Would a Space Force Mean the End of NASA?

Would a Space Force Mean the End of NASA?

Would a Space Force Mean the End of NASA?







This article was originally published in The conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's. Voices of experts: Op-Ed and Insights.

		Space, that last frontier, is something that draws the attention of a country naturally inclined to believe in ideas such as "Manifest Destiny" and American exceptionalism. But how well does a Space Force fit in that measure? And would a space force reignite a military space race and fuel diplomatic tensions with China and Russia?

		Growing up in Florida, I was lucky enough to see the launch of the space shuttle with something that resembled regularity. As I grew up and learned for the first time about the history of NASA, its exploits during the Space Race and then its challenges, I never lost the sense of wonder at what NASA could do. I also got an appreciation for the difficulties he had to overcome to achieve those achievements. I have turned this interest into an academic career that studies the politics of space, science and medicine.

		The influence of NASA is clearly seen in these other fields, as well as in our daily lives. Technologies developed to allow space exploration. have led to consumer innovations such as scratch resistant lenses and CAT scanners. Our cell phones would not be possible without the miniaturization of the chips during the Apollo program or the military GPS satellites. Given these benefits, we often forget the difficult nature of space flight and the resources needed to achieve it.

		In fact, the examination of NASA's political experiences and lessons reveals the difficulties in establishing a new government agency and launching an organization whose job is to do difficult things at a high cost. Looking at the ups and downs of NASA's history shows that there are potential benefits at the national level, but that they could entail greater international risk.



		What is a Space Force, and what would it do anyway?

		At a rally in March of this year, President Donald Trump First he mentioned the idea of ​​a space force.. Since then, the president has tweeted about the idea and ordered the Pentagon to develop a plan to create a sixth independent branch of the army. Responding to the directives of the president, the Pentagon published a report in August. Although the report was described as "final", its 15 pages are short in details, long on topics of conversation and light on details about why there should be a Space Force.





						


President Donald Trump retains the Space Policy Directive-3 after signing it during a meeting of the National Space Council on June 18, 2018, in Washington. The function of the council is to advise the president with respect to national space policy and strategy, and to review the nation's long-term goals for space activities.

            						    Credit: Bill Ingalls / NASA 




	The White House and Congress have been considering the idea for some time.. During the debate on the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017, members of the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives inserted a provision that establishes a "Space Corps". The proposed Space Corps would be housed within the Air Force, but the provision it was removed later during the negotiations of the House of Representatives and the Senate due to objections from both the White House and Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Although he has now expressed support for a Space Force, Mattis originally opposed him for budgetary and general reasons.

		The focus on space was also evident in the National security strategy launched in December 2017 and the National space strategy released in March.

		Beyond the tweets and mentions, the White House has not, in my opinion, a convincing case of why such a force is needed. The Pentagon report, which supposedly establishes its foundation, states that "potential adversaries are now actively developing ways to deny our use of space in a crisis.It is imperative that the United States adapt its policies, doctrine and capabilities to protect our interests."



		The military roots of space exploration and the first lessons of NASA.

		To say that the military and space are intertwined is an understatement. Satellites provide civil communications, but they also do the same for military units. Space analysts call this "dual use" and it is also what makes it so difficult to separate civilian and peaceful activities from military ones.





						


President Eisenhower addressed a joint session of Congress in 1958. Behind the president are Vice President Richard Nixon, on the left, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn, on the right.

            						    Credit: NASA 


		The military and civilian roots of space exploration are closely linked. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in October 1957, it provoked a panic in the United States about the ability of the Soviets not to explore space, but about their ability to launch deadly attacks against Americans. Thus, the space race was born not because of a desire to peacefully explore the space, but because of Cold War politics.

		President Dwight Eisenhower, careful not to read too much about Soviet skills, was cautious in responding to the threat. Although Eisenhower initially wanted the space effort to be led by the military, he was persuaded to create a civil space program more open in part to diminish "attention to the United States' national security space efforts." Legislation created by NASA. It was approved in 1958 with NASA opening its doors on October 1 of that year.

