US U.S. Space Force Megathread - Trump told the Pentagon to make it so

President Trump directs Defense Department to 'immediately begin the process' of establishing 'space force' as sixth military branch

The White House, Air Force and Defense Secretary James Mattis had disapproved of creating a sixth branch of the military last year.

www.cnbc.com

Donald Trump orders Pentagon to set up 'Space Force' within US military

President has repeatedly floated the idea of a space force as he pushes to redouble America's extraterrestrial efforts

www.independent.co.uk

Trump directs establishment of U.S. force to dominate space

President Donald Trump on Monday said he was clearing the way for the United States to exercise extra-terrestrial dominance by establishing a new, sixth branch of the military that he dubbed a "space force."

www.reuters.com

Trump orders establishment of 'space force' as 6th branch of military

Speaking at a meeting of the National Space Council, Trump ordered the Pentagon to immediately establish a national “space force” that would become the sixth branch of the armed forces.

www.foxnews.com

Today Trump ordered the Pentagon to establish the 6th U.S. military branch, the U.S. Space Force.

Speaking at a meeting of the National Space Council, Trump ordered the Pentagon to immediately establish a national “space force” that would become the sixth branch of the armed forces.

“We are going to have a space force,” Trump said in Washington D.C. “An Air Force and a Space Force. Separate, but equal.”

This is not the first time that Trump has floated the idea of establishing a “space force.” The president mentioned the idea in May during a ceremony at the White House honoring the Army Black Knights college football team.

Trump did not go into details about what military role the so-called “space force” would carry out or who would command it, but he framed space as a national security issue, saying he does not want "China and Russia and other countries leading us."

The president said the United States will "be the leader by far" in space and is looking to revive the nation's flagging space program by returning the United States to the moon and soon reaching Mars.

 

[DragoonSierra]

Guess he wants to use it to deport some real aliens

 

[ForTheHoard]

All of my vet friends are going hard and heavy on the pro space force memes, but I still can't tell if they're taking a piss or not.

 

[Antipathy]

I personally think the Space Force would be a massive waste of money that wouldn't help space exploration and would simply militarize what should be a purely scientific location.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

I personally think the Space Force would be a massive waste of money that wouldn't help space exploration and would simply militarize what should be a purely scientific location.

Anything of scientific interest has value. Anything that has value will eventually be militarized because more people will want it than can have it. Near Earth orbit is no different.

 

[Antipathy]

Anything of scientific interest has value. Anything that has value will eventually be militarized because more people will want it than can have it. Near Earth orbit is no different.

And randomly slapping a bunch of soldiers with guns there will totally foster a spirit of international cooperation and scientific discovery, and it could never result in a situation where low Earth orbit gets covered in so much military junk that, due to Kessler Syndrome, prevents any real civilian or scientific exploration.

A Space Force would be fancy code for a bunch of nuclear satellites on polar orbits, equipped with spy cameras to make Orwell blush and precision guided missiles for the sake of waving around a giant phallus in orbit to say that the U.S owns space.

 

[Shugo]

international cooperation and scientific discovery

International cooperation is a farce, the only international cooperation is allied countries cooperating to ensure their own military superiority, because their enemies have done the same.

China's satellites are already suspected to be a threat to the USA's.

The moment a new resource is found and extractable outside of Earth, there will be a fight over who will get those resources, and the country with the strongest military presence will win the fight over resources, as has been the history of human conflict for millennia.

equipped with spy cameras to make Orwell blush

You think cameras on satellites are new? There's so many cameras up there, North Korea can't send a truck to one facility without the world knowing about it. There's plenty of civilian and non-government spy cameras as well constantly taking images of the earth from orbit.

 

[Antipathy]

International cooperation is a farce, the only international cooperation is allied countries cooperating to ensure their own military superiority, because their enemies have done the same.

China's satellites are already suspected to be a threat to the USA's.

So basically you think that people will always fight because we have since we were cavemen, cooperation is a farce, and the only way to survive is to hoard more guns and tanks than any other fucks. Furthermore, yes, I know that there are spy satellites, but now imagine several hundred more, and these ones have missiles.

 

[Shugo]

cooperation is a farce, and the only way to survive is to hoard more guns and tanks than any other fucks

Has China been cooperative these last few years? You know, one of the biggest super powers in the world? Have they been "cooperating" in the South China Sea? No, they've been sending war ships to scare off other countries from coming close.

What makes you think that just if we want to play nice and cooperate, the rest of the world will?

The only effective defense is self defense. If other countries are building up their military, the only way not to be overtaken by them is to build up your own military to defend yourself. It's not that hard of a concept. Why do you think China is also building up its naval fleet largely? Do you think they just want to cooperate in the sea?

With China's inflammatory actions in the South China Sea, what kinds of actions do you think they'll take outside of Earth's atmosphere once we find resources to harvest?

