The "Naval" fleet of ships

well, actually there are some SF stories that are Air Force-esque with structure.

The main thing though, is in most SF with large "fleets" of spacecraft, a large crew typically lives aboard a large ship. Such a large (and naturally powerful) ship represents a significant investment of capital on the part of the civilization that constructed the ship.

Additionally, many aspects of possible scenarios for space warfare closely match naval combat on earth, e.g. if your ship is blown up you're pretty much dead; ships tend to have a captain that is entrusted with every single aspect of caring for/managing the vessel.

So, while the USAF is the space combat arm of the US, I suspect that any civilization which develops dedicated or combined-arms space warfare capability will have a more navy-esque+air force-esque structure, in that aspects of both are employed, since- most plausible depictions/descriptions of space warfare are similar to both sea and air combat; space warfare in real life will be unlike anything else ever seen (consider the same thing with sea vs. land warfare; you wouldn't cross the 't' in a dogfight and a battleship wouldn't perform an Immelman (sp for sure) maneuver.

I imagine that if a nation-state really wanted to get serious about space warfare, they would have to create an entirely new branch to do it. The situation up there is just too different from anything they've played with before.

You've a point there. I think in a Sins or Star Wars like situation, it feels more like a Naval situation, partly because of the top-down view. However, I think in our near(maybe) future situation, it would look more natural with and Air Force title.

Here's my reasoning- right now, any fighting in space would probably be with satalites or space stations. I'm imagining unmanned craft trading shots for the advantage of orbital recon, maybe bombardment, although I'm guessing that's unlikely. Probably at some point there will be space bases used to hold combatant craft. Whether they're more like individual fighters or light frigates I won't try to guess. See, I think it's more realistic to count on space stations, not ships in reality. In this case, I'd feel launching light craft from a base (I guess you could say carrier, although I won't since this would probably be much more akin to an entire base, as just having a carrier floating in space seems unlikely) is similar to an Air Force-ish setting. What feels right to us doesn't really matter in reality, however. The Air Force, like any other branch of the military, will adapt to whatever it needs to in order to fight in the field they're in.

Well, I suspect the Navy might have a future in space too. They DO have their own planes after all. Theoreticly, we'll be seeing Army and the Marine Corp. out there too, with that way of thinking. Anyone else want to bet that once war between planets is a reality, the Air Force and the Navy will merge? (I'm betting my life savings against anything, by the way)

well, the main problem for space warfare at present is the fact that- the only place worth fighting over (right now) is Earth. And everybody is on Earth.

If Mars, the Moon, various Gas Giant moons, various dwarf planets were colonized, then things might change, but the most desirable piece of real estate in the Sol system is Earth.

Things may change if 1) some method of FTL is developed, as slower-than-light interstellar warfare would be, well, slow and pointless. or 2) some alien civilization magically shows up on our doorstep attempting to conquer us.

I thought that a while back, however I've changed my mind. I assumed Nasa would become a Military branch or something else would take that place, like you said.

Here's why I changed my mind:(other then it actually being in the court of the Air Force, like I said before) When we think of the Military (well, I actually mean me but I assume everyone else in the world will automaticly agree with my unquestionably superior point of view) *cough* anyway, when WE think of the Military, WE think of the Air Force bombing, the Army or Marine Corp. slugging it out on the ground, and the Navy trading shots with enemy ships.

However, that's closer to a Battlefield (as in the EA game) situation then reality. I've noticed that every branch is well-equiped to take on a rival nation by itself, even though they do work together a lot. (The Marine Corp. having to steal medics from the Navy for instance) The Navy, oxymoron as it is, could fight across the land. They have their own Air Support, their own ground troops (Seals being only one example). The Air Force, more recently I think, is fighting on the ground more and more. They have their own grunts for defending bases, police, and such just like the Army. They may not have them in as great supply as the Army (I really have no idea how many of them there are) but they could easily do pretty much the same thing. The Marine Corp., as seems all the rage these days, has it's own Air support, and, well, it's the freaking Marine Corp. On top of that, they all have their own spec ops crews meant to do anything- Don't think Seals were just the Navy's idea. Any branch of service could put men on the field trained to fill in and do similar things. Think of The Red/Black Barrets, Delta Force, Army Rangers, Pararescue, Force Recon, to name the few I can remember)

Battlefield FTW!!

