From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

Monte Davis wrote:
> "John Beamish"  wrote:
>
>> I think you're misreading my point.
>>
>> As I said, once you've gone to orbit and then returned then there's little
>> else that a military would want.  So why continue with a civilian
>> program?  Because it brings propaganda benefits.  The mil benefits as you
>> pointed out (and I took for granted so didn't bother mentioning them) come
>> from sputnik-like operations (carried out by the mil) and clearly
>> mil-focused operations (carried out, as you say, at Vandenberg and many
>> other locations).
>
> I don't think you and Adam disagree -- rather, you're approaching from
> different angles the same zone of overlap, ambiguity and ambivalence
> that has been central to "aerospace" for 50 years.
>

& then there's the overlap between Intel/CIA & Mil...after all given
corona was CIA....was it Civil?


> As you say, once past the ICBM "entry level" the real military
> benefits come from unmanned satellites for surveillance,
> communications, navigation -- in the same way (and for the same
> underlying reasons) that the real civilian benefits -- those that pay
> for themselves and/or are uncontroversial, broadly supported public
> programs -- come from unmanned satellites for weather, remote sensing,
> communications, navigation. In both domains, space is a "going
> concern" when (1) a payload can serve a large user base for a long
> time, and (2) all it does is process data: it's relatively small, with
> modest energy requitrments, and needs no life support, no resupply of
> food and water, no re-entry (at least after the early days when our
> spysats dropped film capsules).
>
> It's when you step up the scale tenfold or more -- which comes with
> manned activity, and/or all the military wet dreams from DynaSoar to
> SDI, with its kilotons/megawatts of orbiting hardware, or wacko
> proposals to deliver a Marine platoon anywhere on the planet in 45
> minutes  -- that the cost goes through the roof and the cost/benefit
> calculation turns to handwaving. What MacNamara said when he killed
> DynaSoar in the early 1960s remains true: the armed forces have yet to
> define a mission for soldiers or heavy (literally) weapons in space
> that offers enough bang/buck over what we have to make sense. Space is
> "high ground" in terms of *information*, but the other part of the old
> military metaphor -- the advantage of sending rocks or spears or
> bullets downward vs. upward -- simply doesn't apply.
>

Also as the PRC has just demo'ed an arms race would kick off pronto anyway...


> That leaves enthusiasts for civilian space in a bit of a bind,
> somewhere between
>
> "We come in peace for all mankind on NASA's $16B/yr"
>
>  and (sotto voce)
>
> "It sure would be nice if the Pentagon, with $400B/yr, would foot the
> bill for more/bigger/better technology, like it did back in the
> day..."
>

Don't forget the Intel community's Billions....

Adam

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