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Comment by brandonmenc | Hacker News Reader

> What is a "space force"?

We already have a "space force" - the Air Force - which was spun out of the Army. It's not odd to spin out the Space Force from the Air Force, if necessary.

> And why we need any kind of weapons in space?

Because other nations want to or are in the process of weaponizing space.

The first time someone knocks out one of our GPS satellites, you'll be asking, "why don't we have a Space Force to protect against this sort of thing?"

Everyone's favorite rational pop scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, thinks it's "not a weird idea." [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NEcxhPh7js

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>>The first time someone knocks out one of our GPS satellites, you'll be asking, "why don't we have a Space Force to protect against this sort of thing?"

It is extremely unlikely that someone will start knocking down US satellites, that would be an equivalent of attacking US, that never happened after invention of nuclear weapons. To spend billions to prepare for extremely unlikely event does not seem to be very rational thing to do. Meanwhile there are serious problems facing country and humanity in general global worming, automation takes away millions of jobs, opioid crisis, millions of people without health insurance, school system that has major issues.

>> Everyone's favorite rational pop scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, thinks it's "not a weird idea."

Yes, Neil gets exited when space gets any attention.

>that never happened after invention of nuclear weapons

>To spend billions to prepare for extremely unlikely event does not seem to be very rational thing to do.

Nuclear weapons were not free to develop.

They are already developed. Money is already spent.

Couldn't the same argument have been made for the first person to develop gun powder? Boats? Domesticated horses? Tipped spears, etc.?

Weapons can be an endless pit of development and the US is not a conquering nation. Let's say we could sustain an economy and develop the first nuclear weapons while everyone else is using spears; what was the opportunity cost? What's the value if it's only used for defense?

Outside of defense I know a large military and weapons help in having influence, but so does having a stable and large economy--the later moreso.

Nuclear weapons were developed out of a competition for survival. The people involved knew even in the hands of the Allied forces it was extremely dangerous. You're arguing we should invest in a Space Force because someone else might do it in the future.

I can't see nations going forward making the investment in nuclear weapons unless they've already been making big investments. Look at NK, they've made investments in nuclear weapons as well as cyberwarfare. I'm sure the investment in cyberwarfare has been much, much smaller and they already hacked into Sony, reduced them to doing paper payroll for awhile, and released a bunch of compromising information. Sadly, the response from the US wasn't very serious. Unlike nuclear, the response has to be asymmetric because they don't have much of a network infrastructure to attack.

I just don't see what to invest in for a Space Force. Anyone looking to attack something like GPS would either use something like ground base lasers, software/network hacks, or traditional projectiles. Anything developed by the US would either be obsolete by the time its needed or get sold to adversaries and used right back at us.

What happens when an "anonymous hacker" finds a way to adjust the trajectory of a satellite, and someone needs to rapid response dispose of the rerouted satellite safely?

The same thing we did last time that happened?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost

That satellite was about to decay into the atmosphere.

We can't just start blowing up satellites in stable orbits.

> that would be an equivalent of attacking US, that never happened after invention of nuclear weapons.

Both nation-state and non-nation-state organized groups have attacked the US since the invention of nuclear weapons. (On US territory itself—notably on 9/11/2001—but more often US military assets off US territory, which is the closest equivalent to attacking a GPS satellite.)

> The first time someone knocks out one of our GPS satellites, you'll be asking, "why don't we have a Space Force to protect against this sort of thing?"

No, I won't. While the role is important, there is no sensible reason for a separate service, and the mission already exists in the Air Force.

Sure, we need the mission, just like we need the riverine warfare mission, or the littoral warfare mission. We don't need a separate service for any of those missions, though.

> Everyone's favorite rational pop scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, thinks it's "not a weird idea."

It's not a weird idea, and it's something we’ll quite likely eventually need. OTOH, quite probably not this century.

> quite probably not this century.

That's extremely optimistic.

We might not need it during this administration, but surely we'll need it in less than fifty years.

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