For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

[DDE]

7 minutes ago, K^2 said:

If you want marines in space, I'm pretty sure you just put marines in space. You don't need a new military branch for that. 

*combined giggling of Russian and French aerospace forces*

[SpaceFace545]

5 hours ago, K^2 said:

So what would be a good name for it? I'm not asking for a better name, because that'd be just about anything, but a good one. A "Navy" rather than a "Force" would probably be a good start, but "US Space Navy" still sounds kind of dorky. Again, overwhelmingly better, but that bar is practically buried. "Astral Navy" would be on brand, but it makes me picture energy crystals and meditation. Not the right fit. "Orbital Navy" has a good ring to it, but it's very Coast Guard in concept.

Part of it is that we might be getting hosed with an English language here. I bet Germany will have a fantastic name for that branch of the armed forces. It might still just literally say "space force," but it will sound cool. Then again, Russia had every opportunity to make something good, given the flexibility of the language and rich history of space-themed fiction, and then completely blew it. So maybe I'm giving Germany too much credit too.

But I'm still curious if anyone has better ideas, whether their own or encountered in the wild.

Starfleet unironically

[kerbiloid]

17 minutes ago, DDE said:

*combined giggling of Russian and French aerospace forces*

Adeptus Astartes even don't.

Spoiler

 

 

[razark]

3 hours ago, K^2 said:

And that "Semper Supra" is a real kick to the teeth. If you want marines in space, I'm pretty sure you just put marines in space. You don't need a new military branch for that. And trying to one-up the moto is conduct unbecoming.

The comparison to the Coast Guard has been made, and the motto of the USCG is "Semper paratus".

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

9 hours ago, K^2 said:

So what would be a good name for it? I'm not asking for a better name, because that'd be just about anything, but a good one. A "Navy" rather than a "Force" would probably be a good start, but "US Space Navy" still sounds kind of dorky. Again, overwhelmingly better, but that bar is practically buried. "Astral Navy" would be on brand, but it makes me picture energy crystals and meditation. Not the right fit. "Orbital Navy" has a good ring to it, but it's very Coast Guard in concept

To my mind, the major problem is how the 'force' will be deployed.  Which it won't.  When I think of something that we call a military 'force', I foresee people actually deploying. 

If you remember my snark from the SpaceForce thread,

Quote

 

Until I get to launch my grunts in a USMC drop ship from a USN carrier in orbit... 

 

... We don't have a 'Space Force' 

 

It's like calling a guy in Oklahoma who controls a drone over Afghanistan 'a combat vet.'  Its not only absurd, and a logical fallacy, its kind of insulting to those people who actually risk life and limb.

So what, in reality, will Space Force do?  Basically they do electronic warfare and monitor satellites and missiles.  These are, admittedly, military roles... but are the people doing it really a Force?  Will they need to physically be present in a combat zone to accomplish their work?   Will any one of them need to have boots on the ground or their tailbones in the airspace?  The Air Force - where most people never have to ever see combatants or live in the filthy conditions ground troops see - is still a 'Force' because it's actual warfighters do go into the combat zone to work.  Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard all actually have to acknowledge the potential, and reality of risking life and limb to accomplish their missions.  Space Farce?  Not so much.

So - yeah, naming is hard.  I would not snark at "US Space Command" as a sub-DOD entity distinct from the other uniformed services.

Believe it or not, "Corps"  would work just fine (a 'corps' is: "a branch of a military organization assigned to a particular kind of work").  US Space Corps (like the Medical Corps, or US Army Corps of Engineers) is a logical name for a specialized branch doing specialized work.

Edited June 3, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[SOXBLOX]

I like Space Corps. And good point about the Chair Force Air Force. 

Edited June 3, 2021 by SOXBLOX

[kerbiloid]

If there is Psi Corps (in Babylon 5), why not Space Corps.

***

And now back to the choice between the Marines (cuz lunar seas), Moonines, and Lunines.
How the lunar troops should be called, when they appear in the Space Corps then-Forces?

Heinlein calls them Mobiles, iirc.
But to the moment it sounds too telephonish, imho.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

9 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

If there is Psi Corps (in Babylon 5), why not Space Corps.

***

And now back to the choice between the Marines (cuz lunar seas), Moonines, and Lunines.
How the lunar troops should be called, when they appear in the Space Corps then-Forces?

Heinlein calls them Mobiles, iirc.
But to the moment it sounds too telephonish, imho.

Well - regardless of the official name, if there ever is a specialized Moon Force... everyone will call them "Looneys"

[Admiral Fluffy]

11 hours ago, K^2 said:

So what would be a good name for it? I'm not asking for a better name, because that'd be just about anything, but a good one. A "Navy" rather than a "Force" would probably be a good start, but "US Space Navy" still sounds kind of dorky. Again, overwhelmingly better, but that bar is practically buried. "Astral Navy" would be on brand, but it makes me picture energy crystals and meditation. Not the right fit. "Orbital Navy" has a good ring to it, but it's very Coast Guard in concept.

Part of it is that we might be getting hosed with an English language here. I bet Germany will have a fantastic name for that branch of the armed forces. It might still just literally say "space force," but it will sound cool. Then again, Russia had every opportunity to make something good, given the flexibility of the language and rich history of space-themed fiction, and then completely blew it. So maybe I'm giving Germany too much credit too.

But I'm still curious if anyone has better ideas, whether their own or encountered in the wild.

In Halo, the space force is called the UNSC, or the United Nations Space Command. You could adapt it for pretty much any county. For example, RSC, Russian Space Command, or BNC, Bangladesh Space Command.

