# Any validity to this?



## Zipper730 (Apr 27, 2021)

I'm not sure if this every came up before, but I'm curious how much validity there is to this. There definitely seems to be a ring of truth to this, particularly from 1945 to 1978, though to some extent, even modern day.

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## MIflyer (May 20, 2021)

I'd have to read the whole thing to comment in detail, but I served as an officer in the USAF for 25 years, in three different major commands as well as the Air Force Secretariat in the Pentagon. Then I worked for a small private firm for 12 years as a USAF, NASA and FAA contractor.

I could detect no real doctrinal planning in the US Air Force. The main driver was careerism, modified occasionally by the urgent requirements of real world events. 

Typical reasons given for decisions:

1. We have to have heavy bombers because if we did not have them in WWII we would not have a USAF today.
2. We have to do things this way because this is the way we do things in the Air Force and we all have to do it the same way.
3. If you are not doing it this way then you are doing it wrong.
4. We need to get rid of the technical and non-flying people in the Air Force so we can save more pilots.

There was no logic in any of this; mainly it was self serving and based on ignorance.

Gen Dugan, the CSAF who was fired by Pres GHW Bush for saying that if the Iraqis did not do as we wanted we would level their capitol, on his departure warned than careerism was one of the biggest challenges faced by the USAF. 

It was this reason that we needed a Space Force to be created. For decades in the Space side of the house we were beset by people saying that we were doing it wrong. We needed to operate like ICBM units or fighter units or manned space units or whatever. Every time this was tried it was disastrous. We scrapped 26 Atlas bosters in the early 70's because the Space Shuttle would do a far better job. Then the Space Shuttle was a huge failure and cost 114 times as much as it had been billed. The attempt to "operationalize" expendable boosters resulted in three out of four Titan IV's failing in 1998-1999, all from easily fixable problems.

We are led by lightweights. And that's on a good day.

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## Thumpalumpacus (May 20, 2021)

Having yet ro read the PDF, I can only say that when I was in, as a one-hitch enlisted guy, our motto was _there's the right way, the wrong way, and the Air Force way_. And even in the fire-service, we had them who were doctrinaire to a fault.


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## ThomasP (May 20, 2021)

Interesting read.

Hey Mlflyer,

The main reason that we did not have a 'Space Force' by the late-1960s or maybe early-1970s were the international agreements prohibiting or limiting militarization of space. Some of these agreements were informal at first. When we eventually militarize space we are going to have a whole new bag of problems/horrors to deal with, and this was recognized by the world's leaders at the time. The USAF was consequently not required to have a space operations doctrine, and was actively prohibited from having a 'Space Force'.

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## ThomasP (May 20, 2021)

Sorry, I should included this in my post above.

The main treaty that concerns this is the "*Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies*" - or the "*Outer Space Treaty"* for short.

Wiki has a pretty good description of it here:"Outer Space Treaty - Wikipedia."

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## MIflyer (May 21, 2021)

In the early 1960's the US opnely agreed with the USSR that space should not be used for military purposes. And then both nations went ahead and launched dedicated military satellites anyway. One result of this was that the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), a version of the TIROS satellite optimized for military uses, officially did not exist for a number of years. Pilots flying missions over N Vietnam were told what the weather would be but could not be told how we knew that. By the early 70's it was agreed that the concept of having no military satellites in orbit was absurd.

And we did not have a Space Force not because of treaties but because Space was not a Mission area. Space was a Medium through which other Mission areas could be supported, but not a Mission in its own right.

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## ThomasP (May 21, 2021)

I think I am correct in saying that the Outer Space Treaty (et al) effectively did not allow Space to become a (Military) Mission area, hence no need for a (Military) Force.

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## Zipper730 (May 21, 2021)

Frankly, I'm not really sure why we need a Space Force now: We could have just changed the United States Air Force to the United States Aerospace Force. After all ADC went from Air Defense Command to Aerospace Defense Command.

