Who would take command...(Sci-fi Debate, Halo/Stargate)

[Nekko]

Accidentally put this in "Conventions"
Really shouldn't do things in general when I'm tired.

Who would take command of the space operations, in the given future, for the United States.
According to two specific Sci-fi series, one being the "Halo" series and the other "Stargate" series. It's up to either the Airforce or Navy. Halo- Navy, Stargate- Airforce
Now the question is, which one should we put in charge of flying advanced spacecraft?

Both the Airforce and Navy have experience with vehicles that move in a 3-dimentional plane (curse you synonyms!). The Navy however, has more experience with large vessles. The Airforce though has more experience in extra-teranial (...might be making up words here) or atmospheric maneuvering and small aircraft. Even though Navy carriers do have planes and hence pilots, this almost throws the argument of having smaller fighters on spacecraft.

That's all I have for now...your turn

[Nekko]

NASA

Ok..I think this is a bad section to have this in..."Conventions"? Oops.

But NASA? Really? Sure they're the most experienced in space operations, but I'm talking about a military branch, not a goverment funded and directed civilian organization. Knowing global politics, once one nation gains absolute military dominance in a region, this case space, other nations will respond and follow suit. There will be a period of fighting, conflict and political unrest. So this brings up, space combat.

I'm sure NASA will play a huge role in the development of a space centered military branch because they have the know how on alot of space habitat and maintaining equipment in a Zero-G vaccum.

[Uniform Two Six]

As it stands, the U.S. Air Force has almost all of the military responsibilities in space. The Navy has some radar sattelites for sea surveillance and some comm birds for encrypted traffic (primarily with submarines), but that's about it as far as I know. The NSA supposedly has some assets as well, but for the most part, space is pretty much the Air Force's domain. Although in a sense it would be a much more true statement to say that the civilian sector owns the greatest share of space. In Gulf War II something like 2/3 of all military sattelite communications went through civilian birds, and you'd better believe that there's a huge amount of unencrypted traffic that goes over civilian nets for something like that.

But I digress... Anywho, by dint of the Air Force's almost total dominance of space-based responsibilities for the military, I'd have to say that the Stargate scenario is more likely, although I think there would be an independent U.S. Space Force created at some point, similar to the creation of the Air Force out of the Army's Air Corps in 1947. I think it's a moot point, though. There's really not much of strategic value in deep space right now, nor does there appear to be any prospect of that in the forseeable future, so I'd have to predict that American military space operations will remain within geosynchronous altitude for a long time to come. NASA is probably going to retain most of the deep space stuff for the duration of our lifetimes, I'd bet.

[Nekko]

I agree. In the near future there really is no point in having a stand alone Military space branch. Most of the space research and travel during our generation will be headed by civilian NASA.

Hmmm....Let me throw this out here while it's in my head. A senario, chain of events type thing.
Senario 1.
Lets say a chunk off of a nearby planet, it doesn't have to be within our solar system, manages to make its way to earth. Not only that, but a good portion of it survives entering earth's atmostphere. After analysis, scientist declare there is a very valuable, new, and potentialy powerful ((that is if it holds a specific property. I.E. Radioactivty not observed before, durability and strength, etc)) but the goverment, no specific one, does not want this information leaked out to the rest of the world. They, the goverment, then decide to advance it's space program. This of course will raise questions by others into why they're space program is becoming more and more active. Not to mention why it's making so many advances. Eventually information will leak about this new substance and there will be a bit of rage because of a nation hidding this information. There will be a race, again, for space dominance. But this time for deep space travel and for an actuall destination. Does this mean there will be combat? Not neccisarrily but there is the possibility that one side of this new race will become a bit TOO aggressive and start playing dirty. Of course, knowing global politics nations will respond in kind. Not to long after we're just sending crafts into space, trying to get to this new substance and blowing each others crafts up along the line.

[Aki]

Space is Not An Ocean and should not be treated like one.

The Airforce, fighter pilots in particular, have experience in trusting their instruments with their lives - because their bodies may lie like hell. Not because they wants to, but because their balance gets wankered with and they get all confused. This trust in equipment over eyes and such is vital in space because you can't have much visual - glass is too weak to be all around for everyone to look through.

Let's also look at the fact that both have experience with the kind of warfare space warfare will very likely be - at extreme ranges. With current sensor technology a craft running bare-minimum life support can be detected at a distance that's about the quarter of the distance to the sun, so ...you can't hide in space. MOREOVER, space has no friction, which means bullets go forever until they hit something, meaning ... you can't RUN in space either. Which amounts to two ships shooting the f*** out of each other at long range - which is what naval ships and fighter planes do anyways. Broad-sides and dogfights are things of the past.

However it is unlikely that ships will ever be so big as capital ships are in sci-fi unless they're giant passenger ships.

