Air Force Seeks Better Space Technology: Are Star Wars Upon Us?

whether we like it or not, as a species, war and competition is most likely crucial for our long term (millions of years) survival against whatever hostilities might lie beyond the orbit of our planet.

it is probably the reason to the rhyme of why we kill each other in the first place, to harden us up for anything that might threaten us as a whole entity.

@kalrin2001 dido

It's a bit of shame, our lack of self control; given our aptitude for technological innovation, that we can't step above animalistic instincts, and proceed with national budgets towards making the world a truly better place as opposed to what we've made it.

I think this a cool idea that could lead to an establishment for a moonbase. I think the air force is smart, wanting to build spacecraft and aircraft like that.
It would be a great advancement for technology!

Just so long as they don't accidentally hit Japan's solar farm/laser/thing.

I guess its time for vipers and battlestars.

Space has been a battlefield ever since Sputnik, nothing new there. Technological superiority in earth orbit offers a great advantage; currently just for gathering data about other countries. In the future, who knows?

Podboq, until there are no more tyrants on earth, the threat of war is ever present, as is the need to stay ahead of our enemies.

Im extremely skeptical,
if you wanted a real space war how about a 10 meter chunk of rock hiting New York at 20mps??!

forget battlestars and the like....the forementioned rock could do far more damage than any other weapon...even nukes (no radiation generated:P )... at a fraction of the cost!!

@podboq
You and Kalkrin are having the same good old arguement
"the potherb or the swine" As Jack McDevitt said one of his short stories.

The potherbs just stay in one place grow and die over and over again...but have no brains
This compares the US, it goes by cycles...
first the baylonian empire rose to its peak when it stoped conquering and being a land of bussinesmen, it "died" from corruption. Same with the Roman empire, beurocracy and gutlessness prevented them from pushing back their atackers EVEN THOUGH they were just some untraned barbarians!!...now the US has become a world power...we'r done with expansion...makes you wonder, are we becoming potherbs again? Brainwashed by the media?

The period of military growth and expansion as evidenced by the babalonian, roman empires...and the US...has shown to be good for economy and the "American spirit" which is only the thought ambition through hardships that sharpens their minds and souls to fight to the end and never give up. That the swine moves around gets fat and has fun, and has just barely any brain...more than the potherbs though. Pigs, wallow in their own mess, poop around the feeding trough, which can be connected to military conflicts and the wasting away of our narural resourses.

Both choices end up at fault whichever way you put it....
So who will you be, a Potherb, or a swine?

Jack McDevvit is very deep, highly reccomed his writings :)

Jack McDewit sounds like an idiot. On another note it sounds like China gets crazier and crazier every day.

I guess I should explain why I think Jack McDewit sounds like an idiot. From what you say it seems like he tries to create a stark contrast between two different groups that don't really exist. He looks at it all as black and white, thinking you can only be a potherb or swine.
Look at India and Japan, would classify them as potherbs? If that’s the case how do you say they stay in one place and just die over and over again, and call them mindless?
Thinking that expansion and wars are always good for the economy is an over simplification, look at the Spanish , Iraq and Cold war. They all wore our economy thin.
And if you really want to be anal, his analogies are off. Pigs are livestock who die on the farm they were born, so never expand and are slain by someone else’s hand. This is done generation after generation.

@Kalrin
And I’m not sure about the whole war thing hardening us for something worse, look at the cold war, something that came so close to annihilating civilization as a whole and leaving in its the void an irradiated world. Competition may be crucial to our survival, but war can lead to the opposite.

And expanding war into space is something we should avoid at all costs, space is currently something that is being used to create cooperation between nations. Look at the ISS, the new pact between NASA and the ESA, talks of exoplanet exploration with the help of other nations to ease cost. I believe this cooperation in turn helps builds bridges and prevent wars.

Why does NASA withdraw shuttles (end-of-life vehicles)and open a new-old programm of a space rocket?

The rocket they want to use now has a lot of differances than the rockets from the old program. Though I don't agree with them taking the schuttles out of commission.

Did no one else realize that the aircraft in the picture have USMC painted on them. Everyone knows that if someone is going to be the first to defend our nation in space it is going to be the good old US Marine Corps not the Airfarce!!!

@areyoukidding

lol, that's funny. Actually I think that is the aircraft being proposed for the USMC to rapidly deploy Marines accross the globe. That's where I've seen it before.

But still, lol at the observation.

@Craigboy
though i dont have time at the moment for an in depth response id like to say that, obviously the quote oversimplifies...there is much in between space between the two catagories...but should be treated like an "outline" of human social cycles

As you said about the cold war, it did NOT leave an irradiated desert of a planet, buuut new technologies were devoloped, people had a purpose to live other than money, ie. not being irradiated by another country.

Your reference to pigs as livestock being slaughtered by humans, seems like a "what if..." statement, which puts a whole new dimension to the problem...as far as I can tell, the quote did not imply in any way about there being humans somewhere along with the pigs. I believe it would make more sense if you imagined the pigs in the WILD, back before humans domesticated such animals.
If I go along with the pigs eventually getting slaughtered by humans, what did you expect, for them to live forever? People die sooner or later...whichever category they more readily fit...just in different ways.

There is no way to prevent space war, but I believe it wont happen in our lifetimes...according to undeniable and unavoidable social cycles of empires already described...The US will fall (probably nukes), world chaos will ensue without anyone even pretending to be the honest world policeman. After decades, even centuries, a new, greater empire will form to be next in line to the, Babylonian, Roman, and American "empires". THEN will be time for space wars. Meanwhile, worry about building yourself a bunker in the canadian wilderness.

