[World Building] A Future History of Space Force

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I don't expect the United States will be a serious contender in solar system space by the time it's relevant. The state of affairs after the paradigm shift is unpredictable, so it the field is wide open to imagine what follows.

While it's extremely likely that the global balance of power will be different in important ways by the time a space force becomes relevant, it's a big jump to assume that existing powers will become obsolete. The reality is, if a competent observer were picking the likely global powers for 2023 in 1823, they'd probably do an okay job. They'd certainly get some wrong, such as the disappearance of Austro-Hungarian Empire, but China, England, France, and Russia are easy, and the US is at least a plausible bet.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

An increasingly-intense rivalry with the People's Republic of China drives India's space program (ISRO), now, and it's moving along nicely. I don't think that would change much, at this point, even if (when...) China's economy collapses by the middle of this century -- especially since U.S. foreign policy-makers are working really hard to woo India away from Russia.

(Not that Russia is making that particularly difficult, at the current juncture....)

Moreover, the best and brightest have been draining out of Russia for years, due to the near-collapse of that country's higher education system. If Russia just replaces the current despot with a similar one in the next five years or so, a whole bunch of Russian rocket scientists will need to find work -- and I'd bet a fair number wind up in India.

Or in China, which is doing a roaring trade with Russia right now, selling Russia stuff that nobody else will. As China has the money and labour, and Russia increasingly has nothing but natural resources, there's a decent chance (in my estimation) that the future will see Russia existing primarily as a Chinese client state, providing China with raw materials in exchange for high-tech products and security.

China gets the cheap resources it needs, and no longer has to worry about the decline of its relationship with countries like Australia (which is where China's been getting a vast amount of its iron ore, etc. from).

I'd say the odd-man-out in that setting would be the Russian coalition

I'd make it part of the Chinese sphere - see above.

[Kage2020]

For those interested, there is a "Space Threat Assessment 2023" that deals with how Space Force (etc.) looks at itself now (at least from a NATINT perspective).

Seems like a good place to start with the wonderful shenanigans of gaming?

[Phantasm]

I can see any Space Force (not just the US Space Force but also China, India, a more consolidated EU, etc.) shifting to naval ranks as it shifts from primarily unmanned satellite launches to long-term manned spacecraft. I can also see them having psychiatric requirements similar to modern submarine services (you have to spend weeks if not months enclosed in a metal tube where any mental freak-out from even minor claustrophobia or just "I don't like being around the same people all the time" can cause potentially lethal accidents to the entire crew).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I can see any Space Force (not just the US Space Force but also China, India, a more consolidated EU, etc.) shifting to naval ranks as it shifts from primarily unmanned satellite launches to long-term manned spacecraft.

If the command structure proved to need reorganization, I would expect it to invent its own rank structure, not copy some other organization. Not Invented Here is absolutely an issue with militaries, particularly when there's no substantial value to making a change (rank names really don't matter. Org charts matter, but for those it's fine to just go with O-3 and ignore that the Navy calls that a Lieutenant and everyone else calls that a Captain.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I can see any Space Force (not just the US Space Force but also China, India, a more consolidated EU, etc.) shifting to naval ranks as it shifts from primarily unmanned satellite launches to long-term manned spacecraft. I can also see them having psychiatric requirements similar to modern submarine services (you have to spend weeks if not months enclosed in a metal tube where any mental freak-out from even minor claustrophobia or just "I don't like being around the same people all the time" can cause potentially lethal accidents to the entire crew).

Here's a fun fact about China. It's actual navy uses army ranks just with "sea" in front. So a literal translation of their equivalent of 'admiral" is "sea-general"

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Here's a fun fact about China. It's actual navy uses army ranks just with "sea" in front.

It is the People's Liberation Army Navy (as opposed to the PLA Ground Force or PLA Air Force).

[Verjigorm]

It's not unreasonable to imagine rapid expansion of space capabilities. If we look at history, all humans have put about 16,000 metric tons into space. If something like a starship or new glenn becomes a thing, it's not unreasonable to suppose that we could see a cadence allowing us to put up to half of that total mass into orbit, a year. Nasa has proposals for a 2027 NTR for cislunar operations. The x-37b has spent like ten years in space. I think the first manned spaceforce spacecraft will have to be space stations and orbital transfer vehicles. Fusion work directly relating to it's use for propulsion is looking really promising right now.

Something along the lines of the 30s involving the rapid colonization(in the sense of "exploiting for economic gain") of cislunar space, primarily involving chemical rockets, with NTRs starting to become more acceptable. In the 40s, fusion rockets are used for trips to the asteroid belt and mars. Martian colonization attempts are minimal, but Diemos and Phobos provide reaction mass for ships traveling to and from mars.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

I If something like a starship or new glenn becomes a thing, it's not unreasonable to suppose that we could see a cadence allowing us to put up to half of that total mass into orbit, a year. s.

Eh, probably too optimistic. It would involve SpaceX launching nearly as many "Starships" per year as they did Falcon-9s in 2022. It took them 16 years to reach that point with Falcon-9 and Starship hasn't had a full orbital launch yet. They might not ever reach that point as Starship is just so much bigger.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Eh, probably too optimistic. It would involve SpaceX launching nearly as many "Starships" per year as they did Falcon-9s in 2022. It took them 16 years to reach that point with Falcon-9 and Starship hasn't had a full orbital launch yet. They might not ever reach that point as Starship is just so much bigger.

What's the signifigance of the 16 year date?

Space-X began developing rockets roughly 18 years ago, starting with Falcon 1(62 ton vehicle, .2 ton payload to orbit, expendable), while the current Falcon 9 FT is around 630 tons, reusable, delivering 17 tons. It's about an order of a magnitude in capability growth since falcon 1(though Falcon 1 did not have a very long life cycle), which doesn't put Starship's 1 or 2 order of magnitude growth in capability that far out of reach. Falcon 9 began flying in 2010(two flights), didn't launch again until 2012(2 flights), 3 flights in 13, 6 flights in 14, then seven and 8 a year until 2017 when they put up 18. Two years later, they're flying almost twice as many missions, and two years after than, they're doing between 60-50 a year. If we simply assume Starship's mission trajectories exactly mirror those of Falcon, a weekly cadence doesn't look particularly pie-in-the-sky.

If we simply assume that Starship follows the same sort of trajectory, then it's quite likely space-x, on it's own, can put roughly 3,000 tons into orbit by 2030. That's almost 7 ISSs. Compare this to the Apollo program: 18 years for 1,820 tons into orbit. We're talking about the equivalent of two whole Apollo programs, and that's not even hitting my conservative estimate of 52 launches a year.

Building the infrastructure on earth for this sort of massive increase is going to be harder than getting the rocket to fly.