Building something in space does not obviate the need to move several hundred thousand tons of material into orbit, after all. And such a large craft would make a huge, easy target. So smaller craft would be of greater utility and get bashed with asteroids less often.

etc.

Airforce wins this one, sorry folks.

[Uniform Two Six]

Senario 1.
Lets say a chunk off of a nearby planet, it doesn't have to be within our solar system, manages to make its way to earth. Not only that, but a good portion of it survives entering earth's atmostphere. After analysis, scientist declare there is a very valuable, new, and potentialy powerful

My take:

The Russians are broke and have no way to exploit such a resource and their space program will continue marketing space-tourism to super wealthy foreigners.

The United States will consider it, but NASA will submit a draft recommendation in which a preliminary projection for a budget will be included. Whereupon, the Democrats will begin asking how such an expenditure wouldn't be better spent on education, universal healthcare, job-training programs, inmate rehabilitation, etc. leaving the ball in the Republicans' court. The GOP would be all for the idea and would propose funding such a project through generous tax breaks for major corporations and the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Heated negotiations between both sides will break down when the Democrats make it clear that they will not support such an expenditure until the GOP first articulates exactly how they're going to pay for it without further deficit spending, and thus the project will die.

Leaving only the Chinese with the capability and funding necessary for such an undertaking. They'll think it over for a couple of days and then decide they've got better things to do -- like take over the world.

[Nekko]

Uniform Two Six
Bravo! That's really impressive. No really, thats a good view.

Aki
That makes perfectg sense.

((If you notice, I'm juust here more or less to keep this going))

[Terastas]

A good majority, if not all of NASA's current astronauts typically have roots in the air force.

More realistically, if a space navy were assembled, it wouldn't be controlled by either; it would become the fifth branch of the military and would be commandeered, not by hardened military personnel, but by the scientists and technicians that built said space ships in the first place. The very first space ships, however, I imagine would not be large destroyers, but small single-pilot fighters that could take off and land on Earth.

So while the space navy would be a fifth branch, the first space force would be the air force.

[RedEye]

Response to Neko>
You're forgetting the Japanese. J.A.X.A., the Japanese space organization is gearing up for something that the Japanese have been noted for: coming out of nowhere with an over-the-top "whatever".
They are very unlikely to let the Chinese exploit this potential without trying something themselves, and since they tend to accomplish what they say they will nowadays, my vote goes for the Japanese as the people who get there (without killing half the crew).
Plus, they dislike the Chinese to a large degree.
Human nature says that the Japanese would beat the Chinese to the planet simply because the Chinese are trying to get there.
And don't assume the Russians are too broke for something like this, either. They've learned risk Capitalism very well.

Possibly the substance you refer to has been already thought of as "Cyzantium"...a form of matter that becomes anti-gravatic when an electric current is passed through it. It gets lots easier to leave the Earth's gravity well with Cyzantium for "lift".

[Nekko]

You know I like how everyone is comming up with these countries even though I never named one specific one.
Redeye does have a point too. The Japanese have always managed to pull something out of their sleeves wheither its something being talked about largely or something completely unthought of. And when they do do something, they do it right.
And you know, Russia actually has had time to recover and their economy isn't as weak as it was a few decades ago. So there is a possibility that they'd be in this with every other nation with experience in a space program.

On another note. It's obvious that the space branch would sooner or later become its own. It would take time however for it to fully evolve to a point where a training facility for The Space Branch could be established and train specificly for space operations. And it woudn't neccissarily be "scientists and technicians that built said space ships in the first place" that are commandeering this. EVERY branch of the military has scientists and technicians of their own. What's not to say, half of the members aboard are scientists and technicians. After all, like in the navy and airforce, most of how they operate is through computers. Computer techs operate almost everything on a naval vessel or air base. And mechanic techs keep all the equipment running, like fixing up the exterior of a ship or maintaining a jet engine. And the military has plenty of scientists doing research for bettering everything they do.

[Terastas]

"scientists and technicians that built said space ships in the first place" that are commandeering this.

My rational for such was that, while there would eventually be a training program for the fifth division, nobody could effectively know how to operate something completely brand new unless they had built it, or received instruction from the people that built it. There would be test pilots, yes, but they'd be under the instruction (read: command) of the scientists and engineers.

Such is how most experimental weapons are handled: with a prototype in a controlled environment under the supervision of its designers before mass production. Expecting any country to mass produce a space fleet immediately would be unreasonable; any government worth its salt would want to see a craft (especially one with a price tag in the billions) tested (maybe even on the field) before they commit to it.

Besides, the same organization that designed the ships would also be the one entrusted with training the first troops for zero-gravity combat, that being NASA. The air force would probably weigh in and provide more recruits (since, like I said, the first working fighters would be small craft anyway), but the most likely scenario for the founding of the fifth division would have NASA's personnel being given military titles as space exploration takes a back seat to space domination.

