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House panel votes to split Air Force, create new U.S. Space Corps

federalnewsradio.com

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Re: House panel votes to split Air Force, create new U.S. Space Corps

#3

Post by pavement »

Uh... what?!

  The bill would order the Defense Department to establish the 
  new corps by January 2019. It would be a distinct military 
  service within the Department of the Air Force, in much the 
  same way the Marine Corps operates as a service within the 
  Department of the Navy. The Secretary of the Air Force would 
  oversee both the Air Force and the Space Corps, but the new 
  chief of staff of the Space Corps would be a new four-position, 
  co-equal with the chief of staff of the Air Force. DoD would 
  have to deliver reports to Congress in both March and August 
  of next year on the details of how it plans to set up the new 
  service.
Wow. Out of fucking nowhere.

Re: House panel votes to split Air Force, create new U.S. Space Corps

#5

Post by Analemma_ »

This seems weird and premature. We will probably need a "Space Corps" eventually, but doing it now when the technology is still in its infancy, instead of being able to leverage the manpower of an existing service, seems unhelpful. Making the Air Force its own thing, instead of part of the Army, was a good decision in 1945 but would've been dumb in 1912 too.

Re: House panel votes to split Air Force, create new U.S. Space Corps

#6

Post by gorkonsine »

Analemma_ wrote: post #5

This seems weird and premature. We will probably need a "Space Corps" eventually , but doing it now when the technology is still in its infancy, instead of being able to leverage the manpower of an existing service, seems unhelpful. Making the Air Force its own thing, instead of part of the Army, was a good decision in 1945 but would've been dumb in 1912 too.

Actually, I think they should go the opposite way: they should eliminate the Air Force, and make it part of the Army again. The AF was split off because of the Cold War, and is just a relic of that time. No other modern military force has a separate "air force", because having it separate only complicates things when conducting a conventional ground war. For a while the Air Force even thought they were going to make the Navy obsolete, because they wanted to rely on ICBMs and long-range bombers for everything.

Re: House panel votes to split Air Force, create new U.S. Space Corps

#7

Post by rjsw »

gorkonsine wrote: post #6
Analemma_ wrote: post #5

This seems weird and premature. We will probably need a "Space Corps" eventually , but doing it now when the technology is still in its infancy, instead of being able to leverage the manpower of an existing service, seems unhelpful. Making the Air Force its own thing, instead of part of the Army, was a good decision in 1945 but would've been dumb in 1912 too.

Actually, I think they should go the opposite way: they should eliminate the Air Force, and make it part of the Army again. The AF was split off because of the Cold War, and is just a relic of that time. No other modern military force has a separate "air force", because having it separate only complicates things when conducting a conventional ground war. For a while the Air Force even thought they were going to make…

Most modern military forces have a separate "air force", can you list which countries don't ?

Re: House panel votes to split Air Force, create new U.S. Space Corps

#9

Post by tomjakubowski »

gorkonsine wrote: post #6
Analemma_ wrote: post #5

This seems weird and premature. We will probably need a "Space Corps" eventually , but doing it now when the technology is still in its infancy, instead of being able to leverage the manpower of an existing service, seems unhelpful. Making the Air Force its own thing, instead of part of the Army, was a good decision in 1945 but would've been dumb in 1912 too.

Actually, I think they should go the opposite way: they should eliminate the Air Force, and make it part of the Army again. The AF was split off because of the Cold War, and is just a relic of that time. No other modern military force has a separate "air force", because having it separate only complicates things when conducting a conventional ground war. For a while the Air Force even thought they were going to make…

> No other modern military force has a separate "air force", because having it separate only complicates things when conducting a conventional ground war.

Besides the US: Turkey, Syria, Russia, Israel all off the top of my head have air force and ground army (along with, at least, a navy) separate under one "Armed Forces" command.

What modern air forces operate as part of the army, rather than separately (as most navies do)?

Re: House panel votes to split Air Force, create new U.S. Space Corps

#10

Post by dmichulke »

... because we have to defend the ehh hmmm satellites against cough ehm ehhh other satellites.

Nothing like a fourth branch of the armed forces to increase the biggest military budget in the world [1] by another few dozen percent.

[1] From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

  1. US     611 bn
  2. China  215 bn
  3. Russia  69 bn
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