Ville en rumstyrke betyde enden på NASA?

Plads, den sidste grænse, er noget, der fanger opmærksomheden fra et land, der naturligt er tilbøjelig til at tro på ideer som "Manifest Destiny" og amerikansk exceptionalisme. Men hvor godt passer en rumstyrke til den regning? Og ville en rumstyrke genstarte et militært rumkapløb og sætte skub i diplomatiske spændinger med Kina og Rusland?

Opvokset i Florida, Jeg var så heldig at se rumfærgens opsendelser med noget, der lignede regelmæssighed. Da jeg blev ældre og først lærte om NASAs historie, dens bedrifter under rumkapløbet og derefter dens udfordringer, Jeg mistede aldrig følelsen af ​​undren over, hvad NASA kunne gøre. Jeg fik også en påskønnelse for de vanskeligheder, den skulle overvinde for at nå disse præstationer. Jeg har forvandlet denne interesse til en akademisk karriere, hvor jeg studerer rummets politik, videnskab og medicin.

NASAs indflydelse ses tydeligt på disse andre områder såvel som i vores hverdag. Teknologier udviklet til at tillade rumudforskning har ført til sådanne forbrugerinnovationer som ridsefaste linser og CAT-scanninger. Vores mobiltelefoner ville ikke være mulige uden miniaturisering af chips under Apollo-programmet eller militære GPS-satellitter. I betragtning af disse fordele, vi glemmer ofte rumflyvningens vanskelige karakter og de ressourcer, der kræves for at udføre det.

Ja, en undersøgelse af NASAs erfaringer og politiske erfaringer afslører vanskelighederne ved at etablere et nyt regeringsorgan og lancere en organisation, hvis opgave er at gøre hårde ting til en høj pris. At se på op- og nedture i NASAs historie viser os, at der er potentielle fordele på hjemmemarkedet, men at de kan komme med større international risiko.

Hvad er en rumstyrke, og hvad ville det gøre alligevel?

Mens der var et stævne i marts i år, Præsident Donald Trump nævnte først ideen om en rumstyrke. Siden da, Præsidenten har både tweetet om ideen og bedt Pentagon om at udvikle en plan for at skabe en uafhængig sjette gren af ​​militæret. Som reaktion på præsidentens direktiver, Pentagon udgav en rapport i august. Selvom rapporten blev mærket som "endelig, "dets 15 sider er korte med detaljer, længe om snakkepunkter, og lys på detaljer om, hvorfor der skal være en rumstyrke.

Det Hvide Hus og Kongressen har overvejet ideen i nogen tid. Under debatten om 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, medlemmer af House Armed Services Committee indsatte en bestemmelse om oprettelse af et "Space Corps." Det foreslåede rumkorps skulle indkvarteres i luftvåbnet, men bestemmelsen blev senere fjernet under hus-senatets forhandlinger på grund af indvendinger fra både Det Hvide Hus og forsvarsminister James Mattis. Selvom han har udtrykt støtte til en rumstyrke nu, Mattis var oprindeligt imod det på grund af budgetmæssige og overheadproblemer.

Fokus på rummet var også tydeligt i den nationale sikkerhedsstrategi, der blev udgivet i december 2017, og den nationale rumstrategi, der blev udgivet i marts.

Ud over tweets og omtaler, Det Hvide Hus har ikke, efter min mening, fremførte en overbevisende argumentation for, hvorfor en sådan styrke er nødvendig. Pentagon-rapporten, som angiveligt lægger sit fundament, udtaler, at "potentielle modstandere nu aktivt udvikler måder at nægte vores brug af plads i en krise. Det er bydende nødvendigt, at USA tilpasser sin politik, doktrin og evner til at beskytte vores interesser."

Rumudforskningens militære rødder og NASAs tidlige lektioner

At sige, at militær og rum hænger sammen, er en underdrivelse. Satellitter giver civil kommunikation, men gør også det samme for militære enheder. Rumanalytikere kalder dette "dual-use", og det er også det, der gør det så svært at adskille fredelige, civile aktiviteter fra militære.

