Pentagon Requests $15B for Space Force | Hacker News Reader

Pentagon Requests $15B for Space Force

thehill.com

54 pointsanigbrowl76 comments

I'm going to try and be optimistic about this;

10b in research and development? I can't imagine that it's going to be for 'weapons' only right? Some of this has to go into the future of humankind. I would imagine they have to be interested in colonization, as it's generally in the interest of humankind to expand to the reaches of outerspace, and to do so and be confronted with opposition would require such an agency.

I'd like to know too what the overlap in responsibility between NASA and Spaceforce will be. Are they both scientific ventures? Is Spaceforce actually interested in intergalactic safety.

I'm cautiously optimistic.

For the record, GPS infrastructure was DoD funded. My point is: DoD funding is not all doom, gloom, weapons dev.

A lot of it is logistical infrastructure that has significant benefit for civilian applications.

Remember, defense funding is what fueld the tech sector's birth

I guess it technically isn't (I believe force multiplier would be the term) but GPS is an extremely powerful weapon if only one side has such capabilities

Sure. However, secrets are hard to keep.

Not so much a weapon system as an information and coordination system.

It's like calling the camera that looks at stars for determining position a weapons system. GPS and astro guidance are both part of a redundant navigation system.

Remember, “defense” funding also killed several (>5) million people since the US was founded in several wars of aggression, including about a million in the current generation.

Don’t believe the hype.

NASA put people on the moon and brought them back. They could design, launch, and operate GPS like they do Hubble and other satellites. It’s well within their expertise. We don’t need to accept DoD funding of violent undertakings that end up killing millions simply for the meager benefits we get as a side effect sometimes.

As a counterexample: the military has had supersonic jets for two generations, and there is no civilian supersonic transport. The only one that did exist was an european undertaking. You get no benefit from any of the billions spent on fast planes by the war machine. None.

Massive defense spending only trickles down to defense contractors. This is just public-to-private wealth transfer, nothing more.

> As a counterexample: the military has had supersonic jets for two generations, and there is no civilian supersonic transport. The only one that did exist was an european undertaking.

This undermines your main argument, because it shows how the military explores territory that would otherwise remain largely unexplored.

...with no benefit to humanity, only huge financial and humanitarian costs. That’s the argument, and it is a perfect example.

The benefits of military research are often non-obvious. Supersonic flight needed fine control, so electric flight control systems (fly-by-wire) were developed and put into use on fighter jets.

When Concorde was on drawing boards, the same tech was re-used and developed further. Supersonic flight turned out to be a dead end, but the control system developed for Concorde (originating from fighter jets) proved valuable and was carried over to later Airbus A300 and Airbus A320 designs, and has given remarkable safety improvements.

While we don't have supersonic flight in 2020, the legacy of early Anglo-French fighter jets and commercially unsuccessful Concorde lives on in every Airbus plane and many other influenced designs.

What evidence do we have that any of that military technology was directly reused in the civilian applications? Furthermore, to make such claims is to say that the military developing this technology, plus the associated mass murder that results, is somehow a better deal than privately paying to develop this technology from scratch independently without the associated violence.

It’s the second part that is the nut that your argument must crack, and that is a very difficult bar to clear indeed if you in any way value human life.

  there is no civilian supersonic transport

Civilian supersonic transport isn't necessary. It's an environmental disaster. It's conspicuous consumption for the sake of conspicuous consumption.

DoD ends up funding quite a lot of science and engineering research. They're also quite big on trauma medicine.

The more subtle thing to consider is that the amazing tech stuff whose development we tend to think of as being paid for by defense funds was developed prior to ARPA becoming DARPA in 1972, and more importantly, prior to the Mansfield Amendment's passage in 1973. This limited funds appropriated for defense research to projects with a direct and obvious military application.

ARPA always was funded by the DoD: https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/dod-establishes-arpa

Nothing in my comment above was meant to imply otherwise.

The trouble with the Mansfield Amendment (there are some on hn infinitely more qualified to comment on this) was that generally cool, but not necessarily defense-oriented, stuff falling out of defense spending directed towards basic research went from being considered a good thing to being considered a bad thing, or more precisely, a wasteful thing. The idea was that the NSF would pick up the slack after DoD tightened up the requirements for what sorts of research they would fund, which for a variety of reasons never really happened.