[RedEye]

As long as the only way out of the gravity well is to sit on top of a controlled explosion (Or uncontrolled, like Challenger) the cost of getting into even nearspace is going to keep most players out of the game for a long time.

We've become fixated on rockets as a way to orbit. There has to be a better way, like using air-breathing engines to move the potential space craft that most expensive first inch of travel into orbit.
It's already been done at Scaled Composites, where a jet powered first stage lifted the rocket high into the atmosphere before the rocket itself fired into a sub-orbital flight.
Replace the small lifter they used with a modified Galaxy or a 747, and use the extra power to lift a larger rocket, and space could become a lot less expensive to reach.
Use an earth-mounted angled track with a linear motor, and it gets even cheaper (electricity is cheaper than Jet fuel).
We just need to look at other ways to Space.
No rush though,
It'll still be there when we arrive.

[Dreamer]

I really hope physics someday figures out a way for faster-than-light travel or some way to go through space quickly enough to be feasable, like wormholes or such.

[Nekko]

I never got a notice for this thread...geez it felt like forever.

Dreamer, not to be mean or anything...but I think one of the problems is not only not being able to reach lightspeed but its that once you reach the speed of light you wouldn't be able to see anything being you're traveling at the same speed. That's not to say a computer probably could be built for timing or something but Einstein also says that at those speeds time, relative to what we see as normal, slows down.
With wormholes I believe the main problem with that is, after getting passed the energy required and similar things, it'd most likely be hard to determine where you would end up. However it really would only be a matter of time before, possibly, some physicist would work out some obscene equation that we could never imagine that would solve the problem.

RedEye, don't know if you're watching this but here I go anyway.
That's too true. Modern astronauts literally sit on a several ton bomb bound for a vitual straight shot upward. However the use of the formation of water, H2 + O2 -> H2O, as propulsion is efficient but there are better solutions. Much like those you proposed.
And the whole concept of reaching a higher altitude before an attempt to reach escape velocity is so efficient. Gravity works in these two ways. The amount of matter of two objects and the distance.

[Wingman]

Well, the Navy has one main point going for it in terms of being responsible for space operations. They're, supposedly, more experienced with being cooped up in cramped vehicles for extended periods of time. Which is the primary reason for why they sometimes get responsibility. Submarine crews especially. Space missions, especially deep space missions, are going to be more similar to what you'd experience on a submarine than what you'd experience in a jet. Though yeah, Air Force would win in just about any atmospheric or near-atmospheric combats, though Navy would be more suited to putting in the time needed to actually get anywhere in space. This is why the fifth branch of the military is formed, a joint Navy/Air force thing.

Hmm, suppose we have two types of ships, a "heavy" type, or a smaller and faster skirmisher type, but only FTL engines for a single type. Yeah, I know, if it works for one, it should work for all, but just go with it. Which one would you say would/should get the FTL?
Personally, I'd say the skirmishers would get the FTL, while the heavy ships are used for exploration. Why? Because if your scout ship arrives years before your fleet(Scout has FTL, fleet doesn't), that gives any defenders that much time to prepare for your arrival. Better if it takes years to get there, and then a fraction of the time for your fleet to warp to where your scout ships are. And, if you've got FTL, chances are that you've also got FTL communication through whatever means. Sending the slow ships ahead also means that unless you've really dropped the ball, then your FTL ships are going to be decades more advanced than whatever type of scout ships you've got, which is just one more advantage for you.

[Uniform Two Six]

That's not to say a computer probably could be built for timing or something but Einstein also says that at those speeds time, relative to what we see as normal, slows down.

I would still maintain the FTL travel's biggest hurdle will still be getting around General Relativity issues. As for the computer thing, I don't see it as being so much of a problem for the simple reason that that specific problem has already been solved. In the GPS constellation, since the birds have to have very exact transmissions in order for the system to work (and they're moving at something like 7,000 knots), the U.S. Air Force has already factored in relativistic time distortion effects into the software on the systems. If they hadn't, JDAM munitions couldn't hit targets within a couple of feet of their aim points.

EDIT: That should be more like 25,000 knots. My bad.

[RedEye]

Regarding the use of Cryogenic fuels to reach orbit got me thinking...
(Danger, Will Robinson, Danger)

Since thrust is both a Velocity and a Mass item, why not "dope" the Hydrogen with maybe 2 or 3 per cent Ammonia? Ammonia is lots heavier than Hydrogen, and if it is accelerated along with the burning hydrogen--you get more thrust for the same weight of fuel.

Yeah, it's toxic. The wind would scatter it, and ammonia degrades easily in sunlight to nitrogen and water vapor.