Latest news with #USSpaceForce
Spectator
4 days ago
- Science
- Spectator
How the US military became world experts on the environment
In 1941, as it entered the second world war, the US Army barely bested Bulgaria's for size and combat readiness. Nor did US forces have very much idea of what conditions were like in their new theatres of operation. In the winter of 1942, hot-weather gear and lightweight machinery landed in the deserts of North Africa where hot and dry conditions were assumed to persist throughout the year. Men froze half to death, even as their digging equipment foundered in winter mud. Sand, Snow and Stardust is the story of how the US military shed its ignorance and, by harnessing logistical intelligence and environmental knowledge, turned America into a global superpower. Before the second world war the US operated just 14 overseas military bases. By 1960 its 'leasehold empire' of more than 1,000 bases webbed the Earth and extended its influence over even the most extreme environments. In Greenland during the Cold War, bizarrely named bases proliferated across the landscape: SnoComp and Dogsled, Crystal Party and Snowman; Camp Fistclench, Camp Redrocks and Camp Century. It was an effort that was horribly wasteful and often wrong-headed; yet, in the final analysis, it was overwhelmingly successful, at least in turning a glacial valley in Greenland into a modern base that has been in operation since 1952. (In 2023 Camp Century was renamed Pituffik and given a new mission as a base for the US Space Force.) So here's the paradox that exercises Gretchen Heefner, a historian at Northwestern University, Illinois: the effort to establish military bases in extreme environments – laying airstrips across deserts and snowfields, anchoring radar stations into permafrost and pure ice – did evident and lasting harm to those environments; but it also left us with much better knowledge of how Earth environments tick.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Trump Administration Is Gutting the Space Force
The Trump administration has slashed the US Space Force's workforce by almost 14 percent, a dramatic cut that could have an enormous impact on the smallest and youngest branch of the US Armed Forces. As Defense One reports, early retirement and voluntary-resignation programs, both widely used tactics by the newly-minted Trump administration to slash government budgets, are having an "outsized impact" on the Space Force. According to chief of space operations general Chance Saltzman, 14 percent, or roughly 780 civilians, are affected. That's considerably higher than the ten percent that officials had warned would be cut earlier this month. It's a troubling development that could directly undermine the Pentagon's mission to secure the United States' interests in space. During a Senate Armed Services committee hearing this week, Saltzman warned that the Space Force could leave the nation's efforts to protect its assets in orbit woefully behind schedule, allowing adversaries to gain the upper hand. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense is also heavily affected and is expected to lose five to eight percent of its civilian workforce. "I'm worried about replacing that level of expertise in the near term as we try to resolve it and make sure we have a good workforce doing that acquisition," Saltzman said. And even more Space Force staffers could soon walk, taking deferred-resignation offers. "The DOD is really looking at what the size of the civilian workforce is, and so if those incentives to reshape the workforce affect the Space Force, I'm not sure exactly where we're going to end up, what our final size is going to be," Saltzman said. "As soon as I understand what that size is, then we will redistribute, and reallocate this for." The cuts came at an extremely unfortunate time for the Space Force. "We were in a period of managed growth, and so there was a deficit when we were trying to get to a larger civilian workforce, and we were asked to stop, and then asked to offer some to resign early," Saltzman said at the committee hearing. Beyond early retirements and voluntary resignations, the Space Force was already planning to cut its workforce by as much as eight percent, according to an announcement earlier this year. Where the cuts leave the Space Force's efforts to gain the upper hand in the space domain remains to be seen. Officials have long warned of adversaries, including Russia and China, that are developing space-based weapons and potentially leaving the US behind. "We are not adequately funded for the new missions that I've been given in space superiority," Saltzman said. Despite all of these cuts, the White House announced that it would build an enormous, potentially half-a-trillion-dollar "Golden Dome" missile and air defense shield, indicating that its priorities may simply lie elsewhere. More on the Space Force: The Space Force Is Working on an Aircraft Carrier for Space
TimesLIVE
23-05-2025
- Politics
- TimesLIVE
Trump's Golden Dome plan could launch new era of weapons in space
US President Donald Trump's Golden Dome missile defence concept revives a controversial, decades-old initiative whose ambitious construction could upend norms in outer space and reshape relations between the world's top space powers. The announcement of Golden Dome, a vast network of satellites and weapons in Earth's orbit set to cost $175bn (R3.13-trillion), could sharply escalate the militarisation of space, a trend that has intensified over the last decade, space analysts say. While the world's biggest space powers — the US, Russia and China — have put military and intelligence assets in orbit since the 1960s, they have done so mostly in secrecy. Under former President Joe Biden, US Space Force officials had grown vocal about a need for greater offensive space capabilities due to space-based threats from Russia and China. When Trump announced his Golden Dome plan in January, it was a clear shift in strategy, one that emphasises a bold move into space with expensive, untested technology that could be a financial boon to US defence contractors. The concept includes space-based missiles that would launch from satellites in orbit to intercept conventional and nuclear missiles launched from Earth. "I think it's opening a Pandora's box," said Victoria Samson, director of space security and stability at the Secure World Foundation think tank in Washington, referring to deploying missiles in space. "We haven't truly thought about the long-term consequences for doing so."
