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July, 2008
I gather from conversations with people I know that many people feel the US Military does not have the ability to travel from ground to Earth orbit with space vehicles, and that it has no space stations. Although it is possible that they do not, I submit to you the opinion that the chance of that is vanishingly small. I believe it is most likely that the US military has earth-to-space vehicles, space stations, and a dominant position in Earth's orbital territory. Here's why:
It's a socio-economic observation that I've made recently. Let's begin with 1938 and the War of the Worlds broadcast. People tuned in to that science fiction broadcast and many thought it was real. There was panic across America. For the first time, it seems, Americans were faced with the fact that their military had no way to protect them from space attack, if such a threat did exist. Fear was rampant, and the US military had no good response to calm the American public. Then nine years later in 1947 the Roswell, New Mexico event occurred in which many people believed that an actual space-alien UFO crashed and was recovered by the US military. So there was even more fear, some shreds of genuine evidence this time in the form of witness testimonials, and still no space defense. I've told you this to establish the fact that the US military has had significant pressure from the US public to defend us from space threats for seventy years now. That's an entire lifetime, or three generation's time that the US military has had to accomplish space dominance. I won't even get into World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Nuclear Arms Race, let's just say that the pressure has never stopped in the time since that first wake-up call 70 years ago.
Fast forward to late 2004 when SpaceShipOne developers at Scaled Composites, led by Burt Rutan, won the X-Prize with two space-flights. A private company of pioneers was able to send a craft from Earth's surface into space at an entire development cost of under $40 million, and it only took three years of development effort to do it (plus five years of prior planning). Now let's consider that the US military's annual budget for 2007 was 440 billion dollars in total. Dividing these two numbers we find that the US military has more than ten thousand *times* as much money as it takes to build a civilian spacraft, annually. This means that the US military could spend a small fraction of 0.01 percent of it's budget on space travel and have an orbital vehicle of their own. Even if we allow for military inefficiency which we know to be excessive, the amount of resources required to create a space reentry vehicle using conventional technology remains tiny compared to what it has available. Also they have not had three years, not eight years, but 70 years in which to do it. Are we to believe that given ten thousand times the resources to do the job, 70 years in which to do it, and strong pressure from the public all along the way, that the US military has not accomplished routine space travel?
When you look at the sheer magnitude of the numbers involved, it becomes rather obvious to any reasonable person that the US military must indeed have routine ground-to-space travel today. Add to that a history of doing just what is needed to accomplish the job and a civilian example to follow and surely you must be convinced.
To further convince you, I offer the following observations. The US military was already launching rocket-powered craft from airplanes back in the 1960's. That just so happens to be the exact same configuration of the SpaceShipOne craft: a rocket powered vehicle launched from an airplane. Although these craft were difficult to control and some of the experiments ended horribly, many of the flights were successful. So this means that the US military was publicly performing tests of the very nature required to accomplish ground-to-orbit flights more than 40 years ago. Then the projects were all cancelled suddenly for no good reason. Right. I suggest the projects were merely classified and experimentation continued, producing genuine reentry flights perhaps as ealy as the 1970's or 1980's. In addition to that I mention the MOL program in which the Air Force was modifying the Gemini rockets to carry crude early space stations into orbit. Although the project was discontinued and the younger of the astronauts were offered NASA careers, it seems rather obvious to me that if the military *actually once tried* to do it, then certainly they must have motivation to establish space stations in Earth orbit.
So you see, in making this observation I am certainly not suggesting that you believe in UFO's, alien creatures, exotic materials or advanced technologies at all. I am asserting that the US military has had the resources and motivation for a long time now to use ordinary conventional technology to establish a manned military space presence.
I'll make one final comment. Contrary to popular public belief, the US military is not composed of a bunch of gun-waving aggressive lunatics or bumbling idiots. The US military has a stringent selection process which identifies intelligent, patriotic, thoughtful, responsible individuals who strive to benefit the nation and the world with sound judgement and wise command decisions. Do you really believe that all those smart people with all that time, money, motivation and means, simply failed to accomplish space travel? Come on, folks... It's a very reasonable argument and I for one am convinced by it. Are you?
Still skeptical? Unconvinced? Get this: since writing the above commentary I have learned that one of those X planes from the early 1960's, the X-15, did in fact reach and exceed the altitude threshold of space. Not once, not twice, but actually 13 times the X-15 rocket craft achieved an altitude of greater than 50 miles, or in other words met the USAF definition of space travel. So you see, the US military has actually publicly accomplished space travel with a ground to space craft. And this happened on numerous occasions, more than 40 years ago. What do you suppose happened after that? Did they just quit, give up, and throw in the towel for no good reason?
Whether you want to believe it or not, manned military spaceflight did in fact occur, and you have read above my observations about the motivation to do it, the means to do it, the time to do it, and now the history of actually doing it. The only remaining question is whether all military manned space travel was suddenly halted and abandoned some four decades ago, or whether it was continued in secret. I choose to believe the latter because the evidence is simply overwhelming. Call me loony if you want, but to me it's just plain common sense. Well, I beg your pardon if my writing seems a bit short-tempered, it's just that I cannot seem to convince the vast majority of people with whom I discuss the matter, despite the overwhelming evidence that supports my opinion. For some reason it seems that the majority of people, especially my European and Australian friends, are predisposed to disbelieve the obvious facts that I present to them. Well, I've been in the minority many times before and proven right as well, so I'm no stranger to such opposition. All I can do is write up a web page for you to read, it's up to you to decide if I'm right or wrong.
Perhaps the strongest counter-argument to my observation is detection. People say "wouldn't the space stations get detected?", or "amateur astronomers would find the space stations". This is a strong argument, but so is the response, which is that the military must be using stealth technology on these craft. Some other factors may include high altitude orbits, small space station craft (the original Gemini craft were small), and night time operation without safety lights, and you begin to understand that something as obvious as space travel can be done covertly. Besides, stealth technology was really cool in the 1980's, over 20 years ago, so it must be quite commonplace where needed by the military today. Let's say all that is true. Since people who watch the US military's activities, including amateur astronomers, now know what to look for. Perhaps we can aim our infra-red cameras toward likely places where rocket trails can be detected out over the desert of the western states of the US? It would be great fun if someone actually detected such flights. Time will tell.
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copyright 2008 Les Hall
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