Two years ago, in December 2019, the US Space Force was born. The mission of this new U.S. military branch is to protect the nation’s satellites and other space assets. From space military security to day-to-day satellite communications, the Space Force’s job seems very high-level and highly classified.
With the establishment of the US Space Force, Russia, China, France, Canada, and Japan are all preparing to form similar institutions. Why do countries want to have their own “Space Force”?
Nobody wants to start a war in space
After the establishment of the U.S. Space Force, many people were worried about space wars, and more people questioned why the U.S. should deploy troops in space.
In this regard, the commander of the U.S. Army said that this question is like asking why a seafaring country has a navy. When the field of activity reaches space, it needs to ensure the safety of space and prevent hidden dangers that threaten space. No one wants to wage war in space.
In fact, the establishment of the US space force is related to the detection of Russia’s “space torpedo” by the United States.
The United States once detected that Russia was testing similar satellite missiles in low Earth orbit, and photographed some strange equipment, which the United States called “space torpedoes”. In order to avoid these existing threats, the United States decided to form a space force.
In April and July, the commander of the U.S. Space Force said that Russian space weapons had been discovered and that the threat from space was real and growing. In fact, low-Earth orbit experiments are not uncommon, and these may just be an excuse for the U.S. to form a space force.
Does every country want to have a space force?
With the dependence of earth communication on satellites, satellite threats have become more and more important. SpaceX has recently launched a large number of satellites into earth’s lower orbit. The satellite constellation forming Starlink is a representative example.
The Starlink system will launch at least 12,000 satellites to the earth, and Amazon also plans to launch 3,200 satellites in the future. All kinds of satellites are being launched all over the world. The earth’s orbital resources may become scarce resources in the future, and the satellites that lose their ability to work and are destroyed, It has also become space junk that occupies Earth’s orbital resources.
One day in the future, launching a satellite may require destroying a satellite, thereby creating a threat to space satellites.
At present, the Space Force is not an imaginary operation of launching lasers in space, but an operation of satellite protection and elimination of threats.
The “space” of the Space Force is not yet true, but for humans with increasing satellite launch capabilities and frequency, satellites may indeed need protection in the future, and the United States took the lead in establishing a Space Force, deepening the crisis of various countries feel.
After all, the world knows the consequences of the high-tech in the United States, such as the Gulf War when the United States dominated GPS, so who wouldn’t want its own space force?