Space Force Built for War?

Article by Ryan Faith                                   October 16, 2020                                  (realcleardefense.com)

• Space Force keeps a tight lid on its military intentions. Therefore, Russian or Chinese space warfare theorists might assume that a ‘kinetic’ (ie: shooting) war could be in the works. As in the US Air Force, the purveyors of kinetic mayhem tend to be culturally dominant. And Space Force has been no exception. These kinetic mayhem purveyors present a louder, more muscular, aggressive face of the Space Force. The non-kinetic approaches to space dominance get little discussion. The overall message suggests a Space Force with a strong bias towards kinetic warfare.

• At the same time, the US Space Force does not discuss the activities of its potential foes, and publicly there’s little to suggest that US opponents are hostile and aggressive. This makes the cultural bias in Space Force towards kinetic action appear to be an itchy trigger finger, not a response to real-life aggression.

• Kinetic action in space comes with an immense risk associated with orbital debris. In 2007, China demonstrated an anti-satellite weapon, and created more than 3,000 bits of space shrapnel in space. At immense orbital speeds, an impact by even a small bit of debris can have a devastating effect. This in turn creates more orbital debris in a sort of feedback effect called the Kessler Syndrome. This in itself creates some talk of strategic deterrent to an orbital debris chain-reaction that results in unintentional mutually assured response and destruction.

• The US Space Force would probably benefit by clarifying that a kinetic response must be in response to a legitimate threat or attack. Secondly, the US has a variety of tools at its disposal to manage the escalation of a space conflict without blowing a space asset to smithereens.

• But these suggestions are just a small part of the extensive political-social-media context of space operations as the backdrop to combat operations for the foreseeable future. The reality of a space conflict today may be a matter of winning the security battle versus losing the messaging war tomorrow.

 

If I were a Russian or Chinese space warfare theorist, thinking about a future war with the United States, it might be reasonable to bet that the newly-minted U.S. Space Force was planning for a kinetic space conflict, starting on Day 1.

Understandably, the Space Force keeps a tight lid on broader discussions of its capabilities. There isn’t a lot of direct information one way or another. Without a clear understanding of what the U.S. can do, an analyst might start trying to figure out U.S. intentions.

The culture of the Space Force might still be unformed and changing; it does bear at least a family resemblance to its sister services in at least one significant respect. In the services, the purveyors of kinetic mayhem — the shooters and the killers — tend to be culturally dominant within their respective services. The Space Force has been no exception to this.

Whether or not the Space Force shooters want to or not, they present a louder, more muscular, aggressive face of the Space Force. Conversely, non-kinetic approaches to space dominance get little discussion indeed.

Between the relative boldness of the kinetic space warfare community and the comparative silence of the non-kinetic warfare practitioners, the overall message suggests a Space Force with a strong bias towards kinetic warfare.

Compounding this problem, the USSF does not speak a lot about the activities of its potential foes. In public discussion, there’s little to suggest that U.S. opponents are hostile and aggressive and that need a muscular response. Keeping malicious actions secret makes the cultural bias towards kinetic action appear spontaneous — that it is not a response to unfortunate real-life conditions, but more of an itchy trigger finger.

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Space Force Developing Offensive Capabilities in Space

Article by Frank Wolfe                                       October 19, 2020                                   (satellitetoday.com)

• In 1958, the United States was the first nation to test an ‘Anti-Satellite’ (ASAT) weapon, launched from a bomber. Since then, Russia, China, and India have demonstrated their abilities to destroy orbiting satellites as well. US Air Force and Space Force officials have largely promoted the resilience and redundancy of US space assets and protecting them from enemy attacks. At last year’s Space Symposium, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein stated, “If …your country is interested in participating in manned spaceflight, then you should not be …creating (a) risk to manned spaceflight. So demonstrating any capability that would create more (dangerous space) debris, in my mind, is a step in the wrong direction.”

• That type of thinking may have changed in 2007 when the Chinese demonstrated their anti-satellite weaponry on one of their own satellites, creating a swarm of space debris. “That was a clarifying event,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations. “I can almost chart from there the establishment of the Space Force, because suddenly space was contested.” “[T]hat kinetic attack on a satellite really shook the foundations that this is no longer a benign environment, and we started asking the questions about are we properly structured and organized and doing the right kinds of things to be able to maintain our advantage.”

