These US Air Force Cadets plan to conquer space- one day, anyway.
The US Air Force Academy is aiming higher every day, this time as they discuss putting US Space Force bases on the Moon.While the USSF is currently still within the USAF, just shy of 10% of the upcoming USAFA graduates will be commissioned to help lead it. As such,... Read more
Donald Trump’s Space Force Is a Scam
On June 18, 2018, Pres. Donald Trump announced he was directing the Pentagon to develop a new branch of the U.S. military, a “Space Force” that would give the United States “dominance” in that realm. It would be, he said — and here he used a classic phrase from... Read more
Soviet Cosmonauts Carried a Shotgun Into Space
This story originally appeared on Feb 3, 2015. To this day, the Russian Federal Space Agency refuses to talk about the weapon—though it’s an open secret. Astronauts heading to the International Space Station have trained with it, and some have even talked about it. And in case there’s any... Read more
The Moon-Walking, Alien-Hunting, Psychic Astronaut Who Got Sued by NASA
On his way out to the Moon, there simply wasn’t time for Edgar Mitchell to contemplate the universe. The schedule was jam-packed, and the pressure was on. Mitchell, who had been part of the team that worked feverishly to bring Apollo 13 back home safely, was piloting Apollo 14’s lunar... Read more
The U.S. Air Force, Not the Navy, Should Lead America in Space War
In his June 2017 article “Against An Air Force Space Corps: Space Belongs to the Navy!”, Matt Hipple made an astute observation about the future of military space operations. Visions of future sustained operations in space do indeed resemble classic naval operations at sea. Virtually every single work of... Read more
Testing Satellites … by Nuking Them
Here’s the challenge. You want to make sure your military satellite is tough enough to withstand the radiation from a nuclear blast. Here’s the problem. You can’t just put the sat in orbit and nuke it. That’s illegal and dangerous. Plus, you’ll need to study the spacecraft after the... Read more
The U.S. Army’s Gun-Toting Space Soldiers
This story originally appeared on Nov. 9, 2015. In space, no one can hear you scream. But in the early days of the space age, the Pentagon had a bigger problem — namely, earthly notions of ballistics and gun-design didn’t apply in vacuum. As the United States had started... Read more
It’s Time for the U.S. Air Force to Prepare for Preemption in Space
by EDWARD G. FERGUSON & JOHN J. KLEIN The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Air Force, Falcon Research or those of the United States government. *** Preemption is not controversial; legally, morally, or strategically.... Read more
America Needs a Space Corps
If the Air Force cannot or will not embrace space power, we in Congress will have to drag them there, kicking and screaming if necessary, or perhaps establish an entirely new service. — Rep. Bob Smith, 1998 To say that there has been discontent with Air Force stewardship of space is... Read more