Well, that's looking at it practiclly, although disreguarding the present advantages space has even right now for fighting over earth. We use satalites to spy, you could isolate something (the perfect place to hide the President's daughter or keep a prototype), it's out of range of present-day missiles, (I think) and it's between anything off-planet. I doubt it, but there may one day be useful materials found on the moon or Mars, and in that case, I'd like America to keep the opposing colored player's hands off it.

well, if we develop a fusion-based economy then- the gas giants (particularly Saturn&Neptune (or is Uranus?)) would be of great value, as they have large Helium-3 reserves in their atmospheres (assuming we develop 3He-D/3He-3He fusion cycles).

There are already missiles that are designed to kill satellites (ASAT) and ballistic missiles (ABM); ABMs can't be used for ASAT (usually), while ASAT can I think be used a little for ABM.

As for the Moon- a very small Helium-3 reserve, not much though. The main attraction for colonizing the solar system and eventually "slow-boating" accross the stars to other solar systems is for the preservation of the human race. And for exploration/colonization for the sake of colonization.

Hiding something in space is actually very hard, as it is very (re: nigh impossible) to hide in space. Hiding something on an astronimcal object (re: asteroid, moon, dwarf planet, planet) would be a lot easier.

And believe it or not, hiding something on Earth is much easier, as it is EXTREMELY difficult to detect something on Earth, and if the balkanization (re: big nations turning into little ones) continues, it will be even harder due to many conflicting interests.

I'm glad you mentioned that about the resources. With that in mind, Theoreticly in time we will see the worth in having a Space Based branch.

True, however I'm not refering to nessesarily hiding in space- I mentioned isolating. A prototpye in an orbital facility I'd imagine could be safer since you could see anything headed to it long before it reaches it. I really don't know whether it would be better or not then some vault on the planet, but I imagine the Air Force(or maybe Nasa?) would have an easier time defending it from sabotoge, and have more time to recover or destroy, if need be.

for sabotage- you would either have to 1) physically board an enemy asset or 2) engage in cyberwarfare against it.

I advise you to perus the site "projectrho.com", specifically the section entitled "Atomic Rockets". While it is more oriented towards a writers/game-devs resource, it is also very interesting for "casual" reading, or for forming debates. It also does make mention of "space hackers" as weapons in space warfare.

True. Maybe you're right. My guess is that the Air Force will turn into just that, and might either replace or merge(in which case it would probably be refered to as the Space Force, using all 20 watts of the noggin) with the Navy, or maybe the Navy will take over the Air Force instead. I'm thinking sooner or later, we'll really only need one of the two. I'm guessing we'll see this Space branch having Naval and Atmospheric Corps.

I think the farther into the future we get, the more we'll really only need one branch. I'm sure Space ships can be used in the Atmosphere, and eventually it won't make sence it have a submarine that's not capable of leaving the atmosphere(if that's ever possible). Now days we have different things in the air, ground, on and below the sea, because they can be kept separate, but in the future, it might turn out to be best to be able to move anything where it's needed. Otherwise, we might need space ships to cover our men on the ground from planes, those same men and fighters to cover our planes, etc, and a big huge complicated rock-paper-scisors nightmare I don't care to think about. I think we'd sooner have our fighters and ships space-equiped, and have them able to jump between fronts quickly, which will naturally become more and more important.

hmm, subs will never be able to leave atmosphere.

My personal impression is that all types of craft will still be useful, and used, but lines will blur between atmospheric and space capable craft, hover tanks and VTOL gunships, heavy weapons emplacements and anti-orbital craft gunnery.

I'm in agreement regarding the lines bluring as you say, however I won't put that limit on subs, as far out as the idea of them being capable of doing that is. Here's what's going on in my head- We'd be landing Ships in airports and Naval carriers as it is(or will be). I don't doubt we'll see interaction between fronts like this, and remember subs are very important, as they hold a lot of America nukes, I believe.

Think about this- What about a plane (or ship) that's equiped with rotors (and able to withstand water pressure) that can take the same place these subs already in the water? That way a fighter can be stationed on an underwater carrier or facility(this might be useful to protect itself) and move to any front it's needed. We're probably going to need to be selling any unused parts to get out of dept that would come out of building this dream-ship, I might add. =/

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1277

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=514

Ive thought of similiar ideas to yours before, and it turns out that future aircraft may often be submersible.

