last night. I missed a lot of it since it was supposed to start at 6:15 but after 30 minutes of waiting for it to start I gave up and did something else. I checked back in later and listened for 15 minutes or so. I just happened to tune in just as Jim Bridenstine was asked about the whole Space Force thing. Being an actual warfighter who defended our country, a former Congressman who grappled with legislation, and a guy who thinks about space a lot, he knows his stuff.
Bridenstine answered the Space Force question cogently for 10 minutes or more, jumping back to the topic again and again later. Bridenstine clearly supports the idea of a Space Force and makes his viewpoint clearly without notes or stumbling. Indeed, now and then, he almost sounded like he was auditioning to be Secretary of the Space Force (SecSF).
What’s odd about this is that no one at the Department of Defense really wants to talk about Space Force – just Bridenstine. Indeed, the impression one gets is that they are not too thrilled about turning the Pentagon into a Hexagon with a sixth service called Space Force (yes I stole that joke). You can’t get the National Space Council to talk about this either. In Washington parlance Bridenstine probably got a little over his skis or was outside his swim lane a bit.
I do not think this signals any sort of military role for NASA. But this space agency does not operate in a vacuum (pun intended) when it comes to other space activities. If Bridenstine is the only one who is willing to talk about space in a larger context that includes things outside of NASA’s purview such as Space Force – when no one else will – perhaps we should listen. Maybe he knows what is actually going on.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

35 responses to “Bridenstine Talks About Space Force When No One Else Will”

  1. Byron says:
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    Actually, retired astronaut Terry Virts wrote about Space Force a few weeks ago:

    http://thehill.com/opinion/

  2. KptKaint says:
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    The 1950s term Space Cadet raises it’s head………..

    • james w barnard says:
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      But Tom Corbett doesn’t matriculate at Space Academy, U.S.A., in the World Beyond Tomorrow until 2353!

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Yes, and creates a real giggle factor that complicates everything.

      • PsiSquared says:
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        I think the announcement of the creation of a Space Force created introduced a pretty significant giggle factor.

  3. KptKaint says:
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    There is a tremendous amount of duplication among the armed services now. Creating a 6th armed service will make that worse and add more expense. Splitting off part of the USAF to form this USSF is just part of the issue. The USAF would probably lose the groups that manage Vandenburg and Kennedy, military satellites, and the land based ICBM forces. Perhaps part of the of other services might be involved in transferring functions. Where it get expensive is the creation of a new set of General officers and supporting staff, administrative group that provide personnel. legal, logistics, healthcare, procurement, etc. Will the USSF one day have it’s own dedicated service academy too?? The USSF will probably have astronaut pilots, where will they train and get experience? The USAF was created out the US Army 70 years ago. Since that time the Army and USAF continue maintain duplicate support branches. This will get worse and more expensive.

    • mfwright says:
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      >There is a tremendous amount of duplication among the armed services now.

      Reminds me of the movie with the quote why just get one when you can get two at twice the price?

    • james w barnard says:
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      Until we are conducting manned operations beyond LEO, and particularly ON the Moon, or unless there are hostile forces threatening to dominate cis-lunar and ON-lunar U.S. commercial and governmental operations, there is no reason for a separate service. SPCOM can do the job if given the funds and the personnel by the parent Air Force.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      The ICBMs were transferred to the Global Strike Command with the heavy bombers years ago. They are not part of the equation.

      http://www.af.mil/About-Us/

      “Air Force Global Strike Command, activated August 7, 2009, is a major command with headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, in the Shreveport-Bossier City community. AFGSC is responsible for the nation’s three intercontinental ballistic missile wings, the Air Force’s entire bomber force, to include B-52, B-1 and B-2 wings, the Long Range Strike Bomber program, Air Force Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3) systems, and operational and maintenance support to organizations within the nuclear enterprise.”

      • james w barnard says:
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        And apart from the fact that ICBM’s do cross the Karman line briefly, AFGSC’s functions are not primarily in space. AFSPC, OTOH, has a great deal of “business” in space, controlling satellites, etc. So, yes, IF a Space Force were to be postured as a separate service SPC would be the logical entity to form the nucleus of a Space Force. But, of course, Congress would have to pass the appropriate legislation. How likely that would be remains to be seen.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      The Space Force would be built around the existing USAF Space Command and its 42,000 personnel, which is over twice the workforce of NASA. Here is the info on it.

      http://www.afspc.af.mil/Units/

      :AFSPC bases include: Buckley, Peterson, and Schriever AFBs, Colo.; Los Angeles and Vandenberg AFBs, Calif.; Patrick AFB, Fla. In addition, many geographically separated units span the globe.

