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Did someone say Space Force? That’s just too irresistible a topic for this podcast not to tackle in depth. So we do. But that’s not all. No sir. We also call on our friends Matt Continetti (he of the must listen Right and Righter podcast) to talk about Alexandria Cortez-Ocasio and what she means for American politics, and Byron York takes us for a deep dive on the status of the Mueller investigation. We learned a lot in this segment and we bet you will too. Also, Rob goes long on the Academy’s new Most Popular Movie category. Hoping for a podcast category soon.
Music from this week’s show: Space Cowboy by The Steve Miller Band
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As many of you know, my Dad worked on the space program starting in 1952 (the pre NASA Project Viking, Vanguard, Naval Space Surveillance System, Timation and GPS). The US is much more dependent on space than our rivals. The current Air Force Space Command does not appear to have the resources or the heft within the AF needed to protect these important assets. I’m not sure if an independent space force is the way to go, but some important changes need to be made and this is a reasonable alternative. Dissatisfaction with the current framework is longstanding. At the 60th anniversary celebration of Vanguard 1 in March, I spoke with a contact who expressed concern with the Chief of Naval Operations in 1967 that the Navy’s needs in space were not being addressed.
I wouldn’t speak so cavalierly about Trump’s two terms in office. According to reputable polls only 46% of those that identify themselves as Trump supporters want him to run for reelection. Now that he’s decided to put away his false modesty and reluctant al’ shucks toe-in-the-sand routine and really govern the way he wants people’s perception of him might start to wear thin.
@peterrobinson needs to listen to this podcast himself, especially what @roblong said about technology development that comes from new projects even if “the experts” say it’s “impossible,” AND his own words about new technology, and then change his answer about Mars.
Space Cowboy was a good song. But this would have been better.
“Space Cadet” has long had a pejorative meaning and intent, partly because it couldn’t possibly be real. Once it becomes possible to actually BE real, that side of it should fade out over time. Except maybe for us oldsters. We’ll just have to die out, I suppose.
Because it paid the rent for a while, some retro weapon facts. Peacekeeper was the rebrand for the Mx in 1981. The misbegotten missile is from the mid 70s* and the amusing basing scheme was part of the Carter administration’s defense build-up, but possibly begun under Ford. I don’t remember if it ever had a catchy name, other than Mx basing scheme. I think “shell game” was rejected early-on as being too on-the-nose to use with an appropriations committee. President Reagan called it “a Rube Goldberg idea”–a fair description–and ditched it in ’81, forcing several people in my organization to go out and find honest work.
Much of the the 80s was spent figuring out how to use the missile for something and come up with a basing scheme. “Rail Garrison” was my favorite. Possibly because the original idea involved railroad tracks, the plan was to keep launchers and missiles in a secure rail yard and sortie when things looked hot. A friend, for some never-explained reason, got invited to an early meeting and–being a smart-ass– asked the question: “what do you do if a group of guys with grenade launchers is waiting at the exit?” Response: “In the Air Force, we don’t ask questions like that.”
An old-timer once told me some heavy-hitter, possibly Simon Ramo, once (1950s) said to some branch of the service: “Given enough time and enough money, we’ll come up with something.” I don’t believe anyone ever did on Peacekeepers.
*Marketing tactic: bring models of Soviet missiles and a Minuteman to Congress-critters and say, “Look how tiny our missile is. We need a BIG missile.” Congress-critters–not remembering the Minuteman was small because it could deliver a warhead to within a 100 feet of target and Soviet missiles large because they needed to carry a big damn warhead because their guidance systems could get within a couple of miles of the target on a good day–bought it.
[edit: twinge of conscience on the footnote. If I dimly recall correctly, I got that from a period PBS program, probably with an axe to grind. A (slightly) more reasonable argument would have been that a bigger missile could throw a bigger MIRV (10 independent warheads for Mx). It’s still silly because of the pre-dating 1972 ABM treaty, which sought to offset the MIRV-conferred attacker’s advantage by limiting ABM systems, obviating the need for MIRVs (sorry but that is Mutually Assured Destruction logic). And then there’s the question: just how many times were you planning to kill all of us?]