I'm partial to the Term Star Fleet

Am I the only one who thinks we need new words for self-propelling space machines? Ones that don't end in -ship or -craft?

If it's on the ground we call it a vehicle. Or, more specifically, a car, truck, tank, etc.

If it's in the water we call it a boat, ship, vessel, craft, or submarine.

If it's in the air, we call it a plane, jet, helicopter, glider, fighter, bomber...

If it's in space we call it...what? Star-ship? Space-craft? Space-fighter? It's a completely different locomotive paradigm with decades of educated speculation and experimentation behind it, and we're just glueing adjectives to fancy words for boats. We have "satellite" for unmanned orbital machines and "shuttle" for hybrid atmosphere-capable transport, but nothing for true, manned, fully space-based.....things.

There was probably similar confusion in early aviation with people using the words "airplane" and "airship", but nowadays most people just shorten the former to "plane" and the only ones using "airship" anymore are blimp enthusiasts and Japanese RPG developers. I suppose we may have to wait until we actually build some of these things before we get real names for them. That's understandable, but I'd still like to be able to say something like "This ship looks awesome" and have people know I'm talking about a Starfury and not an aircraft carrier.

if you've watched the history channel, you mightof caught something about how combat in space will likely go about.

fighters wouldnt look like fighters of today, they'd be little cubes with thrusters on all sides, seeing as in space acceleration is indefinite and you would have to stop whatever you started by yourself. also, the fighters would be able to turn on a dime, literally.

so basically, a "space fight" would look like a bunch of spasmadic cubes firing projectiles at each other.

Spheres. Not cubes. If the thing is pressurized, a sphere doesn't get as much point stress as a cube does, because there are no points.

ah, but a sphere must support more stress than a cylinder when accelerating.

Thus, for a sphere and cylinder to accelerate at the same rates, the sphere must 1) have a sturdier (re=higher mass) structure and 2) have a more powerful drive.

On the flipside, spherical ships can also pitch and yaw very easily, while cylinders can roll easier (cylinders also have an easier time mounting spinal ordnances)

Ugh. That kind of space battle does NOT sound very cinematic. Screw that whole Space-branch idea. =P

I've seen other space craft (sorry, Jalicos) with jets like that on all sides- but this was a cylinder. It might have dawned on that fighters would be the same, though I would bet on one or two jets that can rotate, but I would NEVER have assumed it would be a box.

I'm glad my random idea was actually tried somewhere. I wonder if the Navy will pick up on that?

I still think the navy will eventually make the most sense. Once we actually have dedicated space warships, I think the basics of managing the space forces will be most like the navy, you'd have very expensive (and presumably somewhat large) assets that are going to be based on a few dedicated bases (ports). Also keep in mind it took a while for a dedicated sense of naval warfare to be established, at first early navies (especially the Romans) fought sea battles like land battles, which were almost always settled by either boarding operations or ramming. Only once ranged weapons became potent enough to sink ships did this change and dedicated naval tactics came about. Granted as someone said this could happen to the space branch as well, especially as we'll probably need new tactics for speed of light weaponry. But we'll likely have space battles before we have lasers that powerful anyways.

However, currently it does make more sense for the airforce to manage space warfare. It already has the most practice with satalites (currently the only space asset) and the arguable space ships will probably be small fighter like craft that will take off from airports and then travel through space to bomb the moon (for real this time;P) or whatever the misison is.

Hmmm. I see what you mean. However, I have to say your point is more on the theoretical and asthetic sides of the spectrums to me. That being said, I do agree with you.

See, the fact that deep-space warfare will include "ships" really doesn't nessesarily have any relation to the Navy. You're right in that it will need to change- but it's not for us to decide whether the Navy or Air Force is better for that job, since I doubt we really know enough to make a sound guesstimate.

well, a more naval basis of organization for deep-space warships will be used, as such warships will represent a significant investment of national capital or funds, and Naval ship captains are used to caring for such things, as a Navy ship captain signs for a vessel when he is posted to its command. Meaning he is responsible for every nut, bolt, screw, nail, person, and supply on that ship.

Yeah, even if the Air Force is given command of space operations, I think it will still make sense for them to use naval terminology and to some extent command structure. That is once we actually have space ships that spend most of their time in space (which will probably still be a while). Until then it will still be the Air Force, though if a major reorganisation of the military is undertaken, I suppose Congress could give it to whomever they want (the coast guard? )