Once Again, Trump's "Space Force" Is A Colossal Boondoggle That Rivals Reagan's "Star Wars" Idiocy

The recent news that Donnie Dotard  approved funding – embedded within the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) -- for  the U.S. Space Force, ought to have every American's attention and outrage.   After all, in this age of outrageous military expenditures do we really need to be spending money on space wars. Trump, who first mentioned the Space Force idea in March 2018, and the U.S. Congress thinks so!

Among the lies put forward accompanying this phony event is that "Space force" marks  the first new U.S. military service in more than 70 years.  Trouble is,  it's not a "military service" but simply an unimaginative reinvention of the 'wheel'. To be specific,  a broken 'wheel' once known as the 'Strategic Defense Initiative' or SDI, other wise known as "Star Wars".   But now gussied up with PR and renamed "Space force".


According to The New York Times, Trump’s advisor and son-in-law-in-chief, Jared Kushner, “helped broker a deal to create the Space Force, a chief priority of the president’s, in exchange for the paid parental leave, a measure championed by his wife, Ivanka Trump, also a senior advisor to the president.”   

Which is more recycled bollocks that plays as a legit claim because most Americans can't keep up with the details of what's happening from one news cycle to the next.  Thanks to Trump and his incessant tweet storms and diatribes, crimes - as well as starting wars (like with Iran - and later likely North Korea) he won't be able to finish.

The truth?

The original idea for this boondoggle  was hatched some years ago by my feckless Colorado congress critter, Doug Lamborn  

 Lamborn is easily the most craven, mendacious, useless POS to ever grab power in our state.   Some  may recall that back in 2014 this walking turd wanted to slice Medicaid and food stamps for poor kids in order to feather the nest of the Pentagon and for expansion of already extensive military bases etc. near Colorado Springs.  Most recently, the miscreant mutt was almost eliminated from the GOP primary because of flouting Colorado law. To wit, a candidate may get his name on a primary ballot if he manages to get at least 1,000 signatures from likely voters- but these must be residents.

Problem was that 'Lame brain' used a lot of out- of -state dupes to garner signatures.  A legal case was brought, lawsuit filed, and the Colorado Supreme Court agreed, kicking him off the ballot. However, the slimy little douche took his case to federal court (which we know is stacked with Trumpie appointees) and argued that the residency rule for signature gatherers in Colorado was unconstitutional and "violated" his free speech. The federal judge (Philip Brimmer) agreed and tossed the case out so we're saddled with this shit head again.

Flash forward: the whole Space Force idea was originally Lamborn's, hatched in order to grab more money in campaign contributions-  from defense contractors  promised gigs here in Colorado Springs.  Lamborn as well as the defense contractors  saw only huge dollar signs,  with $$$$ pouring in at taxpayer's expense.

Cue the startup music and we beheld that  the knuckle dragger GOP House (prior to the 2018 midterms) had approved the creation of a "Space Corps" inside the Air Force. (Not separate from it!)  There  followed Trump's alleged novel brain fart on June, 18, 2018  at a meeting of the National Space Council  (WSJ, 'Trump Calls For A Space Force', 6/19/18, p. A3) 

But anyone with more than air between the ears could see it was merely a regurgitation of Lamborn's - though he also called it a "Space Corps".  At the time reported  (Denver Post, May 14, 2018) Lamborn had 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".

According to the Times' piece:

"The aim of Space Force is to maintain U.S. superiority in space, particularly weighed against threats by China and Russia. The Space Force is part of a $1.4 trillion government-spending package. (Congress approved $40 million for Space Force operations and maintenance in the fiscal year 2020 appropriations.)  It will not be its own military department, like the Navy, Army and Air Force, as the secretary of the Air Force will administer it. The Space Force will have its own representation on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to the law that created it."


Now let's cut to reality as opposed to fantasy:  What's really behind this bull crap? Well, the old term - which I still prefer - is "pork barrel spending". In other words, Lamborn's and Reagan's reincarnated boondoggle was merely revived under a new(?) title and different PR.  But like most current defense projects  it is merely an expedient device to  funnel  money to the Pentagon and its defense contractors for a fake project with the U.S. taxpayer the easy mark.  This, btw, is after the Pentagon has already lost track of trillions of dollars of funding, since at least 2002. (According to former analyst Chuck Spinney, see e.g.  
The Pentagon Merits NO Further Budget Increases Un...   )

So we are on the same plane of reality here (and why I used the term "specious") , let's note this is another one of those "bad ideas" exposed by Matt Miller in his book The Tyranny of Bad Ideas.  I.e. god awful, already proven disasters like trickle down tax cuts,  that keep coming back like bad pennies....or zombies.  In this case, no matter what Dotard and his cabal of lackeys claim about  being "a matter of national security', this is simply Reagan's Star Wars boondoggle in a new guise.  What's worse this time around is that this money waster could be approved under the "enactment" of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.  Talk about snake oil scams!

