Recall in a June, 2018 post, I warned:
"What many will likely hear and see more and more of is how we "need" a Space Force to "protect our satellites" from being shot down, say by the Chinese or Russkies. "
And sure enough, assorted moron voices have been chirping ever since about the need to implement this useless white elephant. As Chris Hayes noted on 'All In' last night, referencing Trump's babble in the Rose Garden yesterday, it is all about just "dusting off something old and calling it something new"- referring to SpaceCom or Space Command. (Which has been with us since the 1980s in some form and had been based here in Colorado Springs with NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain.)
"Space Force" the concept is also not new but had been proposed years ago by our local congress critter Doug Lamborn who hatched it in order to try to grab more money from defense contractors .
For further reference, the GOP House previously approved the creation of a "Space Corps"inside the Air Force. Trump's alleged novel brain fart, at a meeting of the National Space Council on June 18, 2018 (WSJ, 'Trump Calls For A Space Force', today, p. A3) was merely a regurgitation of Lamborn's original nonsense- though Lamborn also called it a "Space Corps". At the time reported (Denver Post, May 14 last year) Lamborn insisted "I don't care what we call it, or what it looks like as long as we make space the priority in the Department of Defense that it deserves to be".
Now in a new iteration (WSJ, 'End The Gag Rule - Start The Space Force', Aug 27, p. A12) we behold a Boston College professor named Daniel Lyons chiming in trying to get the powers -that- be to move on this idiocy, He writes:
"The creation of a Space Force - a proposed new branch of the armed services - is one of the most significant defense discussions in a generation. Everyone from the president to congressmen to late night comedians have chimed in on it."
Oh yes, and Law school professors from Boston College too, evidently.
He goes on:
"Everyone that is except for the Air Force's foremost experts on Space Doctrine, the Space Horizons Task Force. On this fundamental question of space policy the group known as 'America's space think tank' has been silent for more than a year. - muzzled by a serviceable gag order.'
Muzzle? Gag order? Ah yes, more paranoid conspiracy ideations this time emanating from a Boston College Law School prof, who has nothing better to do. So he confabulates bunkum that the Air University faculty are somehow being gagged (The AU is the "intellectual and development center of the Air Force,")
It didn't take long to get a response (WSJ Letters, August 28, 'There Is No Gag Rule At USAF Air University') putting this paranoid prof in his place . The letter from Chief Academic Officer Mark Conversino noted how the prof "mischaracterized" the issue and that the faculty and students of the Space Horizons Research Task Force "continue to have full academic freedom to share their views" - or not.
Well, why not? Short answer, as space weapons experts - unlike the testy prof - they know it's bunkum, so the less said the better. They prefer not to dignify this asinine crap with any kind of response. The prof, meanwhile, knows next to nothing on space or space defense - only what he likely imbibes from Trump. I seriously doubt he's even read a chapter on basic celestial mechanics.
In truth, the Space Horizons Research Task Force already knows all it needs to, i.e. that what's being proposed is merely a resurrection of the old Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which was never proven workable or even remotely feasible. It depended upon incorporating space-based interceptors as well as powerful lasers mounted on satellites to take down Soviet ICBMs. The most devastating exposure of the missile defense con appeared in the May, 1987 issue of Physics Today and was entitled "APS Directed Energy Weapons Study (Executive Summary)". Versions of it subsequently appeared in other journals, including the Reviews Of Modern Physics, e.g.
https://journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract/10.1103/RevModPhys.59.S1
The study basically took apart the 'Star Wars' rubbish piece by piece with no fewer than 26 major deficiencies identified on everything from the weaknesses of the proposed lasers to shoot down the incoming missiles (too weak by several orders of magnitude) to the problem of identifying the targets "at sub-micro-radian resolution" in the boost phase to "lack of precision tracking via active sensor systems" and the ease with which any missile interceptor design can easily be thwarted, say by use of dispersal of million of reflecting, metallic decoys.
There is absolutely NO assurance, zero, that anything different will be achieved with this Space Force codswallop. Indeed as reported in the original article from last year (WSJ. ibid.): "The move by Trump was despite strong objections by senior civilian and uniformed military leaders."
Got that? Strong objections by senior military leaders. Why? Because they know it's horse shit, unlike our overthinking, paranoid prof.
In its new incarnation Space Force is being touted to "protect our satellites" from being shot down, say by the Chinese or Russkies. But let's get real here: satellites fly in predictable orbits , and so will always be fairly easy to target - if a bad actor wants to. But launching a typical weather or defense satellite is expensive enough without adding hundreds of pounds more weight for defenses. And there's no assurance those defenses, say built in excimer lasers, will work. A more practical solution, as opposed to mounting "ray guns" on satellites, would be to employ greater redundancy in the satellites we do put up. The military, to keep costs under control, could also deploy backup systems on unmanned aerial vehicles, and integrating them into a fraction of the satellite fleet.
In the end we have to thank Mark Conversino and the Space Horizons Research Task Force for dismissing the misplaced, paranoid conspiracy baloney of a Law prof who ought to find better things to do with his time. So there is no "silencing some of the most knowledgeable proponents" at all. Merely those proponents remaining silent in the face of an imbecilic idea that has absolutely nothing going for it but hype- oh, and Dotard's ignorant backing.
See also:
The Space Force’s rocky start is bad news for America
And:
In the end we have to thank Mark Conversino and the Space Horizons Research Task Force for dismissing the misplaced, paranoid conspiracy baloney of a Law prof who ought to find better things to do with his time. So there is no "silencing some of the most knowledgeable proponents" at all. Merely those proponents remaining silent in the face of an imbecilic idea that has absolutely nothing going for it but hype- oh, and Dotard's ignorant backing.
See also:
The Space Force’s rocky start is bad news for America
And:
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