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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday May 09 2018, @06:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the zapp-brannigan dept.

Former NASA astronaut, test pilot, and retired USAF Colonel Terry Virts is itching for a U.S. Space Force:

During my 30 plus years in the Air Force I had the privilege of serving as a pilot for my entire active duty career, with 16 of those years in Air Force Space Command as an astronaut. And I can say unequivocally that the air and space domains are completely different and independent of each other.

[...] If space is a separate domain, worthy of its own uniformed service, what exactly should it comprise, and what would it look like? Today, not only does the Air Force have its own space component, but so does the Army and Navy as well as other government agencies. I propose combining all "title 10" (i.e. combat related forces, as opposed to "title 50" intelligence gathering forces) assets that leave the atmosphere, or return from space, in a newly formed "Space Force," reporting directly to the secretary of Defense.

[...] I believe making this change will actually save money, as duplication is eliminated. It will also improve the quality of support that the joint force commander has at his disposal, as the joint-force space component commander will be entirely focused on providing space domain support to the joint fight, and not on pleasing an Air Force (or Navy or Army) chain of command that may have conflicting priorities.

[...] The time for a new uniformed service, the Space Force, is now. America deserves the most modern, efficient, and innovative military possible, and this will be a critical element in keeping us many steps ahead of our enemies.

Previously: The United States Space Corps Wants You...
Congressional Panel Puts Plans for a US Space Corps in 2018 Defense Budget


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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:29PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:29PM (#677873)

    There's another, bigger, problem with division of forces... A high school friend of mine because an avionics tech for our navy's army's air force, which is ridiculous sounding.

    There's always a problem in military design of organic assets as close to the end user as possible which leads to the Marines having jet bombers, vs centralizing and putting almost everything that can't hover into the air force.

    So you can make all the "space forces" you want, but nothing will stop, perhaps, the Coast Guard, from someday having space satellite commands, despite theoretically being a coastal boat force. I'm just saying I don't even really know the point of pretending to centralize a "Space Force". We don't even have a "Cyber Force" despite that having far more people.

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