Spoiler

Spoilers for “For All Mankind Ahead”

Spoiler

So in “For All Mankind” they just land U.S. Marines on the Moon. They don’t change the name or anything, they are just called Marines.

Spoiler

My source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind_(TV_series)

 

 

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Admiral Fluffy

[kerbiloid]

And <skipped some overpopulated country name> No Space Command.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Just now, kerbiloid said:

And <skipped some overpopulated country name> No Space Command.

Their patch could be some guy unapologetically man-spreading.

[southernplain]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Believe it or not, "Corps"  would work just fine (a 'corps' is: "a branch of a military organization assigned to a particular kind of work").  US Space Corps (like the Medical Corps, or US Army Corps of Engineers) is a logical name for a specialized branch doing specialized work.

Space Corps would have been good. USSC has a sci-fi ring to it.

[FleshJeb]

4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

It's like calling a guy in Oklahoma who controls a drone over Afghanistan 'a combat vet.'  Its not only absurd, and a logical fallacy, its kind of insulting to those people who actually risk life and limb.

You should take a look at the instances of PTSD among drone pilots. The accounts I've read think a major contributing factor is having to kill people during the day, and then go home to dinner with your spouse and kids and pretend everything is OK. There's no opportunity to compartmentalize it and stay in "war mode".

Yeah, risking life and limb is serious, but mind and soul has always been part of that equation too.  You can go back to the Romans, Greeks, and Assyrians and find them talking about the mental health of their troops.

My anecdotal experience is that I used to know a guy who flew drones from stateside for the early part of the Afghanistan conflict--That's the only detail he would give about his service. It seemed to make him uncomfortable, so none of our circle of friends pressed him with any further questions.

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

In Halo, the space force is called the UNSC, or the United Nations Space Command. You could adapt it for pretty much any county. For example, RSC, Russian Space Command, or BNC, Bangladesh Space Command.

  Hide contents

Spoilers for “For All Mankind Ahead”

  Reveal hidden contents

So in “For All Mankind” they just land U.S. Marines on the Moon. They don’t change the name or anything, they are just called Marines.

  Reveal hidden contents

My source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind_(TV_series)

 

 

 

I like space command simply as it fits, you control communication and recon satellites. 
Down the line you will get defensive and offensive capabilities but warships is a very long time coming. 
Now I think suborbital strikes crafts will still be air force not space as they are just missiles or fast bombers.

[kerbiloid]

A lunar ace pilot is probably a lunace.

[TheSaint]

5 hours ago, magnemoe said:

I like space command simply as it fits, you control communication and recon satellites. 
Down the line you will get defensive and offensive capabilities but warships is a very long time coming. 
Now I think suborbital strikes crafts will still be air force not space as they are just missiles or fast bombers.

Yeah, but Space Command is just a skip away from Star Command, and then I'm expecting this guy to show up:

The real problem with Space Force is that they are all in serious denial over the fact that the most exciting thing they do is sit and watch radar screens. If we ever do come down to a peer-level war, yeah, their jobs will be super important. But until then the most exciting thing that will happen in their thirty years of service will be a 15% disability claim for hemorrhoids.

[kerbiloid]

But irl the Lunar Force was born as a pure infantry.

And it has an officially developed and accepted spacesuit  and weapon design, optimized for lunar conditions.

Spoiler

 

That's not a sci-fi, that's from the official project documentation.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

it has an officially developed and accepted spacesuit  and weapon design, optimized for lunar conditions

It's not often you see excreta receptacles in the design! 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

8 hours ago, TheSaint said:

a 15% disability claim for hemorrhoids.

Geez, that's better than the Infantry's 10% for hearing loss due to the big booms!  Now - how do we get that onto a Recruiting Poster? 

[kerbiloid]

15 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

It's not often you see excreta receptacles in the design! 

1950s are the time of brutal realism.

The ski/sleds on the suit boots are also great.

Edited June 4, 2021 by kerbiloid

[SOXBLOX]

Project Pele intends to develop a small, 1-5 MW nuclear reactor for military use. (For reference, a Virginia-class's reactor puts out 40 MW.) It uses a type of engineered fuel, called TRISO. It's apparently "the most robust nuclear fuel on Earth". This reactor would be transported to a location and set up as power for a base or whatever. Interesting to us because it has a fair amount of NASA involvement, and shows up in the same budget thing as DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cis-lunar Operations, aka that new NERVA thing).

(Pele = Hawaiian lava goddess, I guess? Not a great name when you're trying to avoid meltdowns...)

Edit: Forgot the link.  Here.

Edited June 4, 2021 by SOXBLOX

[TheSaint]

2 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Project Pele intends to develop a small, 1-5 MW nuclear reactor for military use. (For reference, a Virginia-class's reactor puts out 40 MW.) It uses a type of engineered fuel, called TRISO. It's apparently "the most robust nuclear fuel on Earth". This reactor would be transported to a location and set up as power for a base or whatever. Interesting to us because it has a fair amount of NASA involvement, and shows up in the same budget thing as DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cis-lunar Operations, aka that new NERVA thing).

(Pele = Hawaiian lava goddess, I guess? Not a great name when you're trying to avoid meltdowns...)

Edit: Forgot the link.  Here.

The ghosts of SL-1 do not approve....

[kerbiloid]

Big Steel Rocket, small nuclear plants, _military lunar base race, robots piloting cars and spaceships.

Are we in 1950s?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Big Steel Rocket, small nuclear plants, _military lunar base race, robots piloting cars and spaceships.

Are we in 1950s

The Future is NOW 

[kerbiloid]

DeLorien. Somewhere around should be DeLorien...

But I see only Chargers _{or how it was called, I forgot} ...

Time loops.

Edited June 4, 2021 by kerbiloid