Indeed,  as we read in the Times' piece:

“Roughly 16,000 active-duty and civilian personnel who used to make up Air Force Space Command are now assigned to the Space Force following the enactment of the fiscal 2020 NDAA.” And, over the next year-and-a-half, "


So, in other words, those 16,000 recruited for this sham "service" will now be forced into a pretend job that supposedly makes us all more secure, but in reality is a Potemkin ruse.   ("Potemkin" is derived from "Potemkin Village" -  which term signifies any deceptive or false construct designed to mislead those within the false enclave and those peering in from the outside.)

For the benefit of those with poor memories, recall Star Wars, or the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 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 SDI  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".

 This more recent iteration of the Star Wars snake oil emphasizes the theme that "we need to protect our satellites from being shot down",  say by the Chinese, Russkies...or maybe even the Iranians.(According to a recent Pentagon report China and Russia pose the main threats  and are "making serious headway in space and could develop technologies to 'disrupt or destroy U.S. and allied satellites" in a future conflict.  

But let's get real here: satellites typically fly in predictable orbits and so will always be fairly easy to target, say by a determined bad actor.  But launching a typical weather or defense satellite is expensive enough without adding hundreds of pounds more weight for defenses (excimer lasers?) , or attempting to devise expensive ground A.I. systems to disable enemy satellites in orbit.  A more practical solution - which maybe trillion less in cost- is to employ greater redundancy in the satellites we do put up.  Thus, the military - say Air Force, not a redundant useless "Space Force"- could also deploy backup systems on unmanned aerial vehicles - integrating them into a fraction of the fleet.

But  here's the hard fact.  These wastrels and weasels in the Pentagon never ever got over their little 'Star Wars' (SDI) farce being exposed for the claptrap scheme it was.  As proof, I point to a little known 1989 congressional report entitled  "Military Space Forces - The Next Fifty Years".  Therein we learned that  the aerospace industry had a boner for the resurrection of a bottomless money pit  analogous to the original SDI but using fear, to concoct a "space force".    The money wastrels realized SDI had its day so they needed a new con and  new con artists. Enter the likes of Doug Lamborn - and later, Donald Trump - the ultimate con artist.   As Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power In Space noted in a recent press release regarding this plan:

"The aerospace industry has long claimed that  this new Star Wars would be the largest industrial project in the history of our planet. So much money would be needed that the industry has identified the ‘entitlement programs’ for defunding to pay for ‘everything space.’ That means Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the remaining tattered social safety net would be cut to pay for Space Force.”

Which is exactly what defense analyst Chuck Spinney also warned when the  portion of  GDP allocated to national security, defense spending doubled  post 9/11, e.g.

Former Defense Analyst Chuck Spinney Predicted ‘Wa...

But now the spending for the "space force" will be on steroids.  While the malignant and malicious budget -busting cost is bad enough, there is also the destabilizing effect for global security.  Translation: the 'Doomsday' clock  (of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) will now move another minute closer to midnight, if this scheme is implemented -at least to the exent other nations believe it to be a real threat.
  

Writing for Counterpunch, Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and  the author of the book, The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet, pointed out that the Space Force deal flies in the face of “the landmark Outer Space Treaty of 1967, put together by the U.S., then Soviet Union and the U.K., designating space as a global commons to be used for peaceful purposes”.

The Outer Space Treaty “bans weapons of mass destruction in space,” Grossman pointed out.  Further:

 “The Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) treaty that the three nations have sought to expand would prohibit the placement of any weapons in space. But the U.S. “has opposed the PAROS treaty and effectively vetoed its enactment at the United Nations.”

Oh, one last thing you ought to know:  the magic words "Space force" have been a reliable applause line at Trump's political rallies  - appealing to the cabbage brains that flock to them and cheer. (I.e. those in the lower half of the IQ curve.)   Most of these goobers are delirious because no one explained to them that 'space force' doesn't really mean Trump will be leading a military unit against extraterrestrials, aka aliens.  Why would he if 'Captain Bonespurs'   wasn't even prepared to fight any wars on Earth,   choosing to get out of service five times using the ruse of bone spurs.   (He did this by getting a special doctor's letter each time as opposed to undergoing an actual draft physical - such as I had to take in March, 1965.)

But now this consummate con man and grifter pestilence has succeeded in getting even the Dems to sign on to his cockamamey bullshit space force idea.   No wonder so many Dem voters (and others) are terrified at the prospect of the ambulatory orange maggot getting reelected this year.

See Also:

Armed Forces | Donald Trump | Space & Astronomy

With Space Force, Congress Hands Trump a Major Victory

Excerpt:

"The idea for Space Force started out as a joke by Trump when he flippantly said, during a 2018 speech in San Diego, California: “I was saying it the other day because we’re doing a tremendous amount of work in space. I said, ‘Maybe we need a new force, we’ll call it the Space Force.’ And I was not really serious. Then I said, ‘What a great idea, maybe we’ll have to do that.’” A year ago, when Democrats won enough congressional seats to claim victory in the House, the fate of Space Force was in serious doubt. The Atlantic speculated that “[w]ith the House of Representatives flipped and Congress split, the Trump administration’s Space Force will probably never get off the ground.” But just 13 months later, Democrats and Republicans together gave the most unpopular president in memory the approval he needed to fast-track his idea into reality.