>For the record, GPS infrastructure was DoD funded.

Correction: GPS infrastructure is DoD funded, not was. It has ongoing maintenance costs and its being upgraded.

Yeah, it's crazy to see how much has been funded by DARPA in particular:

https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/darpa-history-and-timeline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA#Projects

Some of the greatest hits, at least from my perspective:

The ARPANET -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

The mother of all demos (GUIs, mouses, word processors, video conferences, windows, version control, etc) -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos

BSD OSes -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLSI_Project

Tor/.onion routing -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing

Siri -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO

Boston Dynamics robots -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(robot)

High productivity computing systems -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Productivity_Computing_Sy...

Autonomous vehicles research -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

Software-based approaches to biology/cancer research -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_mechanism

The precursor to GPS -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(satellite)

Shakey the Robot -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakey_the_robot

Don't forget the DARPA sponsored AI research, which supported the original lisp work I believe.

> Remember, defense funding is what fueld the tech sector's birth

And the surveillance economy is what keeps it in place. For all the FAANG name dropping around here, I wonder if most realize they're really just a few degrees separated from an Intelligence agency contractor.

As for Space Force spending, only if 80%+ can be used for civilian purposes, like debris clean up of GEO stationary, or advanced asteroid monitoring and shielding.

Anything short of that, and all it will be is anther pork trough by which lobbyists at ULA/NG/Raytheon et al will be feeding at--I think this is why prior to SpaceX aerospace wasn't anything worthy of much praise, despite all the achievements, because all they did was abuse tax funded programs.

I was at the LA Space museum years ago and I can tell you that Endeavor is a relic of the past I hope we never go back to. The 'Space Force' can easily be that again if we're not careful: $15 Billion is a lot, Nasa's budget is $22 Billion.

By contrast I was at the SpaceX HQ Factory and the Launch Facility in Texas and just seeing Raptors and Dragon Heat Shields lying about feels incredibly exciting by contrast.

There's plenty of reasons for economic-abundance value that overlap with strategic military-security spending: strengthening one's stance against bad actors like China and their allies, redirecting and/or mining asteroids for their resources, etc.. Whether Space Force's overt mission is currently aligned with intergalactic safety - certainly Elon Musk is aware and will effort towards protecting and managing for such potential events.

> strategic military-security spending

I was under the impression Space Force is political spending. Was anyone in the military asking for Space Force?

Yes, it actually already existed as a branch of the air force. Why do you think it is called "Space Force"? Because it was originally the Air Force Space Command and is dated back to 1982.

I think the space shuttle is a good example of "Space Force" equipment. DoD support played a major role in getting it funded and setting its requirements, and it was able to fulfill a variety of roles from deploying and repairing our own satellites (including complicated deployments of spy satellites that needed a DoD crew member present in orbit) as well as capture of enemy satellites.

  it was able to fulfill a variety of roles from deploying and repairing our own satellites... as well as capture of enemy satellites.

It was a ridiculously expensive and unsafe way to accomplish its missions. The primary contract award to Rockwell was based on a pack of lies with respect to costs.

One direct result is the Challenger disaste. The losing bid would have had the boosters built in one piece and transported on barges. Instead, Thiokol had to make them in pieces small enough to transport by rail.

Cost per flight ended up being, what, two orders of magnitude more than what the basis for the bid award?

This style of quotation is difficult to read on mobile.

Instead we could just put that money into the NSF and the research arms of the DOD and DOE.

It is the Space Force after all.

There have been many efforts and an international treaty to avoid the militarization of space. It’s widely believed that there are some minor satellite-based weapons platform efforts, but for the most part everyone who has taken force into space, so far, if they have, has done so on a small and unobtrusive scale.

We should avoid militarizing space as much and as long as possible. It’s deeply troubling to see the foolish and criminal US president beating the drum to rush such an unnecessary and destructive future into existence.

Many people have worked very hard to have the current agreement in place. To destroy all that work for nationalistic and political points is ridiculously short-sighted.