The Space Force is a good idea. Not for the silly buck rogers themes that it presents – but because of how the military manages the careers of officers.
The Pentagon manages a space program as well funded as NASA about $20 Billion, but probably more because there are probably several black programs that are ‘off book’ …
The problem is that managing a fleet of satellites is a complex and specialized operation – literally rocket science. The officer corps in the military have an “Up or OUT” doctrine, meaning that officers need to be regularly promoted or their careers will come to an inglorious end. That means that by the time someone masters their job in the Military Space Program – they get promoted to the next job – and will face a new learning curve.
So it would be great for the space force to keep people in complex technical jobs longer – so that they can truly master their job before they get rotated out.
That’s spectacular, but it works much better as a video.
The day after Reagan gave his “Star Wars” speech, physicists who couldn’t get the clocks on their VCRs to stop flashing “12:00” were saying “We can’t do that” and the guys I worked with were drawing on cocktail napkins and telling each other “Yeah, we can do that.”
There’s more cultural unease with Force than with Space (and entirely too much cultural ease with The Force).
Space Age is accepted as a big picture historical concept. Space Program doesn’t elicit chuckles but widespread respect.
The key is creating a unmatched military branch and the name will be just fine.
Don’t hear many people laughing at the SEALs, do you? Certainly not in the Middle East. Who knew seals could travel so swiftly and lethally in sand?
Come on. Space Force is a jackass phrase. It just is. And the word “space” is absolutely the reason. Rob is 100 percent right about that. (Though Howard Hawks, not John Huston, directed The Big Sleep)
Well, then why do other phrases based on the “Space” concept not have that connotation of jackassery, or not have it any longer. One can imagine the scorn and smart set mockery of the Space Program and the phrase “astronaut” at a Lenny Bruce performance too.
The Space Force will either become well funded and decisive part of the American military services or it won’t.
If it does, then “Space Force” will lose its connotations of jackassery, become a defining achievement of President Donald J. Trump and take a prominent place in his presidential library (and, yes, he gets one friend, whether or not you find it absurd or not).
Or “Space Force” fails to launch and remains a silly marketing stunt.
But the fate of “Space Force” as a phrase depends on events and not on your too cool for school insistence.
A related recollection.
When I was very young, maybe a pre-teen, Bill Buckley headlined a debate on TV during the earliest days of the feminist wars on engendered language.
At one point Buckley was deriding the need to balance the use of the words “chairman” and “chairwoman” and leaned forward with his winning sneer (only he had one) and suggested “Maybe we should refer to her as a ‘chair'”.
The room erupted in laughter at the absurdity of that usage, which is of course standard today.
And Rob’s evaluations of Trump’s self-marketing and political framing — especially the silly base crudity of his approach — have really been spot on for three years now, right?
Sorry but it’s like you’re trying to talk someone with a visceral dislike for anchovies into liking anchovies. It can’t be done. The term Space Force, for many people (like myself) is extremely jackass. I mean, let’s face it, it sounds like something a 9-year-old boy would come up with.
“Billy, we’re looking to start a new branch of the military. Any ideas?”
”Space Force!!”
It’s just stupid.
Does Green Beret for “fearless men” with “silver wings upon their chest” sound stupid to you too ?
Well, what I was trying to do was engage in a more thoughtful conversation about how certain concepts begin in the public mind as mockable and either retain that risibility or becoming accepted and ultimately standard.
You’d prefer to entertain yourself with your juvenile “extremely jackass/It’s just stupid” reassertion.
As a conservative I try to transcend my initial “that’s extremely jackass” reactions. I often fail. But those reactions are — if you are willing to scratch the surface — often curated for you by people who find conservatives, national pride and assertions of American power as inherently mockable and deserving of contempt and derision.
Do you honestly think any other name wouldn’t have been met with smart set and late night scorn and, consequently, found its way into your deeply personal and individual reaction?