      AFSPC is comprised of more than 42,000 professionals assigned to 134 locations worldwide. “

      • fcrary says:
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        “The Space Force would be built around the existing USAF Space Command”

        No, it _could_ be, not would be. Unless you’ve seen something I haven’t, this is an assumption on your part not a fact. Similarly, saying that “Global Strike Command [is] not part of the equation” is also an assumption. I might agree with those assumptions, since they make some sense. But I’m not sure. I’m definitely not comfortable trying to figure out what our current President is thinking.

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          Yes, it could. But that is the model some members of Congress and USAF space experts have been pushing. It’s not President Trump’s idea, he is just advocating for it because it fits his agenda on building national space leadership in a way the next Asministration will not be able to undo. But remember, all a President is able to do is advocate, Congress will decide in the form of legislation.

          • fcrary says:
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            The problem is that you’re describing someone’s initial concept. As you note, the whole thing has to go through Congress. That means the original draft can be amended in subcommittees, committees, on the floor or in the process of reconciling the House and Senate versions of the bill. Once Congress is done with it (if they actually do pass something) I have no idea how much the final version will resemble the initial concept.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Yes, making sausage is a lot of fun. But I suspect the report the Pentagon delivers to them will have a lot of influence. Si it is just a waiting game to see it.

        • David Fowler says:
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          Your post makes no sense. The previous poster is making completely logical assumptions.

          • fcrary says:
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            The world is full of completely logical assumptions which turn out to be wrong. I think pointing out that possibility makes perfect sense.

  4. ThomasLMatula says:
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    It just shows again why he was such a great choice to be NASA Administrator, as he actually understands space policy and what is going on in Washington D.C. I suspect the Pentagon is being quiet because they are working on the report Congress asked for on the Space Force and how it would fit in.

    https://www.military.com/do

    ‘Space Force’ Study to Be Ready by August: DoD Official

    Military.com, 25 Apr 2018
    By Oriana Pawlyk

    “The Pentagon hopes to deliver an interim report to Congress by August on whether it’s feasible to carve out a separate “Space Force” branch from the U.S. Air Force, according to a top DefenseDepartment official.”

  5. rb1957 says:
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    Why Space Force (other than because the chief inmate wants one) ?
    What military threat would they defend against ?
    What military action could they undertake to advance national interest ?
    What did Neil say ? “We came in peace for all mankind”.
    Space in the one place where (for now) we haven’t militarised along national interests; there remains the possibility of militarising (if we have to) along global interests.

    • fcrary says:
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      The first man-made object to enter space (crossing the Karman line) was a V-2 (A4) ballistic missile during the Second World War. Surveillance satellites were some of the first things the US and Russia put in orbit. It seems to me space has been militarized from day one.

      In terms of what the military could do or defend against? Well, they depend on unmanned satellites for all sorts of things. Everything from surveillance to weather forecasting. Operating those spacecraft is something they can (and are) doing. A “space force” could be about how they do what they are already doing.

      Those assets can also be attacked by any nation with even minimally capable ballistic missiles. They can also be subjected to denial of service attacks in various ways. Since the military needs those satellites, it seems like they have something in space worth defending.

      • JerryG says:
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        The problem defending those assets needs technology we do not have. Oh yes we can beam rays at weapons attacking those assets, but my guess it would be luck to destroy 10-20% of them. The numbers and speed their technology would far overcome any protection device we may have. Opening the beam would not just get more of theirs but also ours. The USAF has got it right, put our technology out of reach. We do not need a Space Force to do that. Bridenstine is turning out to be a real dud!

      • cb450sc says:
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        I would argue space hasn’t been remotely as militarized as it could be. There’s a reason NASA is a civilian agency. Has anyone forgotten the scale of the debate over this? Or that NASA is forged from former military-related bases and programs? Or how pivotal the Outer Space Treaty was? There was no reason it had to be this way, except that everyone was scared to death during the peak of the cold war about orbital weapons platforms with nukes pointing down at the Earth, especially at a time when ICBM technology was nowhere near where it is today. The last thing we need is a another arms race in the sky just a few hundred miles over our heads. Or god help us throwing out the treaty, as this administration seems so fond of doing, in which case nations will start claiming the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids as territory.