• “[T]o some degree, the aggressive behavior of our competitors has clarified what we need to do as a nation and in the Department of Defense,” Saltzman continued. “They awoke the great giant that is the United States. [W]e are now moving rapidly toward developing capability to ensure that we maintain that strategic advantage…for a long time.” “I think the best defense sometimes is a good offense.”

• In April, after Russia tested a direct-ascent ASAT, John “Jay” Raymond, the Space Force’s chief of space operations, called it “further proof of Russia’s hypocritical advocacy of outer space arms control proposals designed to restrict the capabilities of the United States, while clearly having no intention of halting their counter-space weapons programs.”

• A recent ‘Roadmap for Assessing Space Weapons’ report from Aerospace Corporation‘s Center for Space Policy and Strategy said that the U.S. should not rush headlong into the development of new space weapons. “To avoid Russia and China imposing unnecessary costs on the United States, US decisions on space weapons should not be made simply in reaction to China and Russia’s space weaponization. US decisions on space weapons require an exhaustive comparative analysis of the value to US national security to develop, build, and deploy any type of space weapon, and the downsides to such a decision. Is the United States better off with or without space weapons of any type? …The analysis might lead to a conclusion that certain types of weapons or certain functions of such weapons are advantageous while others are not.”

 

 Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein

The U.S was the first nation to test Anti-Satellite (ASAT) weapons in 1958 with bomber-launched ASATs, and three other nations have demonstrated the ability to destroy orbiting satellites — Russia, China, and, most recently, India, with a test in March last year. Officials from the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force have largely confined themselves to talking about building the resilience and redundancy of U.S. space assets and protecting them from enemy attacks, such as ASATs.

At last year’s Space Symposium, Air Force leaders discussed space deterrence through a lens of rapid response to adversary actions, and then Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told Via Satellite sister publication Defense Daily that an ASAT test “absolutely isn’t the way” to demonstrate a space deterrent capability.

  Air Force Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman

“If you take the long view and your country is interested in participating in manned spaceflight, then you should not be contributing in any way, shape or form to creating risk to manned spaceflight,” he said. “So demonstrating any capability that would create more debris, in my mind, is a step in the wrong direction.”

That thinking may be changing.

                John “Jay” Raymond

“I was on the ops floor in 2007 when the Chinese shot their own satellite down,” Air Force Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear, said during an Oct. 16 Aerospace Nation forum sponsored by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “That was a clarifying event, and I can almost chart from there the establishment of the Space Force because suddenly space was contested.”

“We knew there was other kinds of [space] contesting going on, but that kinetic attack on a satellite really shook the foundations that this is no longer a benign environment, and we started asking the questions about are we properly structured and organized and doing the right kinds of things to be able to maintain our advantage,” Saltzman said.

“And so, to some degree, the aggressive behavior of our competitors has clarified what we need to do as a nation and in the Department of Defense,” he said. “They awoke the great giant that is the United States, and we are now moving rapidly toward developing capability to ensure that we maintain that strategic advantage. We’re going to be able to compete in that area for a long time.”

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The US Coast Guard’s Future is in Outer Space

Article by Michael Sinclair                                    October 15, 2020                                    (brookings.edu)

• The Coast Guard serves as the United States’ Arctic governance presence. This requires of the Coast Guard the ability to communicate ‘over-the-horizon’. In December 2018, teamed up with the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Division and SpaceX to launch two small cube satellites (“cubesats”) — Yukon and Kodiak — over the Arctic as part of the ‘Polar Scout program’. While the Coast Guard lost its communications link to the satellites shortly after their launch, the fact that the service looked to space to meet its mission objective is a forerunner of things to come.

• These two cubesats were intended to serve as the vanguard of enhanced telecommunications coverage in the Arctic. As the warming climate melts the ice at the north pole, this increases the international shipping access by the US, Russia and China. This increases the strategic significance of the Arctic, and the need for increased governance.

• The second great Space Age will be turbo-charged by computer processing and commercial space markets. The Coast Guard should take advantage of the increasingly affordable access to space that commercial space opportunities provide. Space-based surveillance can assist with many Coast Guard missions including maritime law/drug enforcement, intelligence, buoy tending, vessel traffic management, and icebreaking. Coast Guard icebreaker vessels should serve as ocean station sentinels. And the Coast Guard should add additional satellite link stations such as the one in New London, Connecticut.