 

[Duke Nukem]

The idea of a Space Force seems laughable right now but Russia has already done it. China probably will soon. I don't necessarily think that militarization of space is a particularly good idea. But in the space of a few years or more likely, decades, it's probably inevitable.

 

[Yop Yop]

We're gonna put big tremendous lasers in space that smite any illegal Mexican as he approaches the wall

 

[AnOminous]

I personally think the Space Force would be a massive waste of money that wouldn't help space exploration and would simply militarize what should be a purely scientific location.

I don't see what it adds. From the very outset, astronauts were nearly universally military test pilots. Even now that the space program is explicitly civilian, more than half of the astronauts still come from the services. Experienced service members of the sort who apply are just generally more physically fit, more used to handling complicated technologies, more able to follow orders, and more able not to fuck up under stress.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

I personally think the Space Force would be a massive waste of money that wouldn't help space exploration and would simply militarize what should be a purely scientific location.

I agree the "Space Force" will be a bunch of bureaucratic bullshit that could be done a lot cheaper with what we already have, but space exploration is pretty secondary to this. More shit being launched into space will help space exploration because of the economies of scale which keep less efficient rockets the only rockets we use (to not even speak of non-rocket spaceflight which is too expensive to invest in because we don't have the volume of launches which would make the investment reasonable). Cheaper launches = better probes, telescopes, etc.

And randomly slapping a bunch of soldiers with guns there will totally foster a spirit of international cooperation and scientific discovery, and it could never result in a situation where low Earth orbit gets covered in so much military junk that, due to Kessler Syndrome, prevents any real civilian or scientific exploration.

The only thing stopping us from exploring space more is that our rockets suck. If it makes Blue Origin or SpaceX get more money as military contractors, then that will further space exploration (and most importantly exploitation) more than anything else. We need more rockets like the BFR, and hopefully the success of such a rocket would mean the government might sink a few billion on building an orbital ring.

Kessler effect can be averted more or less by putting more lasers in space or putting them on the moon. And put more nukes in space and on the moon, since that can clear out the debris for long enough to put more satellites and shit there to clear even more debris.

So basically you think that people will always fight because we have since we were cavemen, cooperation is a farce, and the only way to survive is to hoard more guns and tanks than any other fucks. Furthermore, yes, I know that there are spy satellites, but now imagine several hundred more, and these ones have missiles.

It's another good deterrance, just like nukes. If you can shoot a few rods from god on Moscow or Beijing at a moment's notice (which unlike nukes are a hell of a lot harder to intercept), then that's another reason the US's enemies might hesitate to fight a war.

 

[Keystone]

The Space Force is here.
Vice President Mike Pence announced Thursday that the Pentagon is beginning the process of creating a sixth branch of the United States military dedicated to space that will be known as the Space Force.

“The time has come to establish the United States Space Force,” Pence announced in the Pentagon auditorium filled with more than 350 service members and civilians.

Pence compared the creation of the Space Force to the creation of the Air Force at the start of World War II.

“In 1939, at the start of the Second World War, the U.S. Army Air Corps was still a fledgling organization. But as Nazi air forces bombed their way from Warsaw to London, our military commanders took decisive action then to meet that new threat head on,” he said.

“By 1945, the American military had nearly 30 times the number of planes and 85 times the number of pilots and support crews compared to just six years earlier,” he said. “America and our allies emerged victorious from World War II because of the strength of our armed forces and because our armed forces adapted to meet the emerging threats of the day.”

“Now the time has come to write the next great chapter in the history of our armed forces, to prepare for the next battlefield where America’s best and bravest will be called to deter and defeat a new generation of threats to our people, to our nation,” he said. “The time has come to establish the United States Space Force.”

In attendance were Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, and National Guard Bureau Chief Air Force Gen. Sean Lengyel.

Lengyel told Breitbart News it was a “historic day,” but that there was “a lot of work ahead.”

Pence announced the release of a Pentagon report on how to implement the president’s vision. The report calls for the creation of a unified combatant command called U.S. Space Command, an elite Space Operations Force, Department of the Space Force, and an agency that will field weapons for the new Space Force known as Space Development Agency.

Pence discussed actions China and Russia have taken to militarize the space domain.

“For many years, nations, from Russia and China, to North Korea and Iran have pursued weapons to jam, blind and disable our navigation and communication satellites via electronic attacks from the ground. But recently, our adversaries have been working to bring new weapons of war into space itself,” he said.

“As their actions make clear, our adversaries have transformed space into a war-fighting domain already, and the United States will not shrink from this challenge. Under President Trump’s leadership we will meet it head on,” he said.

“It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space,” he added.

Trump tweeted after the announcement:

Space Force all the way!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2018

While the Pentagon can take steps to create the Space Force, ultimately Congress has to authorize and fund it. Pence said the White House is building bipartisan support for the plan, working closely with members of the House Armed Services Committee.