        • fcrary says:
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          Saying that space isn’t as militarized as it could be doesn’t really say much. It’s true, but so is saying the Mojave desert isn’t as arid as it could be.

          As far as NASA’s creation as a civilian agency, I believe President Eisenhower was very interested in gaining acceptance for his “open skies” concept (allowing spy satellites) With the Russians launching the first artificial satellite and following up with a specifically civilian space agency, he sort of backed them into a corner on the legality of overflight.

          NASA was primarily created from a civilian agency, NACA. The Redstone Arsenal and parts of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station were added, but so was CalTech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I’m not sure why you say NASA was, “forged from former military-related bases and programs” or what the point of that is.

          I think you are jumping to conclusions about this whole “Space Force” thing. I haven’t heard anyone talking about putting nuclear weapons in orbit or scrapping the Outer Space Treaty. The military does have, and does need, various sorts of satellites. They do need to operate them, and make sure they remain operational and available. Without talking about _expanding_ military activities in space, it’s reasonable to talk about whether the _current_ and historical activities are best run by one branch of the military or spread between several.

          • cb450sc says:
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            I would include JPL because “Caltech’s JPL” had it’s genesis in an R&D center for military research. It started life as a branch of the aeronautics department on-campus, back then (30s) in the relatively distant and uninhabited Arroyo Seco area, where rocket motors could be tested. Most of this research was geared towards development of ballistic missiles and JATO systems. This is why the whole area is an EPA superfund site today, due to rocket motor perchlorate contamination of the groundwater in what is now a dense urban area. If I know too much, it’s because I’m from Caltech.

            The point is that few of these centers truly arose from whole cloth as part of NASA. The majority are evolutions of existing military/weapons research centers from early in the last century. This is, after all, at the heart of NASA’s dysfunction: it’s composed of separate warring fiefdoms with long political histories. There was a very conscious choice 50 years ago to redirect all of this activity explicitly away from militarized weapons systems and into more peaceful purposes like space exploration. That redirection was so thorough that I have found that many people at the centers today are barely aware of how their centers came to be (I have encountered this very often with JPL). That’s a good thing. We could just as easily have wound up with the other future often depicted in sci-fi.

            As for what the “Space Force” is, do you really think Trump imagines something other than armed spaceships filled with soldiers patrolling space, as depicted in all those sci-fi shows from the 50s and 60s?

          • fcrary says:
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            “The majority [of NASA centers] are evolutions of existing military/weapons research centers from early in the last century.”

            I still can’t see that. NASA Lewis (now Glenn), Dryden (now Armstrong), Langley, and Ames were all NACA centers and entirely civilian at the time NASA was founded. Some are co-located with military bases, but their existence as a civilian research center predates NASA. Johnson and Stennis was founded after NASA. I’m not sure where the land for Stennis came from, but it and the site for Johnson were undeveloped and the land for Johnson was previously owned by Rice University. As far as I can tell, only Marshall (from the Redstone Arsenal) and Kennedy (from Cape Canaveral Air Station) were direct transfers from the military to NASA. Did I miss something, because two doesn’t sound like two out of eight is “most.”

            For JPL, I’m not sure if I agree. JPL did plenty of military work during and after the war, but I think the first three or four years (1936-1939) it wasn’t funded by the military. But when they were incorporated into NASA, you may be right. (The perchlorate is something I hadn’t heard about; but I have heard some grumbles and rumors from JPL employees about health issues for people with offices in certain buildings, but nothing proven or provable.)

            Getting back to the “Space Force” and what Mr. Trump imagines it would be, well, I’ve pretty much given up on figuring out what goes on inside his head. But I am fairly sure Congress isn’t going to fund construction of the USSF Heinlein, designed to fight the Russians in space or USS Sulaco to land alien-fighting marines on other planets.

    • David Fowler says:
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      Nothing in your statement is true.

    • Dr. Malcolm Davis says:
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      Space has been ‘militarised’ since the 1960s, in that we’ve been using space to support a broad range of terrestrial military activities. That military space environment is now becoming more contested, congested and competitive. China and Russia are developing a suite of counter-space capabilities – direct ascent ASATs, co-orbital ASATs, ‘soft kill’ capabilities – and are actively preparing to use such capabilities against US and allied space infrastructure to ‘pluck out our eyes and cut off our ears’ prior to or at the outset of a military conflict. That would leave us effectively unable to fight information-led warfare, and quickly eliminate traditional military-technological advantages. That’s the military threat we must defend against, and having a dedicated force designed to do that makes sense to me.