• Next, the Coast Guard should develop a ‘Space Operations Strategic Outlook’ to establish space competencies across the entire Coast Guard. The 2019 Coast Guard Authorization Act includes statutory language that would extend Coast Guard ‘Captain of the Port Authority’ beyond its twelve nautical-mile limit to facilitate safe and secure space operation support at sea. The Coast Guard should partner with Space Force to provide space ‘search and rescue’.

• Government, military and commercial space entities fully intend a rapid increase in human space flight. Space Force should have the capability to render assistance to distressed space farers. This is consistent with the Outer Space Treaty and the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, both to which the United States is party. Currently, there is no specific statute authorizing a US agency to conduct such rescue operations in space. The Coast Guard’s broad search and rescue would provide excellent models for developing a foundation for the Coast Guard assist with Space Force/Space Command in space-based search and rescue operations.

• On their face, “outer space” and the “Coast Guard” are two terms that do not seem to have much in common. But with the ready access to space in the 21st century, now is the time for the Coast Guard to consider how to alter its planning to capitalize on the opportunities and to meet future challenges in space.

 

In December 2018, the U.S. Coast Guard joined the space faring community. It teamed up with the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Division and SpaceX to execute the launch of two small cube satellites (“cubesats”) — Yukon and Kodiak — as part of the Polar Scout program.

These two cubesats were intended to serve as the vanguard of enhanced telecommunications coverage in the Arctic, a domain that has always been important but is of increasing strategic significance today because it is at the intersection of great power competition and global climate change. In short, a warmer climate results in greater access; greater access results in greater maritime traffic, including by Russia and China. The Chinese, in particular, are constantly pressing to exploit resources the world over, be it living marine or hydrocarbon-based. Likewise, greater traffic means more need for increased governance presence to ensure safe, rules-based operations within the Arctic.

The Coast Guard is statutorily charged with serving as the United States’ Arctic governance presence. This means the Coast Guard increasingly requires the ability to communicate over-the-horizon — thus, Polar Scout. And while the Coast Guard lost linkage to Yukon and Kodiak shortly after launch, the mere fact that the service had the vision to go boldly to the heavens to meet that need should be a forerunner of things to come.

THE KEY QUESTIONS

Space issues are a hot topic in 2020. Indeed, we are at the start of a second great space age, one that is shaping up to be turbo-charged by the commercial market and the seemingly never-ending, exponentially increasing power of computer processing. The United States is pursuing the Artemis Accords, the Space Force is getting off the ground, NASA is looking towards Mars (but first to the moon! To stay!), and commercial space pursuits are booming. The Coast Guard has already gotten in the game, but it must continue to seriously consider space as it develops budgets and strategies for the future.

To succeed as an information-age military service and total-domain governance agency in the 21st century, the Coast Guard should view space through three lenses. First, how can the service best capitalize on cheap, ready access to space to facilitate its missions, as it had already started to do so with the Polar Scout launches? Second, how do commercial space efforts interact with the maritime industry and maritime domain; and to what extent, if any, does the Coast Guard need to adjust or modify its extensive suite of operating authorities and regulations to ensure that any risk to the safety and security of the maritime is adequately addressed? And third, how can the Coast Guard, as part of the joint force, assist the Space Force in executing the latter’s own responsibilities?

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Pentagon Taps Elon Musk’s SpaceX to Track Hypersonic Weapons from Space

Article by Nolan Peterson                                  October 6, 2020                                 (wearethemighty.com)

• The US Department of Defense has awarded Elon Musk’s ‘Space X’ a $149 million contract to build satellites to track hypersonic missiles, as part of the Space Development Agency’s planned “mega-constellation” of weapons-tracking satellites. Both SpaceX and L3 Harris Technologies Inc. will produce four satellites for the Pentagon each. The satellites will be equipped with ‘wide field of view’ ‘overhead persistent infrared’ (OPIR) sensors.

• The commercial-built satellites will form the first layer of a planned surveillance network to track hypersonic missiles. Under the Space Development Agency’s National Defense Space Architecture, the US will put into orbit a constellation of hundreds of satellites, primarily in low Earth orbit, to track maneuverable hypersonic missiles — a weapons technology currently under development by both Russia and China.

• In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new weapons that he touted would be able to defeat US missile defense systems. Among those new weapons was the ‘Avangard’ hypersonic glide vehicle, supposedly capable of flying at Mach 27. The Avangard reportedly went operational in December.

