Phil Chapman is giving a talk at Space Access on revitalizing the human spaceflight program, and in one of his charts, he just made a pitch for the U.S. Space Guard concept.
[Update a few minutes later]
Is there a Wikipedia editor in the house? The Space Guard article over there is woefully behind the times.
Coast Guard/Space Guard:
“By contrast, in the “Gradual Accretion” scenario, a small entity with some space responsibilities is identified or formed within a Cabinet department. It would have as its end goal the formation of a Space Guard, but it would only gradually expand its scope toward that goal. It would seek to acquire responsibilities that are unwanted or conspicuously underserved within existing agencies, following the path of least resistance. The agency would opportunistically look for situations in which a small function was being deprived of resources at a large agency”
The navy or coast guard should put fuel depot in Earth/Moon L-1.
L-1 is a strategic location. Traffic going to Moon will pass thru it. Lunar water mined in future could shipped to it.
And NASA isn’t doing much in regard to fuel depots.
It is more “defendable ground”- one could even have “back-up” satellite at L-1- L-1 is huge area of space- modest “station keeping” can put it location which unpredictable and stored in area in which wouldn’t have spacecraft “normally” passing within thousands of miles to it. And considering one fly from L-1 to lunar shadow- it could be stealthy.
So, L-1 is the highest of the high ground. Though it would take awhile to have back-up satellite get to it’s position to replace another satellite. One could have earth launch get there quicker- assuming one had such capability of launching a rocket from earth within days.
More importantly, a fuel depot in L-1 could a way to get navy in the game in terms being the coast guard in space. If scrapping GEO satellites, taking them to L-1 might a good location- and there is depot there, it makes it more attractive. The defense dept probably few junk satellites it like to scrap- and a space guard could allow and monitor that.
To divert an impactor hitting earth, having rocket fuel at L-1 could be useful as would having 100 tons of scrap.
So, what is needed isn’t policy, it’s budget- if military spends the money to establish it, then policy will follow.
NASA isn’t doing much with regard to fuel depots?
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news/asd/2011/11/03/02.xml
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/cpst/cpst_overview.html
http://ssco.gsfc.nasa.gov/robotic_refueling_mission.html
This would be one project on cryo depots and one on “storable” depots. The money might not be on the same scale as other projects, but it’s more than nothing.
They need to put a general purpose ship in orbit. That’s your depot. Then work on fuel transfer. They can rotate crews in it and take voyages around the moon.
Experience beats paper studies every time.
This is a bit like discussing an air force before having any planes. Does the space guard have a mission? Now if nations start fighting in space? (More than we already do.) This has the potential of bringing Orion back. I mean, if getting military assets in orbit becomes a priority.
Given the current funding for NEO detection it doesn’t look like they have any serious plans.
They should name the first carrier, Galactica, don’t ya think?
Gbaikie, you would have to make a major policy change at DOD to allow the Navy to operate a major piece of in-space infrastructure not primarily for (Earthbound) naval uses, and the Air Force would assuredly object strenuously. A Space Guard that had the same relationship to the USAF as the Coast Guard does to the Navy might be more acceptable. Ken, did you read the New Atlantis article? The Space Guard idea is about taking existing assets and functions that are under-prioritized at other agencies and creating a new entity for which they are its primary purpose. There are plenty of those right now.
Of course I read it. The question is, is the time right?
“Gbaikie, you would have to make a major policy change at DOD to allow the Navy to operate a major piece of in-space infrastructure not primarily for (Earthbound) naval uses, and the Air Force would assuredly object strenuously.”
I am certain the Air Force would object.
I would suggest one start with very low costs.
And the Air Force will object and look foolish.
So what is low costs? I would start with water, but that is my thing.
Otherwise, perhaps non-cryogentic- maybe nano-sat related.
But what Navy needs is right team to do it.
Whatever is created I think it should be called the Solar Guard to keep with the roots of the dream 🙂
http://www.solarguard.com/sghome.htm
No analogy is perfect and this is no exception. For the military to consider a space guard, they need to consider what happened the last time a major component was split to become a separate service. That was when the Army Air Force became the US Air Force. What happened then (and note, I served in both the Army and the Air Force)?
When the US Air Force was stood up, cooperation with the other services declined sharply. Partly this was due to the fight for funding in the post WWII drawdown era (such as the battle to procure strategic long range bombers like the B-36 verses building the USS United States aircraft carrier, also known as the Admirals’ Revolt). The Air Force won that round and bought the B-36s. Interservice rivalry became even stronger than it had been before. Meanwhile, tactical support for ground troops suffered. You can’t become an ace shooting up ground targets and besides, you can easily get your ass shot off. Did you ever wonder why the US effectively has 5 air forces (every service has its own aircraft and the Army has more aircraft than the Air Force)? It’s because the other services became convinced (often with good reason) that the Air Force wasn’t going to meet their needs.