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## MIflyer (May 21, 2021)

No, the treaty does no such thing. Decisions on Mission areas are soley the responsibility of the individual nations. 

And as I said above, the problem with the USAF was that it kept trying to impose airplane ideas on an inappropriate area, where they do not work. This was mainly because:

1. Very, very few of the senior leadership had any experience of any kind relative to space.
2. They viewed it as a place to put pilots without cockpits and missile crews without silos.

If you have not been into the Pentagon on a Saturday morning to explain nuclear rocket engine design principles to a 3 star fighter pilot, you have not had "fun."

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## Zipper730 (May 21, 2021)

MIflyer said:


> If you have not been into the Pentagon on a Saturday morning to explain nuclear rocket engine design principles to a 3 star fighter pilot, you have not had "fun."


Honestly, nuclear thermal rockets are quite interesting and strike me as fairly simple: The reactor provides the heat, the liquid hydrogen provides the coolant for the engine, and the thrust, and the control-system (some ideas involved rotating drums if I recall with a moderator on one side) is the throttle.

With specific impulse for a regular rocket being around 450 seconds, if the number is around 800 second for a nuclear rocket, you'd be able to run the engine 77.8% longer.


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## ThomasP (May 21, 2021)

Hey Mlflyer,

re:"No, the treaty does no such thing. Decisions on Mission areas are soley the responsibility of the individual nations."

Maybe I am not understanding something here, but could you explain the above more thoroughly?

What I get from the "outer Space Treaty" et al is that the more space capable nations agreed to severely limit the Militarization of Space. In effect the participating nations agreed to not treat Space as a (Military) Area, and hence per the current discussion there was no perceived need for a (Military) Space Force.

Yes, both US and USSR launched Comsats and Spysats, and eventually a couple of different GPS satellite setups. And there were a few nuclear exo-atmosphere warhead tests. Eventually, of course the Starwars Progteam got going. But they could have done other things early on, if they had not chosen to adhere to the treaty(s). Like the manned Spy Space Station program, or the positioning in Space of nuclear warheads with various types of delivery systems, including the manned exo-atmosphere Space Bomber, or the various manned Armed Space Station concepts.


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## MIflyer (May 22, 2021)

The treaty prevents stationing of nuclear weapons in space. There is no conceivable reason to do that anyway. 

MOL was cancelled not because we could not station military personnel in space but because automated systems such as the NRO's Corona did a better job and at far cheaper cost. 

The Lt. General who coined the phrase "Space is a Place." in the early 80's, was saying that Space is not a mission the same way that Airpower and Spacepower are. But it is now.

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## ThomasP (May 22, 2021)

I agree it is likely to become so, if it is not already.


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## MIflyer (May 22, 2021)

Treaties theoretically prevent you from DOING things. They do not prevent you from thinking about and planning things.

We had an ABM Treaty. That did not stop us from creating SDIO and doing all kinds of tests of technology designed to intercept missiles. Then, eventually, 20 years later, we broke out of that treaty.

The Outer Space Treaty did not prevent the USAF from developing ASAT weapons in the 1980's. One was used to destroy the SOLWIND satellite. The US Congress then passed a bill that prevented the Miniature Vehicle from being tested against "Objects in Space" - which did not include stars, it seems.

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## MIflyer (May 22, 2021)

Zipper730 said:


> Honestly, nuclear thermal rockets are quite interesting and strike me as fairly simple:



Yes, one great thing about them is that they are basically much simpler than chemical engines. Not only that, they should be much cheaper to produce. There are some significant materials problems that do not appear to be insurmountable. And of course you can get an Isp of around 900 without much trouble, about twice as good as the best LOX-H2 engines. That means that an Atlas II booster could launch the same payload as a Titan IV = 40K lb rather than just 20K lb. 

I am writing an article about a nuclear rocket engine program I was involved with in the early 1990's. And the reason we do not have such an engine today is due in no small part to the stalwart and dedicated efforts of the National Aeronautics and Sabotage Administration.


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