• In August, China tested a ballistic missile capable of carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle. The flight paths of intercontinental ballistic missiles can be easily predicted after launch. Hypersonic missiles, however, can be steered in flight, making them much harder to track and a more evasive mark for anti-missile defense systems.

• Some experts warn that the Pentagon’s ‘Hypersonic and Ballistic Missile Tracking Space Sensor’ program doesn’t have enough funding and is plagued with challenges when it comes to integrating with other missile defense systems and linking to advanced interceptors and directed energy weapons.

• The US Space Force already possesses missile-tracking satellites in high geosynchronous orbits. The new satellites will operate from much lower orbits and will therefore have a comparatively limited field of view, requiring the creation of a constellation of satellites that can effectively hand off tracking responsibilities as they follow the flight path of a hypersonic weapon from horizon to horizon.

• SpaceX and L3 Harris are expected to deliver their first of eight satellites by fall of 2022. Initial operating capability is expected by 2024. The entire missile-tracking constellation is planned for completion by 2026.

• SpaceX has already launched two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, powered into orbit by the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. It marked America’s return to active spaceflight operations after a nine-year hiatus following the last space shuttle flight in 2011. SpaceX was recently selected by the Space Force to carry out national security space launch missions over the next five years. SpaceX’s Starlink program is currently creating a mega-constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbit to provide global broadband coverage for high-speed internet access. SpaceX anticipates Starlink will achieve “near global coverage of the populated world by 2021.”

 

                         Elon Musk

SpaceX has won a $149 million Department of Defense contract to build satellites to track hypersonic missiles, marking the first government contract for building such equipment for Elon Musk’s groundbreaking commercial spaceflight company.

As part of the Space Development Agency’s planned “mega-constellation” of weapons-tracking satellites, both SpaceX and L3 Harris Technologies Inc. will produce four satellites for the Pentagon to track hypersonic weapons. The L3 Harris contract to build its four satellites is reportedly valued at $193 million.

The eight commercially produced satellites will be equipped with wide field of view (WFOV) overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) sensors. Those satellites will form the first layer of a planned surveillance network to track hypersonic missiles.

Under the Space Development Agency’s National Defense Space Architecture, the US will put into orbit a constellation of hundreds of satellites, primarily in low Earth orbit, to track maneuverable hypersonic missiles — a weapons technology currently under development by both Russia and China.

In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new weapons that he touted would be able to defeat US missile defense systems. Among those new weapons was the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, supposedly capable of flying at Mach 27. The Avangard reportedly went operational in December.

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The Unresolved Rendlesham Forest UFO Sightings

Article by B.B. Wagner                                   October 7, 2020                                       (ancient-origins.net)

• The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident at the joint British-American air base RAF Woodbridge/RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk, England is one of the most famous UFO sightings ever recorded. It has created a wide range of first-hand sightings, audio recordings, multiple reports, and continuous testimony – sometimes contradictory. With so many angles and perspectives to this story, which are actually correct and what happened exactly?

• On December 26, 1980, at the east gate of the RAF Woodbridge base, US Air Force security patrol Budd Stevens and Sergeant Jim Penniston saw strange, intensely bright fiery-red lights gleaming through the trees of the nearby Rendlesham Forest . They reported their sightings to their commanding officer. At 3:00 am, Penniston was ordered to investigate while Stevens stayed at his post.

• Penniston was accompanied in a jeep by John Burroughs to where the “bogie” reportedly landed. It was here that Burroughs and Penniston saw a mysterious glowing but silent craft whose movement and rapid speed defied the laws of physics. In his statement, Penniston said: “[T]he craft was three meters tall, and about three meters wide at the base… No landing gear was apparent, but it seemed like she was on fixed legs… I moved a little closer… I walked around the craft, and finally, I walked right up to the craft. I noticed the fabric of the shell was more like a smooth, opaque, black glass…” Suddenly, the craft took off at full speed, heading towards a barn where its bright lights disturbed the farm animals and wildlife. Burroughs and Penniston raced after it, climbed over a fence, and watched as the red and blue lights shining from the craft vanished as it passed the barn.

• When Penniston and Burroughs returned to the base, they both decided to downplay what they had seen in their incident report. They simply stated: “[S]aw a mechanical object with red, blue and white lights, but the craft disappeared before we could get a better look…” They were both ordered to keep silent about what they saw.