Those concept renderings certainly look like fun. However, given our worldwide network of military bases, aircraft carriers, etc., I have a feeling we won't be seeing any suborbital drop ships in the near future - why spend several billion dollars developing and testing a new rocket plane when you can just fly a turboprop from a nearby base and drop some paratroopers on your target within two hours or so? SEALs and Marines don't need spaceplanes - they just need commanders who know how to effectively make use of their skills.

A better use of the money might be the development of some kinetic weapons satellites - a few heat-resistant tungsten-core projectiles dropped from orbit could smash bunkers, collapse mountain caves, and wipe out just about anything you aim them at. No volatile explosives, no radiation, just a whole lot of kinetic energy focused on a given area.

While you're at it, find some way to defend American shuttles and satellites from all the space junk floating around up there. If the Chinese were really serious about space superiority - or at least about countering ours - all they'd really have to do would be to detonate a few satellites filled with rusty nails in orbit, and all our fancy GPS tech, spy and communication satellites, etc. would be reduced to so much scrap metal.

What if we just sent a big magnet into space let it fly in orbit for a while and made it crash into the ocean it should of cleared away most of the space debris

LOL

How bout a giant strip of flypaper?

Sorry, uncleiroh, but the magnet idea might not work so well. it would be preferable if we could NOT kill ourselves in the process. what would happen if the magnet missed the ocean and hit, say, the vatican city? The pope would be all gussied up, about to make a speech, and suddenly, everyone would point at the sky and shriek. The pope would turn around, expecting to see Jesus, but will only find a massive hunk of flaming metal hurdling toward him. He jumps out of the balcony, screaming WHEEEEEEEEEEE, all the way down, and............ WHAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO MORE VATICAN.

@Areyoukidding..... No. Just... no. The first service to defend us in space is already the Air Force. The Air Force Mission even says it: To fly, fight, and win in air, SPACE, and cyberspace. Even if the Marine Corps were up there defending us, they would be in planes piloted by Air Force personnel.

Also, jaydub is right, that picture was originally used for an article talking about using space transport for rapid deployment. That might also not just be Marines, but the Army as well.

no word on that old pesky non proliferation of space TREATY. not convenient anymore...or the warmongers not makin enough cabbage killing people for 45,000 dollars a head?

I like the magnet idea, but I don't think that it would get much junk seeing that a lot of the space junk would not be attracked to the magnet.

people?!! have you lost your minds?! there have been many propoals.... but magnets?!! how powerful does that magnet have to be to cover at LEAST 200 miles!?! How the heck is it feasible to carry up chunck of equipments a dozen times the ISS?!! An obviously a single nuclear powerplant wont be enough to power that!! And shall not even mention how the eco-freaks and beurocrats will scream when someone mention orbiting nukes!!? waste 10's, even hundreds of billions of dollars and profit will be NONE!!!! Who the heck would like to fund that kind of space bussiness, huh!?! Mabye you! ! ! ?

I really HATE seeing these fluffy naive ignorants, but theres no way around it...theyre the kind of people who support Obama!!!

"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped."   Elbert Hubbard

What does supporting Obama have anything to do with anything?? Jeezie Creezie...

What should be enacted as international law, is all spacecraft MUST be equipped with de-orbit functionality, after its life is over.

The problem area starts at about 200 miles up, and extends out to 22,000 miles...that's a HUGE amount of space, which quite a bit of junk floating around... but collisions are almost unheard of now... any future craft put into space should have a mechanism by which is can suicide... that's the ONLY real option.

@podboq
yeah, you got the numbers there that i didnt
22,000 miles is absolutely impossible to control

Obama....the beurocratic media brainwashing socialist soft tyrant has absolutely nothing to do with and the sort of people voting for him who give in to the speach laden bullshit propaganda (sarcasm)

i just hope starship troopers doesnt happen..... i hate bugs.

Star wars? How about star trek :D

I wanna join the star fleet academy

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Solution to space junk= blow it up with unused Soviet/American nukes

@V3RTIGO
think it through, most of the junk is small ie. flechs of paint and pieces no larger than 5 sqr ft...nukeing things would blow the large enough targets (dead satalites) would into millions of tiny fragments which would defeat the purpose

I meant flecks, not flechs in the first sentence sorry*

It's funny that you just now decide to correct spelling errors... haha

@areyoukidding, unless you've actually served in the US Military, you have no right to poke fun at any one of the sister services. Our bantering at each other are terms of endearment earned by the sweat, and blood that we have all poured into our country by volunteering to defend her and her people. I'd appreciate it if you showed proper respect to all military services, including the Air Force.

And one other thing to burst your bubble about poking fun at the "Air Farce" We are deployed globally on the ground and in the Air. We have Airman deployed to all reaches of every AOR. We have Airman riding in the convoys in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have Airman active and fighting in combat operations in OIF and OEF. We have Airman conducting anti-terrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and far east Asia. We are a global fighting force that isn't just limited to the flight lines office cubicals located across the Continental United States. I would appreciate it if you recognize and give credit where credit is due. Thank you.

One final thing... Yes, the Air Force's battle space is defined as Air, Space, and Cyberspace.

... A 7 year Air Force Veteran...

wow i just make a funny idea and people get serious. i didnt know most the stuff wasnt metal either. LOL its funny to read comments after someone puts down a stupid comment