Rumudforskningens militære og civile rødder er tæt knyttet til hinanden. Da Sovjetunionen lancerede Sputnik i oktober 1957, det satte gang i en panik i USA om ikke sovjeternes evne til at udforske rummet, men om deres evne til at iværksætte dødelige angreb på amerikanere. Dermed, Rumkapløbet blev ikke født ud af et ønske om fredeligt at udforske rummet, men koldkrigspolitik.

Præsident Dwight Eisenhower, Pas på ikke at læse for meget i de sovjetiske evner, was cautious in responding to the threat. Although Eisenhower initially wanted the space effort to be run by the military, he was persuaded to create a more open, civilian space program in part to lessen "attention on U.S. national security space efforts." Legislation creating NASA was passed in 1958 with NASA opening its doors Oct. 1 of that year.

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

In terms of a Space Force, there is no apparent crisis. We know that both Russia and China have been developing military capabilities in space. China first tested an anti-satellite weapon in 2007 and more recently, Russian satellites have been demonstrating new capabilities. There are most likely other military activities in these states, and perhaps others, they have undertaken that remain classified. Hvis dette er tilfældet, then I believe the administration needs to lay a stronger foundation for why a Space Force is needed because lacking a crisis, support is often hard to come by.

A second, and related, lesson is in terms of public support. Although Americans tend to remember the space programs of the 1960s favorably, public support for NASA began to fall in the early 1960s and as Roger Launius, a NASA historian, writes, the data "do not support a contention that most people approved of Apollo and thought it important to explore space." Along with this came a drop in funding that left NASA scrambling in the late 1960s to accomplish Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Studies of public opinion often demonstrate a "thermostatic" relationship between public opinion and funding.

For the Space Force, public opinion is upside down. In recent polls, CNN found that 55 percent of Americans do not support the establishment of a Space Force while Rasmussen (typically a Republican-leaning poll) found that 40 percent of Americans are opposed, while 27 percent were unsure. If support and funding go hand in hand, these findings do not put the Space Force on a sustainable footing.

Consequences of a Space Force for NASA and militarization of space

Should the Trump administration succeed in establishing a Space Force or something like it, the move may 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 may be able to purchase these services from companies like SpaceX, if they choose to develop an in-house launch system, they may duplicate already existing NASA efforts. Doing so would also likely cause a brain drain at NASA as in-house engineers and experts migrated to the Space Force with promises of new missions and new funding.

There is also a question of whether the Space Force may simply take over current NASA missions. In the wake of the Space Force announcement, the Trump campaign sent out an email to supporters asking them to vote on a potential logo. Although this was a fundraising maneuver, one of the "logos" was themed around Mars with the wording "Mars Awaits." Given that the overall mission of the Space Force remains unclear, there could be a push for human spaceflight efforts to be subsumed under a Space Force. NASA's recent failures in the development of the Space Launch System, or SLS, and the James Webb Space Telescope only further reinforce the image of a NASA spread too thin to accomplish major space endeavors.

Endelig, NASA's budget 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 overall federal budget. A Space Force could feasibly take away funding from NASA, especially for the development of human spaceflight capabilities thus cannibalizing NASA's already low budget.

In terms of geopolitics, establishing a Space Force could create a point of no return in of militarization of space. From Eisenhower onwards, U.S. policymakers have avoided the appearance of overt military influence in space. Both the United States and the Soviet Union joined the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which stipulated, blandt andet, the peaceful use of outer space and a ban on nuclear weapons. Following the Space Force announcement, Russian officials warned about potential violations of the treaty and that Russia might choose to withdraw from the treaty if the U.S. did.

Joan Johnson-Freese, a space policy expert, warns in her recent book that the pace of American militarization of space has been increasing, perhaps to the point of no return. Her warning is that policymakers think about further actions before stepping into an arms race for which no one is prepared. While President Trump has certainly shaken up America's relations with other countries, such a drastic change in American posture could have significant and irreversible effects, creating a second space race. While it could have benefits for American society much as the original space race did, denne gang, I believe the dangers are likely to be far higher.

Denne artikel er genudgivet fra The Conversation under en Creative Commons-licens. Læs den originale artikel.