• The next day, Penniston returned to the landing site and discovered circular impressions on the ground made by a heavy object, spaced three meters apart. He made plaster cast impressions of the landing marks. There was also burn damage and broken branches at the site. Other USAF servicemen on the base became interested in the encounter and the Rendlesham Forest site became a curious hot spot.

• Two days later, on December 28, 1980, deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt was informed that the UFO had returned near the original site. Lt Colonel Halt assemble a team of personnel armed with floodlights, night scopes, audio recording devices, and radiation detectors, and set out for the UFO site. He ordered floodlights to be set up around the perimeter of the site. But the floodlights malfunctioned, so the men used their night vision scopes. The scopes revealed abrasions on surrounding trees. The Geiger counters recorded high radiation. Then the UFO appeared again, approaching from the south. It flew by at an incredible speed, pulsing a vibrant red light through the branches of the trees. In Lt Colonel Halt’s audio recording, he is heard to say, “(The UFO) looks like an eye winking at you…Here he comes from the south, he’s coming towards us now…now we’re observing what happens to be a beam coming down to the ground. This is unreal…” The lights continued to hover and beam over the forest and the field, but as the craft moved it seemed to fall apart.

• When Lt Colonel Halt shared his story with the Office of Special Investigations, he too was told to keep quiet about the experience to protect his own reputation and, more importantly, the reputation of the US Air Force. Boroughs and Penniston were sworn to secrecy. Lt Colonel Halt was allowed to write a memo to the British Ministry of Defense about the events that had occurred. Thanks to the US Information act of 1983, Lt Colonel Halt’s memo is on public record, for anyone to read.

• On January 25, 1985, The Guardian published an article on the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident. But a mysterious U.S. airman named Larry Warren, using the alias “Art Wallace”, had been giving interviews about the incident to local newspapers and television shows. Warren claimed to be an eye-witness, alongside Burroughs, Penniston, and Halt. However, in Warren’s version, he claimed that Lt Colonel Halt and a few other officers at the landing site actually introduced themselves to the tiny aliens that emerged from the spacecraft. This account wildly contradicted the other USAF officers’ accounts. Warren claimed that the USAF Office of Special Investigations had brainwashed him by injecting him with truth serum while forcing him to watch films about UFOs, in order to frame him as a mentally disturbed individual. Lt Colonel Halt, Burroughs, and Penniston avoided Warren.

• In June 2010, the now retired Lt Colonel Halt committed his memories of the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident to a two-page affidavit. But Halt’s recollection of the numbers of objects, the lights’ direction, and the positions of the landing marks were imprecise and only cast more confusion and doubt on the story. So in 2015, to re-establish his reputation, the elderly Lt Colonel Halt obtained written statements from the RAF Brentwater radar operators working on the nights in question.

• The radar operators admitted to tracking the objects on the 26th and 28th of December 1980, but they wanted to put off discussing the matter until after they too had retired from the military. They did say that they saw lights that traveled 60 miles in three seconds, rotate and come to a sudden stop by a water tower, and return again to the forest where Lt Colonel Halt’s team were on the ground investigating. Other witnesses also came forward to confirm the servicemen’s accounts as they retired from the military, sometime with contradictory details.

• Skeptics have seized on the contradictions, claiming that the lights seen by USAF personnel was due to an intensely bright meteor shower over southern England. Others claim that the servicemen had caught glimpses of light from the Orfordness Lighthouse, considered to be ‘the brightest lighthouse in the U.K.’

• But according to an anonymous source of UFO researcher Dr. David Clark, the entire Rendlesham Forest UFO incident was nothing but a “revenge hoax” by the British Special Air Service (SAS) on the US Air Force personnel stationed at RAF Woodbridge/ RAF Bentwaters. Knowing that the American servicemen might be influenced by recent revelations of the Roswell UFO incident in 1947, several SAS personnel allegedly parachuted onto the base to simulate an alien invasion as a joke. The US servicemen, however, captured the SAS soldiers; abused, beat, and humiliated them; and identified them as “unidentifiable aliens”. The SAS were angry at the treatment of their men and decided to plot their revenge by staging a real “alien invasion.” The SAS devised multi-colored flares rigged to go off at certain times in the forest while certain SAS personnel remote-controlled dark-colored helium balloons along with gliders and controlled kites to mimic a single moving craft.