		There are two lessons to be taken from the establishment and early history of NASA. First, it was an agency born of a crisis. Apparently, the United States was falling behind its Cold War adversary and the public demanded that the government respond. The crisis often precedes the establishment of new government agencies and provides these agencies with a base of public and political support.

		In terms of a spatial force, there is no apparent crisis. We know that both Russia and China have been developing military capabilities in space. China tested an anti-satellite weapon for the first time in 2007 and more recently, The Russian satellites have been demonstrating new capabilities.. It is very likely that there will be other military activities in these states, and perhaps others, that they have undertaken and that remain classified. If this is the case, then I believe that the administration should establish a more solid basis to explain why a Space Force is needed because, in the absence of a crisis, it is often difficult to obtain support.





						


The city of New York welcomes the Apollo 11 team in a parade on Broadway and Park Avenue. In the picture, in the main car, from the right, are the astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. The three astronauts joined together for the first manned lunar landing on July 20, 1969.

            						    Credit: NASA 


		A second related lesson is public support. Although Americans tend to remember favorably the space programs of the 1960s, public support for NASA began to fall in the early 1960s and as Roger Launius writes, a historian of NASA, the data "are not compatible with the opinion that most people approved Apollo and considered it important to explore the space." Along with this, there was a fall in funding that left NASA struggling in the late 1960s to achieve Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Public opinion studies often show a "Thermostatic" relationship between public opinion and financing..

		For the Space Force, public opinion is upside down. In recent surveys, CNN found that 55 percent of Americans do not support the establishment of a Space Force while Rasmussen (Typically, a Republican bias survey) found that 40 percent of Americans opposed, while 27 percent were unsure. If support and funding go hand in hand, these findings do not put the Space Force in a sustainable position.



		Consequences of a space force for NASA and the militarization of space.

		If the Trump administration manages to establish a Space Force or something similar, the movement can have serious consequences for NASA. Depending on its mission, the Space Force is likely to require launch capabilities for satellites and perhaps human missions. Although a Space Force can buy these services from companies like SpaceX, if they decide to develop an internal launch system, they can duplicate NASA's existing efforts. Doing so would also likely cause a brain drain at NASA, as engineers and internal experts migrated to the Space Force with promises of new missions and new funds.

		There is also the question of whether the Space Force can simply assume the current missions of NASA. After the announcement of the Space Force, The Trump campaign sent an email to supporters. asking them to vote on a possible logo. Although this was a fundraising maneuver, one of the "logos" was inspired by Mars with the phrase "Mars Awaits". Since the general mission of the Space Force remains unclear, there could be an impetus for the efforts of human spaceflights to be subsumed under a Space Force. Recent from NASA Failures in the development of the space launch system., or SLS, and the James Webb Space Telescope it only reinforces even more the image of a NASA extension too thin to achieve great spatial efforts.

		Finally, The budget of NASA is already quite low. considering its mission: US $ 19.7 billion in 2017 with $ 19 billion requested for 2018. This represents less than 0.5 percent of the total federal budget. A Space Force could take funds from NASA, especially for the development of human space flight capabilities, cannibalizing the already low budget of NASA.

		In terms of geopolitics, establishing a Space Force could create a point of no return in the militarization of space. From Eisenhower onwards, the politicians of the United States have avoided the appearance of a manifest military influence in space. Both the United States and the Soviet Union joined the 1967 Treaty on outer space, which stipulated, among other things, the peaceful use of outer space and the prohibition of nuclear weapons. After the announcement of the Space Force, Russian officials warned of possible violations of the treaty. and that Russia could choose to withdraw from the treaty if the US they did it

		Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert in space policy, he warns in his recent book that the pace of US militarization of space has been increasing, perhaps to the point of no return. His warning is that policymakers think of additional actions before starting an arms race for which nobody is prepared. While President Trump has certainly shaken US relations with other countries, such a drastic change in the US position could have significant and irreversible effects, creating a second space race. While it could have benefits for American society as much as the original space race, this time, I think the hazards are likely to be much greater.



	Wendy Whitman Cobb, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Cameron



	This article has been published again. The conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the Original article. Follow all the topics and debates of Expert Voices, and be part of the discussion, in Facebook, Twitter Y Google +. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor. This version of the article was originally published in Space.com.

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