There's no point in delaying the inevitable. The Chinese ruling party / dictatorship has been very clear: they will not respect the rights of independent nations like Taiwan and Tibet. Why would they respect a space-treaty, or even sign one?

The only way to prevent the CCP from taking whatever they want is with military a force capable of defending our interests. Fortunately, our relationship with China is good enough that we will only need it as a deterrent.

Violence and militarization is not ever inevitable. As Asimov famously wrote, violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

>>"Space Force technically only has one member right now, Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond, though thousands of airmen are working for the service on assignment."

I know this may seem like an esoteric budgeting question, but does this mean that other departments are essentially funding the Space Force and don't expect to recover their labour costs, or will they be accrued and cross-charged back to the respective departments when (if?) Space Force's $15.4B funding is approved?

At the Pentagon, it doesn't matter. They don't have to balance the books. The adjustments swamp the actual spending.

Space force is fundamentally a reorganization. Work that had previusly been done by other branches (mostly airforce) is being moved to its own branch. During the transition, work (hopefully) continues without interuption. As I read the proposal, the airforce will recieve a corresponding drop in funding to reflect their reduced scope.

I think radio or TV discussions of the Spaaace Foooorce should be required to pronounce it like so:

https://clyp.it/mznwbuxq

Organizational structure influences policy.

US just created an organization who needs to work against demilitarization of space to stay relevant. Just operating spy satellites for NRO or satellite communication network is is not enough.

Whether the Space Force actually achieves its goals remains to be seen (goals which remain somewhat nebulous, though the article points out the following):

> The new service is aimed at protecting U.S. assets in space, such as satellites, from earthly threats, including U.S. adversaries Russia and China.

I am no expert, but I'm fairly certain that the Air Force and NASA were charged with the responsibility of protecting government assets in space. It would seem that this Space Force is being created to carry this duty out as one of its core responsibilities (the Air Force is already responsible for a lot) as some countries around the world accelerate their space research and space ventures (not to mention that our own private sector has companies accelerating space research as well). As far as I understand it, China already has an equivalent to the US Space Force - besides China, there are other countries with galactic ambitions and they are not all friends of the US.

That said, claims of the US 'weaponizing' space may be exaggerated, or at least it would seem so to me. The US obviously wants to protect its interests in Space and it doesn't want China getting a strong enough early foothold so that they can operate from a position of greater leverage in matters of space diplomacy.

Again, I'm no expert, but I think what the US needs to do to ensure future prosperity for others in space (both private and state actors) is to pursue diplomacy and establish an international coalition for space governance. Of course, this is easier said than done, but starting on the right path could be the difference between tense confrontations in the future vs. clearly communicated and shared information.

> I am no expert, but I'm fairly certain that the Air Force and NASA were charged with the responsibility of protecting government assets in space. It would seem that this Space Force is being created to carry this duty out as one of its core responsibilities (the Air Force is already responsible for a lot)

Which isn't so odd. During WWII, the US didn't have an Air Force, it had the Army Air Force. It didn't become totally independent of the Army until 1947.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Air_Corps

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Air_Forces

If I were to add a new branch, it wouldn't be a Space Force.

It'd be a cyberwar force.

Doesn't this already exist through the NSA and friends?

There is a difference between the military and government agencies.

It's like asking why not get rid of military in favor of militia, Hired guns, And police forces?

Who had what authority. Funding. Jurisdiction and related. And plenty of other things.

US Cyber Command was elevated to "full and independent unified combatant command"[1] in May 2018. I think Space Force is somewhat different in that they're not a unified command and are meant to be a separate standalone military branch.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cyber_Command

For the first time in my life, I’m excited for a new government initiative. I’ve realized that the there is a link between home security and military budgets. I’m optimistic about the space force because we the people are bought in to spending on insurance premiums which is a defined margin above calculable risks. And so if we want government funded space exploration we can sell it as insurance and actually make it happen.

I can only imagine a French president announcing even 1 single billion for a « space force » project. All he would get is an instant a civil war

In other words, he'd surrender?

Quite a boondogle. What's it for? The earth camo uniforms? New letterheads? The space ops are already part of the military.