If they consolidate all US government space into a separate service, what’s to keep that from happening again? Space is a big force multiplier for the military. If a separate space service started viewing space as their mission instead of support to the other services, we’d be taking a big step backwards.
Today, US military space is under the unified US Strategic Command’s Joint Functional Component Commander for Space (JFCC-Space). In effect, this is the space guard. The US Army has a big role in wideband communications satellites (they effectively “own” DSCS and WGS satellites). The Navy “owns” narrowband comm (FleetSat, UFO and the new MUOS satellites). They used to own a major space surveillance asset but they turned it over to the Air Force a few years ago when they no longer wanted that mission (the Navy Fence became the Air Force Fence). The Air Force “owns” GPS, Milstar and AEHF commsats, DSP and SBIRS launch detection satellites, the Eastern and Western Test Ranges, Cape Canaveral Air Force Base (or is it a station?) and Vandenberg AFB. They also own most of the existing space surveillance systems and missile warning radars.
While there are merits to the idea of a space guard, unless the roles and responsibilities are carefully identified and the funding secured to carry out those responsibilities, you run the very real risk of losing capability. We’re in an era of tight military budgets. As long as it’s the “air” force, it’ll be commanded by pilots who’d much rather put their money into aircraft than space stuff. Simply transferring the responsibilities, facilities, personnel and equipment to a new service won’t be much good if all of the money doesn’t follow, and in this fiscal environment, I’d bet it won’t.
Larry J, you are confusing the Space Guard concept with the Space Force proposal. This is discussed in the New Atlantis article. The Space Guard would not be a primarily warfighting service on the model of the Air Force; direct warfighting tasks would remain in the Air Force for precisely the reasons you mentioned. The Space Guard is an analogue to the Coast Guard, with regulatory and infrastructure responsibilities transferred from FAA and NASA, and with some support tasks transferred from the USAF. The real question that should be asked is, why isn’t the Navy straining at the leash to take over buoy tending and civil maritime regulation from the Coast Guard? Surely any Annapolis grad would be thrilled to get boater safety on Catfish Reservoir as their first duty assignment.
The Navy and the Coast Guard are generally speaking satisfied with the current division of labor and there’s no urge to change it. Especially as any capability of the Coast Guard is effectively available to them when needed, without being maintained on their budget. Whenever the Navy suddenly needed a quick infusion of sailors experienced with close-inshore small-boat handling (like with WWII amphibious invasions, or coastal interdiction in Vietnam) they never hesitated to call on the USCG. The Air Force would probably come to see a Space Guard as a positive thing over time.
The more you divide responsibility, the harder it is to get anything done. As it is, the operational motto of Air Force Space Command is “God Forbid Anyone Make a Decision.” I know, I’ve worked for them as a contractor for the past 10 years.
Dividing responsibility just lets the bureaucrats in Blue say “Not it!” when it comes to making decisions and especially when it comes time to pay for them. As it is, I’ve worked on “near term” projects where they were projecting over 10 years into the future. If that’s “near term”, I’d hate to think of what “long term” means to them.
G’day,
Gbaikie, I have always thought EML1 would be a good spot for a Space Guard facility. They could use it for most of their missions, ie detect solar flares, NEO observations, space junk removal, servicing observation platforms etc. However I expect they would want to have the private sector build it. They would lease it.
Ken, this seems the ideal time for the Space Guard. In a time of declining budgets it allows the rationalization of Space money from both the military and civilian space programs. DoD would concentrate on actual warfighting programs, NASA on R&D and Space science while the Guard the practical stuff governments are supposed to do.
ta
Ralph
If they have a mission, sure. It’s not enough to say, let’s consolidate this stuff we’re already doing (since it’s being done at present where it is for a reason.)
Is it about deflecting asteroids? We don’t know when so it’s hard to justify a standing army.
Is it about protecting civilian assets? What civilian assets?
We have to first be actively in space in large numbers with sovereign issues before a space guard makes sense.
Before establishing a space guard, how about putting a general purpose refuelable training ship in orbit? Just one will do. More would be better. Let’s get some spacers with experience to join the guard.
Three initial purposes for a space guard:
1) space situational awareness – sharing of space collision data among between national and international agencies outside of the realm of national security.
2) enforcing rules – whatever form it takes, this equals less cost of insurance
3) coordinated legal framework for high altitude/low orbit/high orbit activities so as to create an environment where risk is properly priced making investment more attractive.
a distant 4 would be to replace NASA as the government space center of gravity (with the USAF on the national security side). NASA has an agenda/mandate/vision which seems to change a lot. This agency would exist to simply support private, commercial, and civil space activity.
The uniformed aspect comes into play for what would be the small guards initial and primary function – managing real time data concerning our orbital junk. In this way, they can immediately be placed under USAF command with appropriate command structure and clearances ready to go.
We already do this, but we don’t have that one agency that manages it all which would provide that cost of risk benefit to private actors. I guess there’d be a little overhead (uniforms, training) but if you slid it over from other branches then it might work out.