Three decades ago, eight members of Congress requested that the Congressional Research Service assess the potential for the expanded military use of space by both the United States and the Soviet Union. They sought a “frame of reference that could help Congress evaluate future, as well as present, military space policies, programs, and budgets.” This would be an analysis that would “prove useful not only to interested parties on Capital Hill, but also to those in the Pentagon, at the National Security Council, at NASA, in industry, in academia, and among the public at large.” The requesting members included Senator John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.
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After nearly two years of research and writing, Col. John M. Collins (USA, ret.), a highly respected combat veteran and the CSR senior specialist in national defense, released the 222-page “Military Space Forces: The Next Fifty Years”. The time period covered was through 2039—still nearly 20 years in the future. Most people today are unaware of this important CSR report. While it was commercially published, as were other of his reports, it has only been available in hard copy, confined to the dusty shelves of distant libraries rarely visited in today’s scholarly Internet research environment—until now!
Here are the opening paragraphs of Collin’s report:
Who rules circumterrestrial space commands Planet Earth;
Who rules the moon commands circumterrestrial space;
Who rules L-4 and L-5 commands the Earth-Moon System.
– Halford J. Mackinder’s
Heartland Theory Applied to Space
Circumterrestrial space, the world’s newest military medium, is unlike land, sea, and air. It encapsulates Earth to an altitude of 50,000 miles or so, but armed forces of major powers probably will reach much farther if civilian pioneers begin to colonize the moon and exploit its resources, then expand activities among distant planets, as predicted.
Orbital operations to, from, within, and through space started with Sputnik I, a Soviet scientific satellite that flew in 1957. Military roles and missions since then have developed along lines like those air power took early in this century. Intelligence and support operations came first, trailed by transportation. Offensive and defensive space forces are following.
International treaties and other expressions of peaceful intent eventually may obviate any reason for armed forces in space, even ban those now in place, but the odds are poor. Civilian communities and military establishments on Earth already depend heavily on satellite communications, meteorological information, navigation aids, and other services available only from space. More importantly, deep-seated traits create tremendous temptations for aggressors to take all, unless probable costs of such action exceed anticipated gains.
Click on the image below to download the PDF of this report. If you wish to share the report, please direct others to this blog posting. This will provide the opportunity for them to subscribe to this blog.
James Michael (Mike) Snead is an aerospace Professional Engineer in the United States, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a past chair of the AIAA’s Space Logistics Technical Committee. He is the founder and president of the Spacefaring Institute LLC (spacefaringinstitute.net) which is focused on space solar power-generated astroelectricity and the astrologistics infrastructure necessary to enable the spacefaring industrial revolution that will build space solar power energy systems. Mike Snead has been involved in space development since the mid-1980s when he supported the U.S. Air Force Transatmospheric Vehicle (TAV) studies, the National Aerospace Plane program, and the Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) project. In 2007, after retiring from civilian employment with the Air Force, he began to study the need for (and politics associated with) undertaking space solar power. Beginning in the late 1980s, he has published numerous papers and articles on various aspects of manned spaceflight, astrologistics, and energy. His technical papers are located at https://www.mikesnead.com and https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Snead/research. His blog is at: https://spacefaringamerica.com. His eBook, Astroelectricity, can be downloaded for free here. He can be contacted through LinkedIn or through email sent to spacefaringinstitute@gmail.com.