Trump Directs Creation of Space Command as 11th Combatant Command

@QuixoticSoul this completely invalidates the entire point of NASA. Well Trump seems to want to take the US back to a fictionalized version of the 1950s so I guess it makes sense.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow NASA is for science and exploration, there is no real overlap here aside perhaps from some level of tech transfer.

@QuixoticSoul you need to brush up on your history. The only reason NASA became about science and not war is because it was removed from the hands of the USAF. This was done in part to avoid a space based arms race and is largely why there are no nukes in orbit. With moves like this that could change.

@Xuan12 You have to plan for the future, and a lot of it will be in space.

@PikachuTrainer But like I said, there's no existing reaction in which we'd use it beyond research at this time. Which while I agree is "close", I think we might have different definitions of close. I'm thinking decades at least. Einstein spent much of his life thinking he was close to unifying gravity and electromagnetism, but that still hasn't happened to this day.

@QuixoticSoul You do have to plan for the future, but the entire point of it is prudence. He's making nothing more than a show point of this, one which invites other nations to openly pursue the militarization of space. We all knew it was probably going to happen anyway, but the legitimization of it will only accelerate a very dangerous process.

@Xuan12 by close I mean by the end of this Century.

@PikachuTrainer Yeah, I don't think that loss of flexibility is inherent in such a reorganizing. In business you often hear of corporations restructuring into smaller, more nimble leadership structures. The idea being to reduce the amount of bureaucracy and red tape it takes to make decisions. HOWEVER, the devil is in the details, and I acknowledge you could go either way with these kinds of things.

Personally I think the US Armed Forces biggest weaknesses have been at the very top. Pushed into conflicts that aren't being waged with clear strategic, military objectives. Those would be simple to accomplish. But rather being used as a political wrecking ball.

Fighting terrorism is more suited to spies, guerrillas, special forces, and the like. And we've seen the advent of many counter-terrorism programs in US Forces. But how do you actually stop the ideology of terrorism? I think we've seen you can crush it for a time, but it'll creep back up.

@Xuan12 it would also avoid mistakes being made too where design is concerned, during the Vietnam war there was a big debate between the army and air force about the need for Aircraft dedicated to CAS, which is also why the US currently has the A-10.

@PikachuTrainer Yeah, for a while there was talk about potentially retiring the A-10 due to mounting maintenance costs. Last I heard, they came up with an upgrade system that cut back on costs for a while more.

@TJNewton

I suppose creation of a Space Command is one thing.

Creation of a Space "Force" would be quite another. (That would be another whole new branch of the military.)