New York Post
22-05-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Trump's ‘Golden Dome' missile defense is costly, ambitious — and necessary
President Donald Trump this week took important steps to advance his 'Golden Dome' missile-defense system — and not a moment too soon. For years, administrations of both parties have failed to devote sufficient resources to missile defense, even as China and Russia have sprinted to develop new ways to threaten the American homeland. Our margin of safety has badly eroded in the face of these adversaries' 'ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles capable of striking the homeland with either conventional or nuclear warheads,' as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday. Advertisement A new Defense Intelligence Agency assessment this month pointed in particular to Beijing's and Moscow's aggressive efforts to field new hypersonic glide vehicles, 'engineered to complicate US defenses in the event of a conflict.' Trump, who heralded the project in an Oval Office press conference Tuesday, promised it would cost about $175 billion and would be 'fully operational' by the end of his term in January 2029. Advertisement It's likely to be more expensive than that — and take much longer to field — but the president's vision for better homeland missile defense is a laudable and necessary effort. The massive undertaking aims to build on America's modest existing homeland ballistic missile defenses with a modernized and greatly expanded architecture to detect, track and engage inbound cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missile threats. In his January executive order, Trump directed that the system include space-based sensors and interceptors and the capability to defeat missile attacks before launch, as well as in their boost and terminal phases. This week he named Gen. Michael Guetlein, currently vice chief of space operations for the US Space Force, to lead the 'Golden Dome' effort. Advertisement That's a smart decision: Gutlein has significant experience in acquiring space and missile-defense capabilities and has served in key positions at the National Reconnaissance Office and the Missile Defense Agency. Trump also signaled that Canada could partner in the effort — news that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed Wednesday. That's smart, too. Canada already plays a vital role in the North American Aerospace Defense Command, and dozens of radars in Canada help provide Americans early warning of incoming missiles. The 'big, beautiful' budget reconciliation bill that passed the House early Thursday morning includes $25 billion in 'Golden Dome' funding — but that would be just a down payment. Advertisement Trump's Tuesday statement was aspirational. 'The Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they're launched from space,' he promised. But while the effort is vital to Americans' security, neither Trump's three-year timeline nor his $175 billion cost estimate is at all realistic. To be sure, some initial, valuable capabilities can be fielded in that time frame — but 'Golden Dome' has both a short-term and a long-term component, and 'full operational' capability by 2029 for the system Trump described Tuesday is not going to happen. Consider the cost just to deploy and operate a constellation of space-based interceptors over the next 20 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated this month that the lowest-cost version of such a system would ring in at $161 billion — and the priciest alternative would cost at least $542 billion. And SBIs will be an important part of 'Golden Dome' — but only one part. Advertisement Innovative efforts, including dirigibles and unmanned aircraft, could mitigate the significant costs of the large network, but the overall cost of 'Golden Dome' will far surpass $175 billion. Hegseth said Tuesday that the Defense Department is working to develop a complete funding plan and will do so before the budget for fiscal year 2026 is finalized. That is important: If past is prologue, the failure to provide sufficient funding will guarantee that 'Golden Dome' falls short. Unfortunately, the base defense budget that Trump requested for next fiscal year is the same as the current year's amount — and does not even keep up with inflation. Advertisement The result, in effect, is a declining defense budget even as threats to the United States grow. President Trump won't be able to achieve a 'peace through strength' foreign policy, or a successful 'Golden Dome,' on a Biden defense budget. As Trump's Tuesday display made clear, his 'Golden Dome' vision is a major defense priority for this administration. Advertisement The focus on homeland missile defense is long overdue. Now we need a detailed plan that can be accomplished at the speed of relevance — and at a cost Americans will support. Bradley Bowman and Rear Adm. (Ret.) Mark Montgomery are senior directors at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where they lead the Air and Missile Defense Program. .