Preparing, organizing, for potential war with China and their allies.

The more and more gets leaked about all this, the more I'm convinced that this is simply a move to set up a policing force - in Space - before the Mars colony really gets rolling.

I mean, when Mars gets colonised, what's to stop Mars from becoming a superpower in the Sol system within a very short period of time? Pretty much nothing.

Once humanity gets its footing on Mars - and it really looks like this is going to happen within the next few decades - there are going to be security repercussions for those of us left on Earth. I believe this Space Force effort is an attempt to make USA not only Earth's police force, but that of the solar system, too.

Extraordinary times! To be actually typing this, in earnest..

Given that nothing we put into orbit or on another planet is going to be self-sustaining, you don’t need weapons to exert control on any residents of such infrastructure. A simple blockade will suffice

For now.

GP comment is speculative in either case.

I'd be more wary of a sneak attack from Antarctic insurgents first.

You can never be too early in stopping those Laconians I guess.

> I mean, when Mars gets colonised, what's to stop Mars from becoming a superpower in the Sol system within a very short period of time? Pretty much nothing.

Aside from the enormous cost of moving the (many, many) needed resources from the Earth to Mars. I'm super bullish on a Mars colony (I will be going within 5 years of it becoming an option) but the idea that it will be even 100% self-sustaining in the next 100 years -- let alone a superpower -- is absolutely bananas.

You expect politicians to learn from previous mistakes? LOL. Mars will eventually have its move for independence, when it's too late to stop that. Total Recall and The Expanse are on the nose.

They work on Earth, not in space. And while I think the philosophy of government organizations needs to be improved, if we don’t do this, we’ll be at the mercy of China.

It’s just a portion of the old Air Force budget, so it’s, at least for now, to do things the Air Force was already doing.

I like to compare expenses to the interest on the national debt.

Looks like it's about 3% of that:

https://www.thebalance.com/interest-on-the-national-debt-411...

Of course, rates are historically low.

>The budget documents released Monday anticipate 6,434 active-duty Space Force members

Seems like incredible bloat for this agency to have any sort of 'active duty' military personal at the moment. What are they exactly going to do that civilians can't?

Working at:

Combined Space Operations Center, Vandenberg AFB

Missile Warning Center, Cheyenne Mountain AFS

Joint Overhead Persistent Infrared Center, Buckley AFB

Joint Navigation Warfare Center, Kirtland AFB

Joint Task Force-Space Defense, Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, CO - JTF-SD is responsible for protecting military satellites from aggression

National Space Defense Center - Co-located within JTF-SD, NSDC is a joint effort between the Department of Defense and the United States Intelligence Community responsible for detecting, warning, and defending against threats to military space systems, particularly those of the National Reconnaissance Office

If you're not aware, the GPS is and has always been brought to you by active duty military personnel. Establishment of Space Force renames the organization that has existed since 1982. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIuqVeSL6Ss

This is interesting, I'd have expected it to be much higher. I know that the Air Force Space Command employed more people than NASA, which has a $20B+ budget. I assume more is massaged in elsewhere.

Does anyone know the proposed monicker for someone in the Space Force (granted there's only 1 person right now)? They aren't "airmen," nor are they "astronauts."

Space Marines? Space Ranger? Starship Troopers? Defenders of the Earth?

I wonder how long it will be until they decide to reorg NASA under Space Force.

I would be more of the belief that by its existence that Space Force will further separate NASA from the military.

It provides much more separation that what NASA currently has, if anything the real question becomes how much will the other branches give up to Space Force. The Air Force has the most to lose; unless of course this becomes something similar to Navy and Marines

Sounds like they've identified $15B in wasteful spending that they can just eliminate.

So just a few F35s worth of funding.

About 150 of them?

> The money, largely transferred from existing Air Force programs, would include $2.5 billion for operations and maintenance, $10.3 billion for research and development, and $2.4 billion for procurement.

TL;DR: who cares.

No money for nasa, gold plated ships for the military...

The Trump administration calls for big budget increases for NASA to fund Moon-to-Mars program

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/10/21131361/nasa-administrat...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com