The proposal has backing from Reps. Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Jim Cooper (D-TN), the leaders of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

“We particularly appreciate Deputy Secretary Shanahan’s leadership on these issues and look forward to the establishment of a much-needed independent Space Force, as called for by President Trump,” they said in a statement.

(http://archive.is/8iaYq)

Spoiler: Soon

 

[ForTheHoard]

Mattis is on board, so I'm on board.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/7/james-mattis-voices-support-new-space-force-new-co/

Spoiler: Article

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Mattis voices support for new Space Force as new combatant command


Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis speaks with reporters before welcoming UK Secretary of State for Defense Gavin Williamson to the Pentagon for meetings, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2018. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) more >


Carlo Muñoz - The Washington Times - Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Defense Secretary James Mattis on Tuesday threw his support behind the Trump administration’s push to create a new U.S. military force to fight future wars in space, saying the effort to create the new force is already underway.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, the former four-star general said the United States needed to begin seriously preparing to counter defense and national security threats emanating from space. “Absolutely we need to address space as a developing warfighting domain,” Mr. Mattis said during a press gaggle ahead of a visit by British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson to the Pentagon.

“We’ll get it right. We’ll work it through the Congress. We have the direction from the president and we’re underway,” he told reporters. But Mr. Mattis broke slightly from the White House with his comments Tuesday, saying a U.S. military presence in space should be akin to other regional combatant commands, like U.S. Central Command or U.S. Pacific Command.

When Mr. Trump first floated the idea of a new Space Force last month, he indicated he would like the new organization to be a “separate but equal” branch of the armed forces — on par with the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Mr. Trump’s June announcement on social media of the new Space Force reportedly took the Pentagon by surprise. Defense Department officials had expressed their reservations over the new Space Force to the White House, in the days and weeks after the announcement.

Since then, the notion of standing up an entirely new military branch to address future national security threats from space has been met with consternation and skepticism among officials inside and outside the Pentagon. At issue was the notion a new Space Force military branch would simply replicate existing military capabilities already residing within the current military branches. Space-centric directorates in the Air Force and Navy are already tasked with countering threats from space.

However, U.S. military leaders have pressed forward with drafting options on a new Space Force for the White House. The proposals, first reported by Defense One, include the creation of a new combatant command for space, a new joint military agency tasked with buying new space-based weapons and satellites and a joint venture that would draw units from the various branches into a single military collective. The options are expected to be unveiled later this week.

 

[NIA-DOA 2.0]

So...We're basically getting the IRL version of that GTA joke "Republican Space Rangers":

All kidding aside, though, the real question is:

Spoiler

How many trannies will this legislature LITERALLY kill?

 

[Keystone]

I'm more curious as to what you're supposed to call Space Force members. We have Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, Guardsmen, and....Space Men? Star Men?

 

[Zarkov]

Semper Fi to all armed astronauts

 

[Marchesa of the Vast]

I'm more curious as to what you're supposed to call Space Force members. We have Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, Guardsmen, and....Space Men? Star Men?

Space Marines obviously.

 

[NeverHappened]

Spaceforce is going to be mostly satcom guys(aka, The Communications Force branch of the military that never got created). No Space Marines, just people who do all the physics maths.

 

[Maxliam]

Starship fuckin’ Troopers!!! Woo hoo!!

YOU APES WANNA LIVE FOREVER?

Service guarantees citizenship!

Actually it's potentially even worse, like on the level of "deny space to everyone for centuries" worse.

They aren't worthy of space or the moon. The moon belongs to America, and anxiously awaits the arrival of our Astro-men. Will you be among them?

All of my vet friends are going hard and heavy on the pro space force memes, but I still can't tell if they're taking a piss or not.

Vets are that excited about this shit. We really are just well armed dogs. Jesus....oohhh a squirrel, in my tree! That's MY tree! MY TREE AND MY BUSH!!

And randomly slapping a bunch of soldiers with guns there will totally foster a spirit of international cooperation and scientific discovery, and it could never result in a situation where low Earth orbit gets covered in so much military junk that, due to Kessler Syndrome, prevents any real civilian or scientific exploration.

A Space Force would be fancy code for a bunch of nuclear satellites on polar orbits, equipped with spy cameras to make Orwell blush and precision guided missiles for the sake of waving around a giant phallus in orbit to say that the U.S owns space.

We do own space, silly billy. We own the planet. We must construct a Death Star that will be the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use.

The idea of a Space Force seems laughable right now but Russia has already done it. China probably will soon. I don't necessarily think that militarization of space is a particularly good idea. But in the space of a few years or more likely, decades, it's probably inevitable.

We have to beat them to it because right now those fucking commie fucks would seize the planet and space for themselves. Also....I kinda wanna enlist back in and fight the god damn bugs.

I'm from Buenos Aires and I say kill 'em all! The only good bug is a dead bug! I'm doing my part!

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