      You have to look past the nice sounding rhetoric of Apollo. Those days are long gone. Yes, we do space cooperation, but only to a limited degree, and its likely to reduce going forward. Space is going to be more competitive and conflict-prone. Russia has a ‘space force’ as does China (the PLA Strategic Support Force). The silence about their military space activities from opponents of the US Space Force is most thunderous.

  6. Doc H. Chen says:
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    As the member of the winner team, the new NASA’s leader
    states the need of the protection from US defense in space. The US Commander-in-Chief orders the new Space Force for the defense including NASA’s domain. Congratulations to NASA.

  7. Eric says:
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    This interview is very impressive.

    Here is the video: https://youtu.be/RaaqyPNEmXE

    • VLaszlo says:
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      Agreed. I was skeptical (still am) but based on available evidence this might be the best cabinet appointment of the admin.

  8. Nelson Bridwell says:
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    Here is a 1:22 clip from Politico Space where Bridenstine provides a compelling reason why the US needs a Space Force to the skeptical moderator:

    https://www.politico.com/vi

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      I wonder f the whole idea started with the Administrator’s whispering in the ear of the President?

      I’m not sure it’s an idea the President could actually generate himself.

  9. RocketDawg says:
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    I’ve been retired from NASA for almost 10 years so may be a bit out of touch, but why do we need a Space Force that’s on the same level as the Army, Navy, and Air Force? There’s already an Air Force Space Command to handle military matters, along with cooperation from NASA, and the other branches (save possibly the Coast Guard) have space activities. Maybe it’s all about consolodating all the service branch functions, but would it solve anything?

  10. Lawrence Wild says:
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    OK, some thoughts. First, whatever the Space Force might be, the idea did not originate with Trump, but with members of Congress and the defense sector that have grown dissatisfied with the Air Forces handling of this vital area. As such what it’s charter might be will be in the hands of Congress who would have to write the enabling legislation for it’s creation. It isn’t about what Trump thinks, but what the Congress thinks. Second, there are some very good reasons why this should be taken out of the USAF’s hands and established as an independent agency (though perhaps not a full blown military service). Space as a military resource is required by all the services, not just the USAF. Maintenance of navigational and communications satellites, intelligence gathering satellites, and weather (both terrestrial and space weather) satellites are required by all the other services to conduct their operations. Their exists a real doubt that the USAF is a sensitive to the needs of these other services when allocating budget priorities or the energy it’s willing to put into pushing these priorities. USAF is dominated by Fighter pilots and their concern for Air Supremacy over other aspects of national defense or military mission roles has long been a weight on USAF budgeting and mission priority concerns (I submit that their constant attempts to dump the A-10 and slight the ground support war fighter role might be one example of it). Separating out the Space functions from the “Things with wings” crowd, might lead to providing a much more balanced outlook and prioritization to space roles and missions. Third, There are valid military requirements for space, Not only do the assets we have in orbit serve vital functions, but we have an interest in protecting them and in attacking our opponents assets in the event of war. We also should have an interest in developing a rapid deployment function for replacement of those assets if another country should start aggressive functions against us (as the Chinese for one, have already demonstrated a capability for). These views need a more military, rather than civilian, outlook to properly prioritize. A view concerned with mission and function different than NASA or other defense agencies (or the USAF) provides. No it’s not about building “Starship troopers”, or “Martian space marines”, or any other strawman Sci-Fi arguments against the idea that are thrown about, but rather about creating an organization with a cross-DOD outlook as to the multiple mission, multiple priority and ongoing needs for National Defense in the space environment. In cooperation with DARPA it might also be about developing new technologies and instruments to meet the Defense departments future requirements there as well. Should it be called “The United States Space Force” and formed as a military service or should it instead become a separate operating Agency of the DOD similar to, for example the NSA or Defense Mapping Agency I have no idea. Congress will need to decide that. I do know though that as long as it sits in the USAF’s hands, it’s needs will always take second place to the development of a shiny new fighter or Air to Air missile. Space needs to be pulled out and given autonomy, of that I have no doubt. Separate service or DOD agency is up to Capitol Hill.

  11. Thomas Irvine says:
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    Have you checked the following quote from your post with the NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Communications? “I do not think this signals any sort of military role for NASA. But this space agency does not operate in a vacuum (pun intended) when it comes to other space activities.” Because I got from the horses mouth that, “NASA won’t have anything to do with it…” Seems like they just did, even if tangentially.