Why Trump and Space Force make no sense
The entire concept is now ruined
by Mike Meyer
The last thing I ever expected to have to write about would contain the words Trump and Space Force. What is this about?
Obviously it is another in the increasingly desperate efforts to keep the diversions coming while yet another ex-Trump staffer tries to make some bucks off their experience in the chaos of the Trumpster’s White House. What can you expect from this level of incompetence and mental instability?
It does kind of take your breath away when someone proposes to cover their ass from another ‘tell all’ by creating a new military branch to fight space wars. The nearly complete absence of any comment on this gonzo effort says more than anyone could actively say. Where to start?
I suppose the real tragedy of this is that many of us have long thought that at some point it would make sense to create an actual space organization. While this makes no sense as a national military thing, it does make sense for coordinating both manned and unmanned projects as we begin to move out into our solar system. Of course we have NASA for that.
There logically could be an expanded astronaut organization that took over publicly funded projects for pure research and exploration. The business side of the current system is fine for satellite launch services and, soon, asteroid mining but I’m willing to bet that the radical capitalist agenda will slow down after that. Going to Mars will be very difficult and there is not much direct return on that investment. Beside the real business of launch contracts and ISS supply, there isn’t going to be much market for Tesla’s on the moon and Mars anytime soon.
To develop and prove the technology to explore beyond the asteroid belt for science and research requires high level unified funding and organization. This really should be done under the UN as a planetary project. The Terran Space Service would excite millions of young people to commit their lives to science and exploration. Literally to go where no person has ever gone.
We should be banning even the idea of any national military space thing. Yes, there are lots of military spy satellites and probably already some weapon systems that have been sent up. The Outer Space Treaty of 1966, which has been signed by 125 states and fully ratified by 98 prevents the use of space for nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
The UN passed a Space Preservation treaty with unanimous support, except for the US in 2006. Russia and China introduced a UN treaty to prevent the placement of weapons in orbit in 2008. The UN General Assembly passed two resolutions in 2014 against a space arms race including one on preventing first placement of weapons in space. The US and Israel abstained. The US has supported no effort to limit the military use of space.
Of course the Russian Federation has had a separate space force since 2001 and that is probably where Trump got the idea, with a little help. So this thing is clearly a bad idea, not that others aren’t setting themselves up to make a joke of these treaties and provisions. Someone needs to stop this stuff and the least likely person to do that is an idiot such as Trump.
There is a very real need for defense of this planet. People are ware of this now after many years and many films on earth’s destruction by asteroid. We have had near misses. Anyone who has watched any of the movies knows that this needs to be a planetary effort. Nationalist stuff leads to a very bad end.
A planetary space service could have a very bold and growing role in the transition of this planet from Type 0 civilization to a Type I utilizing all the power from our local star. As I, and others, have said, we desperately need to move up to a planetary level to handle the massive climate problems that may destroy us and that can only be done at a higher level of civilization.
Building a Terran Space Service could assist with all of these. A US Space Force does nothing. In fact a turkey might be the best symbol for Trump to play with.