Astro Force? Extraplanetary Force? Space Defense Project? (That one is less clearly funny, yet it includes that word “space”.)
Enjoy your “Look it’s a booger” level of argument.
@peterrobinson I agree we would be better off with an Aerospace Force. Which apparently there are several squadrons of the US Air Force already called that.
Apparently the 10th Air Force has a space force reserve already under its command.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Air_Force
But Trump despite all the claims isnt the originator. I found a reference to back in 1999.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/united-states-military-independent-space-force.htm
Also the Russians have a Space Force since 1992.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Space_Forces
Phlur is a weird name.
Honestly? No, not as stupid as Space Force. Why, does it sound stupid to you?
You’re reading far too much into my visceral reaction to a silly name. I love our country. I love our armed forces. And I believe – – no, I know – – that U.S. military power has been an overwhelming force for good on the world stage … just as I know that terms like Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are fine designations. And Space Force is just dumb.
Is what sounds stupid.
What about “Space Command”? We’ve had once since the Reagan Administration. Has it caused howls of laughter and side splitting sarcasm for four decades? Forty thousand men and women are working hard within that command a few hours from my house. When I meet them on a chair lift at Wolf Creek and they respond “Oh, I work up at the Space Command at Peterson” am I supposed to fall out of the chair laughing?
Your insistence is childish.
I don’t think I am reading too much into your comments frankly. There is nothing to read other than your juvenile “It’s stupid” stance.
What’s striking is the dimwitted response from the smart set.
Here’s the hot comic take from The New Yorker: Pence Calls Space Force Necessary to Protect U.S. from Gay Aliens.
The magazine of Perelman and Thurber. If you are looking for something stupid and dumb and “jackass”, here it is in the magazine of metro sophistication.
“Space Force” is an entirely normal designation for a new branch, which may itself be a bad fiefdom creating idea.
The piling on reaction of the Never Trump right is sterile, unfunny and predictable as they ape their witless liberal present day allies. As Trump becomes a more conservative president by the month, the whole triangulating phony set is becoming more and more pathetic.
They simply cannot stand against the scorn and contempt of the liberal status granting forces.
And let’s keep in mind that much of this mockery is only sharpened (well it’s actually dull witted) by the involvement of Pence, who is viewed with greater contempt than Trump by the smart set you echo so flatly.
Remember the last time Pence was mocked this mercilessly?
That was the oh-so-clever satire of the Pence rule a few weeks before we discovered how deep the cesspools of sexual harassment and violence amongst the progressive culture makers really are.
The single biggest problem with any existing Space Command or Space Force or whatever, no matter how many decades it may have technically existed, is the relative lack of accessibility. I don’t think it can – or will be – taken very seriously until it’s possible to actually do something, like launch a spaceship, without months or even years of lead time followed by weeks or months of delays due to bad weather etc.
You understand, of course, that what you are doing right now amounts to standing at a white board with a lab coat and pointer and trying to prove, scientifically, that what I just found funny is in fact not remotely funny.
That’s a fool’s errand. It can’t be done. It is every bit as absurd as using an Excel spreadsheet to try to prove to someone, mathematically, that the joke that just left them cold is in fact sidesplittingly funny and they were wrong not to laugh. The premise itself is farcical.
As to your other point — you’ve heard the aphorism “To thine own self be true”? It’s a cliche for a reason. So I am not going to make an ex post facto decision that the thing I just finished mocking isn’t the least bit amusing simply because my ideological opponents also laughed at it.
Remember when Mitt Romney said that Russia was a great big threat, and Obama and the left – your ideological opponents – thought it was funny?
They were wrong then too. And so were you, if you also laughed along with them that time.
The what? Huh?
I was being sarcastic. I don’t really consider Trump to be the type to go in for false modesty or blushing due to his excess humility. I do think he has deferred to Kelly and Mattis and others more than he will in the future – that’s what I was trying to convey.
Oh! Sorry! I missed that you were being sarcastic. 🤣