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Business Standard
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
Trump's Golden Dome plan could launch new era of weapons in space
US President Donald Trump's Golden Dome missile defense concept revives a controversial, decades-old initiative whose ambitious construction could upend norms in outer space and reshape relations between the world's top space powers. The announcement of Golden Dome, a vast network of satellites and weapons in Earth's orbit set to cost $175 billion, could sharply escalate the militarization of space, a trend that has intensified over the last decade, space analysts say. While the world's biggest space powers - the US, Russia and China - have put military and intelligence assets in orbit since the 1960s, they have done so mostly in secrecy. Under former President Joe Biden, US Space Force officials had grown vocal about a need for greater offensive space capabilities due to space-based threats from Russia and China. When Trump announced his Golden Dome plan in January, it was a clear shift in strategy, one that emphasizes a bold move into space with expensive, untested technology that could be a financial boon to US defense contractors. The concept includes space-based missiles that would launch from satellites in orbit to intercept conventional and nuclear missiles launched from Earth. "I think it's opening a Pandora's box," said Victoria Samson, director of space security and stability at the Secure World Foundation think tank in Washington, referring to deploying missiles in space. "We haven't truly thought about the long-term consequences for doing so," she added. Samson and other experts said Golden Dome could provoke other states to place similar systems in space or to develop more advanced weapons to evade the missile shield, escalating an arms race in space. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Russia and China reacted differently to the latest news from Trump. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said it was "seriously concerned" about the project and urged Washington to abandon its development, adding that it carried "strong offensive implications" and heightened the risks of the militarization of outer space and an arms race. A Kremlin spokesperson said Golden Dome could force talks between Moscow and Washington about nuclear arms control in the foreseeable future. Primarily seeking to defend against a growing arsenal of conventional and nuclear missiles from US adversaries Russia, China and smaller states such as North Korea and Iran, the Golden Dome plan is a revival of a Cold War-era effort by former US President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as the "Star Wars" program. SDI envisioned stationing a constellation of missiles and powerful laser weapons in low-Earth orbit that could intercept a ballistic nuclear missile launched anywhere on Earth below, either in its boost phase moments after launch or in its blazing-fast cruise phase in space. But the idea never came to fruition mainly because of technological hurdles, as well as the high cost and concerns it would violate an anti-ballistic missile treaty that has since been abandoned. 'WE'RE READY' Golden Dome has strong and powerful allies in the defense contracting community and the growing defense technology arena, many of whom have been preparing for Trump's big move into space weaponry. "We knew that this day was likely going to come. You know, we're ready for it," L3Harris Chief Financial Officer Ken Bedingfield said in an interview with Reuters last month. "L3 Harris has an early start of building the sensor network that will become the foundational sensor network for the Golden Dome architecture." Trump ally Elon Musk's rocket and satellite company SpaceX has emerged as a frontrunner alongside software firm Palantir and drone maker Anduril to build key components of the system, Reuters reported last month. Many of the early systems are expected to come from existing production lines. Attendees at the White House press conference with Trump on Tuesday named L3Harris, Lockheed Martin and RTX Corp as potential contractors for the massive project. But Golden Dome's funding remains uncertain. Republican lawmakers have proposed a $25 billion initial investment for it as part of a broader $150 billion defense package, but this funding is tied to a contentious reconciliation bill that faces significant hurdles in Congress.
