I’m just going to toss out this bit of current affairs out there and note that, while this story itself is (barely) not political, virtually all of the fallout is going to be: “As part of its version of the 2018 Defense authorization bill, the House Armed Services Committee voted late Wednesday night to create a sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces: the U.S. Space Corps, which would absorb the Air Force’s current space missions.” Go look up the names of everybody in that article who is talking about it, if you’re not wise in the way these things go. Anyway: yes, we’re overdue for a branch of the military dedicated to space. We are massively overdue for one*.
Via Glenn Reynolds.
Moe Lane
*Full disclosure: my wife is a civilian engineer working for the Department of Defense, in a capacity that is relevant to this story.
Before anybody comments: yes, this one skirts really close to my self-imposed line (if my wife wasn’t potentially affected by this, I’d have passed it by). 🙂
In my head, the space servicemen all ware these, https://www.space.com/35518-boeing-blue-spacesuit-spaceflight-history.html, and run around yelling “SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP! SPACESHIP!”
Meh,
Should have been part of the Navy.
They could still use the US Navy’s ranking system and culture. This just takes what the US Air Force has been doing up until now and make it is own thing.
If they are smart, they will recruit some Navy senior enlisted to help instill the culture of “it isn’t just nothing on the other side of this hull, it is a force which can and will kill you”. Yes, it should absolutely be the Navy, since it involves ships and crews in a naturally hostile environment. But issues of pride and precedence are prevailing, I suppose. *shrug* Just human nature.
Space Battleship U.S.S. New Jersey ?
.
Mew
I saw it.
My major thought was “about damned time”.
My second thought was “can we also move Close Air Support to the Army and Marines?”
Third thought: “the ballistic missile program will be longer be the red-headed stepchild that gets abused for everyone else’s budget priorities. Readiness and discipline will improve.”
Forth thought: “I bet lots of lobbyists and bureaucrats are screaming bloody murder. Good.”
SOme lobbyists are also cackling with anticipatory glee, are they not?