TRUMP PROPOSES SPACE FORCE

4TH BRANCH SOON

SPACE MUHREEEENS

In reality, a space force would probably revolve around defending current assets in space and its current surveillance role, as well as protecting american commercial and research spacecraft.

There have been many, many military research programs into a somewhat cost-effective reusable spacecraft with a low turn-around time(under 24hrs was usually the target to meet, some had 2-3x or other requirements.)

I'll type out following posts about american military spacecraft research, mostly the launch vehicles.

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The first american spacecraft launch vehicle was, I suppose, the Atlas 1 ICBM, which became the Atlas class of rockets(still in use today). Atlas was a three-engined rocket, and dropped off two of its engines mid-flight to lose weight, and because designers were worried about lighting rocket engines mid-flight.

As an ICBM, atlas was horrible. It required liquid oxygen, which needs to be kept at around 50 kelvin, and had to be fully fueled before launch, which took 15 minutes to half an hours depending on how well-trained your rocket crew is.

The modern atlas is a medium-heavy launch vehicle, with up to 5 solid rocket boosters and a russian rd-180 engine, supposedly the best short of the space shuttle engines.

And of course, its a single-use launch vehicle.

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This is a retarded idea, and the president is a retard for proposing it.

Shortly after the Atlas rocket, there was the X-15.

The X-15 was a supersonic manned research vehicle designed to host micro gravity experiments and test short exposures to space, as well as testing a myriad other early space technology.

The was fueled on the ground, attached under the wing of a b-52 like a cruise missile would be, and 'fired' after its engine(s) were lit.

the first x-15 had two smaller engines powered by ethanol and liquid oxygen again, and later got an upgrade with a much more powerful kerosene and oxygen engine that let it set the still-standing manned aircraft speed record of mach 5.5

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Whats wrong with considering space another front to wage war on?

The space force will be about protecting American satellites and commercial interests in space.

What I really want to see is some of the military's funding diverted to space research. Guns are cool and all, but the true perfection of the art of an explosion is harnessing it to continuously thrust yourself into orbit.

There were many ICBMs that the Air Force went through while the technology was immature, and we all know that they settled on the minuteman II system, for many reasons.

No seriously

The end of the Apollo era was really when the usaf and nasa decided that space was too expensive, and set out to design a brand new kind of spacecraft that would revolutionize access to space and bring the cost of space down to a fraction of what it was.

That was the Space Transpotation System, more commonly known as the Shuttle.

We (hopefully) all know that the shuttle was essentially commisioned by Congress as america's primary access to space. Congress demanded a vehicle that could lift 30 tons, re-use the main engines, use solid rocket boosters and an expendable tank(they actually specified that), have a low turnaround time of less than two weeks, and the ability to bring back satellites. This last one was important, because it meant they had to design the wings in such a way as mantain stability with no weight, some weight, or max weight in the cargo bay. This feature as demanded by the Air Force, and since reagan was president at the time, they got their wish. They only returned one sattelite to earth onboard a shuttle.

The space shuttle was a mixed bag of successes and failures. Everybody knows about Challenger and Columbia. Not everybody knows that the shuttle was actually only a little bit less expensive than the Saturn V by weight. The inherent design of the vehicle is unsafe, it doesn't allow for a launch abort sequence, and even if it were possible, there would then be a giant hydrogen-oxygen tank ready to fall somewhere. The solid rocket boost also caused problems, namely the Challenger disaster, which could have been avoided had there been any sort of launch abort sequence. The third major problem was the stupid ablative tiling. While that tiling had some awesome insulation features, it was simply structurally too weak for the application. Apparently is possible to chip it with a fingernail. Nearly every shuttle flight, they lost tiles. This is what cause the Challenger to burn up on re-entry. The shuttle also failed to meet the quick turnaround requirement, the shortest time between any two shuttle launches was 56 days, well above the 2 week target.

However, we made some damn sexy rocket engines.

NRO=CIA. They're purely an intelligence gathering group. The space force would be about defending american(NRO and NASA) satellites and american interests in space(hopefully asteroid mining). I bet this is mostly a response to china ramping up space activities again, but I'm glad to finally see this happen. I've been waiting a long time.

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Right now Russia is the only country with manned spacelaunch ability. America, europe, even chinks cut their program short.

I think it would be MASSIVELY helpful for us to get back into space, we cannot allow one country (regardless of which) to control all of the low orbitals.

We've already developed and test flown our next manned spaceflight system, it's called the Orion Capsule. the ONLY reason nasa doesn't have the ability now is because they didn't feel like human-rating the delta IV heavy.

Reminder both the Delta IV heavy and the Altas V would be able to handle Orion, and both have near-perfect launch records (a single partial failure for each, improper destination orbit).

however, orion was designed as a deep-space research vessel. It has much more radiation protection that other spacecraft and was designed explicitly with long-term, beyond LEO missions to lunar orbit and to mars.

And interesting caveat to space radiation, its not like radiation we know and love here on earth. Space radiation, specifically solar and interstellar wind, are actually highly energized ionized atoms moving at near-light-speed (we're talking 50%+ lightspeed). Our sun emits every atom on the periodic chart up to iron, meaning you can expect a single iron atom moving at near-lightspeed to tear apart any molecules in its way until all that energy is dispersed.
Apollo astronauts litterally saw this radiation, as small but bright flashes randomly appearing in sight. They didn't have special solar wind protection partly because they were only exposed for 2 weeks tops and partly because the technology simply wasn't there yet.
The reason other spacecraft don't need this armor, and the reason the ISS is in a 400km orbit, is the Earth molten iron-nickel core, which generates our unusually strong magnetic field, diverting these highly charged, energetic ions away from earth. This also means there are areas of extreme radiation surround earth, where the diverted solar wind is concentrated, called the Van Allen belts (pic related). The background radiation anywhere else in local space isn't actually that high, its just the risk of a high-energy iron ion giving you cancer someday. the ISS orbits just inside the lower Van Allen Belt, meaning no other spacecraft has needed solar wind armor.

Also, orion was simply not designed to run crew and resupply missions to the ISS. That was the shuttle's job.

Instead of using Orion, Obama told nasa (at Elon Musk and a few other huge nerds' request) to offer those missions to commercial companies, whic so far has actually worked out pretty well, and we're about to see Spacex launch their first people into space later this year(or so they claim). My favorite proposal was the dream chaser, but unfourtunately during its landing test one of the langing gear didn't deploy. They later fixed the issue, but missed too many other deadlines and goals for the crew program and had to drop down to only sending cargo aboard it, but they have been contracted for six flights already. Picrel is the scale drop test article that actually failed.

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