Quote:
Originally Posted by Nancy Fulda
I'd like to invent a new branch of the military: one created specifically for orbital operations. I want it to have an elite force, something akin to the navy seals, that handles reconnaissance and counter-terrorism. And I want it to feel believable.
So... if within the next 200 years the orbital regions near earth became a center of political and military conflict, which branch of the military would initially move into that vacuum? And how and when might that branch of the military be split in order to create an independent organization?
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Transportation would probably remain Air Force. It seems unlikely that activities in space could grow enough in 200 years to warrant another military branch at the hghest level; even then, it is never in the interest of any of the other existing branches to allow it.
But the "payload" is, today, from or for many entities: Air Force, Navy, commercial enterprises, NOAA, CIA... This will remain, so that the "elite force" is basically from anywhere organizationally you like (including private contractors or mercenaries), using Air Force transportation. If/when nations make territorial claims in space, for example, I'm sure Dept. of Homeland Security would say it should be their people up there.
"Orbital regions near Earth" is ambiguous to me. It's either Earth orbit or solar orbit (or on the Moon). Earth orbit (LEO, MEO, GEO, elliptical) are currently too susceptible to ground-based weapons attack (conventional warhead, nuclear, and beam) to convincingly keep people up there during war, unless that weakness changes somehow in the interim. Stealth technology might be convincing. Maybe a Lagrange point would be better, or the Moon.