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To: Bobalu
The Rocinante! ;-)

Actually, I wonder if the Space Force will initially be formed from existing units operating in space. For example, we have satellites in orbit for surveillance and communication, as well as the GPS constellation. I wonder if the Space Force would take over management of those assets? Then to put some teeth in space, they could become the primary military interface to the Missile Defense Agency. The MDA, working with the Army, Navy, and Air Force currently has interceptors that work both endo-atmospheric and exo-atmospheric as well as space surveillance radar systems (as does the Air Force).

However, I'm sure the existing branches and intel agencies are not going to be too willing to give up assets, budget, prestige, capability, and control. This will probably be an uphill battle not just with Congress and the leftists 'rats who will oppose anything President Trump does.

The net is - I bet the Air Force is the least excited about this proposal as they stand to lose the most to the new branch.

18 posted on 06/19/2018 5:08:17 AM PDT by ThunderSleeps ( Be ready!)
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To: ThunderSleeps

The President can’t simply direct this, a new service requires legislation. More likely, he is planning on forming a new joint command along the lines of US SOCOM.


19 posted on 06/19/2018 6:28:59 AM PDT by centurion316 (Back from exile from 4/2016 until 4/2018.)
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To: ThunderSleeps

StarLink determined that in-house manufacture of the satellite was the better option in placing their constellation into orbit. The satellites have laser interlink to communicate between all space assets, a very high total system bandwidth to mesh ground terminals, connections formed by a synthetic aperture steerable beam, and optics for ground observation.

Interferometry allows combining light or radio waves from multiple sources to generate a composite image of observations, giving in effect an instrument resolving power as if a lens or antenna were the diameter of the most widely separated elements in a group.

SpaceX was chastised for releasing live video of the Earth from a camera onboard their second stage in low orbit. Why would such a simple camera’s view be considered a security risk on a commercial launch, unless it was too revealing of a potential capability?

An Arpanet distributed in space around the Earth, consisting of over ten thousand nodes in final configuration, could present the possibility toward surviving a total communications-and-control loss in a per-emptive first-strike. This likely would require hardened electronic design to remain useful more than mere hours.

What would be the job description of a space force? What mission gap are they to fill that requires a specialized service be created, rather than adding another task to the Air Force. The AF already are tasked with the military space mission launch and operation of assets. Strictly off-world posting for a tour of duty?


20 posted on 06/19/2018 8:11:19 AM PDT by Ozark Tom
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