In 2018, Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island expressed his opposition to Space Force, saying it was “not the way to go.” A year later, Reed capitulated when he voted for the latest NDAA encompassing the creation of Space Force, saying the bill was “a responsible compromise that strengthens our national defense capabilities.” Regardless of the liberal party’s feigned opposition to warfighting, militarism has always been a bipartisan project, and it is no surprise that the militarization of space is as well."

And:

Armed Forces | Donald Trump | Space & Astronomy

Trump: Make Space Great Again

by John Feffer | January 16, 2020 - 7:33am | permalink

Don't Believe All The Hype From Know Nothings, Dotard's "Space Force" Remains Total Bunkum

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:

Trump's Space Force: To Boldly Go... Nowhere! | The Smirking Chimp

smirkingchimp.com › blogs › William Hartung's blog

A New "Space Force"? One Of The Dumbest Ideas Since Reagan's "Star Wars" - But NOT Dotard's

So now our Space Boy, traitor tyrant - who loves to rip kids from parents - is all frothy at the mouth over a "Space Force"...  Before anyone loses his or her equilibrium let's reference this isn't Captain Bonespur's  original idea - but hatched some years ago by my feckless Colorado congress critter, Doug Lamborn 

 Lamborn is easily the most craven, useless POS to ever grab power in our state.   Some  may recall that back in 2014 this walking turd wanted to slice Medicaid and food stamps for poor kids in order to feather the nest of the Pentagon and for expansion of already extensive military bases etc. near Colorado Springs.  Most recently, the miscreant mutt was almost eliminated from the GOP primary because of flouting Colorado law. To wit, a candidate may get his name on a primary ballot if he manages to get at least 1,000 signatures from likely voters- but these must be residents.

Problem was that Lame brain used a lot of out- of -state folks to garner signatures.  A legal case was brought, lawsuit filed, and the Colorado Supreme Court agreed, kicking him off the ballot. However, the slimy little douche took his case to federal court (which we know is stacked with Trumpie appointees) and argued that the residency rule for signature gatherers in Colorado was unconstitutional and "violated" his free speech. The federal judge (Philip Brimmer) agreed and tossed the case out so we're saddled with this shit head again.

Why the hostility? Because Lamborn is a  punk and a pawn of the military industrial complex and values his own re-election over any concerns of citizens in his district. I have written him no less than six times over different issues the past 4 years and received not one reply. Being "too busy" doesn't cut it because the little ratfucker doesn't do any work anyway. At least nothing anyone can see, other than pandering to his special interests to keep paying his freight.

Anyway, the whole Space Force idea was originally Lamborn's, hatched in order to grab more money in campaign contributions-  from defense contractors who only saw huge dollar signs,  with $$$$ pouring in at taxpayer's expense.

For reference, the knuckle dragger GOP House previously approved the creation of a "Space Corps"inside the Air Force. Trump's alleged novel brain fart yesterday at a meeting of the National Space Council  (WSJ, 'Trump Calls For A Space Force', today, p. A3) is merely a regurgitation of Lamborn's - though he also called it a "Space Corps".  At the time reported  (Denver Post, May 14) 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".

What's really behind this bull crap? Well, the old term - which I still prefer - is "pork barrel spending". In other words, the little scum ball just sees an opportunity for more defense spending — especially for his home state’s economy  and specifically here in the Springs.  In other words, like most current defense projects - it is all a matter of herding jobs and money to the state.

So we are on the same plane of reality here, let's note this is another one of those "bad ideas" exposed by Matt Miller in his book The Tyranny of Bad Ideas.  I.e. god awful, already proven disasters like trickle down tax cuts that keep coming back like bad pennies....or zombies.  In this case, no matter what Dotard claims about  being "a matter of national security', this is simply Reagan's Star Wars boondoggle in a new guise.

Recall Star Wars, or the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 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 SDI  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 (WSJ. ibid.):  "The move by Trump was  despite strong objections by senior civilian and uniformed military leaders."   

The piece also went on to note "the step apparently took even some of Mr. Trump's staunchest congressional supporters by surprise."   This, of course, is simply another reason to clean house and expunge all these GOP rats by November. The best way to do that? Let the Dems' political ad makers incorporate the just released audio of the crying kids (at the assorted border detention centers) into each ad released in the fall - so voters don't forget the perfidy going on now.   

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.    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 meantime, those of us who can, need to  keep exposing this "Space Force/ Space Corps" jive  for the bollocks it is.   As well as dangerous bollocks, given any militarization of space  is not something we want to entertain.  Especially from the likes of Doug Lamborn and Captain Bonespurs!