• In spite of the first-hand accounts recorded by US military personnel, and discussions of these events by senior officers, the UK Ministry of Defense accepted the explanation that the Americans only saw glimpses of light from the Orfordness Lighthouse. The Brits deemed the incident as insignificant, posing no threat to national security, and therefore requiring no further investigation.

• The truth behind the Rendlesham Forest UFO incidents is not easy to unravel. The accounts from USAF personnel Sargent Jim Penniston, officer John Burroughs, officer Budd Stevens, Lt Colonel Charles Halt and others include descriptions of supernatural lights, triangular spacecraft as dense and as glossy as obsidian, and burned marks in the ground. What the witness reports suggest may be hard to comprehend, but that doesn’t necessarily make them a hoax.

 

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident is without question one of

      Charles Halt

the strangest tales, defined by considerable evidence and also serious questions. On December 28, 1980, US Air Force deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt received word of bizarre sightings near and around the RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge airbases. These multiple first-hand observations of supernatural lights and craft sightings occurred during the dead of night and the truth behind these facts is by no means easy to unravel. What the Rendlesham Forest UFO incidents suggest are still hard to comprehend but that doesn’t necessarily make them a hoax.

The accounts from airmen personnel Sargent Jim Penniston, officer John Burroughs, officer Budd Stevens and others included vague descriptions of sightings ranging from unusual supernatural lights, triangular spacecraft as dense and as glossy as obsidian and burned marks in the ground. Although Penniston and Burroughs were perfectly clear about what they saw, their commanding officer told them to remain silent and not mention the full story in their report . . . until the sightings happened again. The second time word was sent directly to deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, who was eating in the mess hall. The Lieutenant Colonel had no choice but to put aside his dinner and his doubt, grab his tape recorder, and see what was happening outside for himself.

            Jim Penniston

The First Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident: What Was Seen?

The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident is one of the most famous UFO sightings ever recorded, almost as well covered as the Roswell crash of 1947. The Rendlesham incident has created a wide range of first-hand sightings, audio recordings, multiple reports, and continuous testimony. And this has created a popular phenomenon that keeps bringing UFO enthusiasts back to this forested area for more. But with so many angles and perspectives to this story, which are actually correct and what happened exactly? To understand all the evidence related to this extraterrestrial mystery, it is essential to review the key figures, variations to the story, and the primary alternative explanations of other experts. Only then can anyone reach an objective conclusion about what these reports are saying and what, ultimately, lies behind them.

        John Burroughs

Of all the accounts that exist, the most notable experiences came from Jim Penniston, John Burroughs, and Colonel Halt. They recounted bright burning multi-colored lights, mimicking a kaleidoscopic collage of red and blue lights, coming from a mysterious aircraft . This event took place on two consecutive days starting on December 26, 1980, for Penniston and Burroughs, and then again on December 28, 1980, for Colonel Halt and his team of soldiers. In both encounters, the mysterious aircraft reflected lights, hovered, landed, took off at alarming speed, and then appeared to “magically” dissolve or fade.

The First Incident: What Penniston And Burroughs Saw

On December 26, 1980, at the east gate of the RAF Woodbridge base, security patrol Budd Stevens and Sargent Jim Penniston saw strange, intensely bright fiery-red lights gleaming through the trees of Rendlesham Forest . When they reported their sightings at the guard shack, their commanding officer confirmed that something was detected descending into a small clearing near the forest’s eastern edge. It was then, at 3:00 am, that Penniston was given the order to investigate what was seen. Though Stevens stayed at his post, Penniston was accompanied by John Burroughs in a jeep to where the “bogie” reportedly landed. It was here that Burroughs and Penniston saw a mysterious glowing craft whose movement and speed defied the laws of physics . Despite its rapid speed hardly any sound was made by the craft. Of the two men, only Penniston provided a report on the sighting. In his statement, he said:

“…The craft was three meters tall, and about three meters wide at the base […] No landing gear was apparent, but it seemed like she was on fixed

       Orfordness Lighthouse

legs… I moved a little closer… I walked around the craft, and finally, I walked right up to the craft. I noticed the fabric of the shell was more like a smooth, opaque, black glass…” (Young 2020)

But as they observed the craft it suddenly took off at full speed, heading towards a barn, causing further havoc as its bright lights disturbed the local wildlife and farm animals. Burroughs and Penniston raced after it, climbed over a fence, and then watched as the red and blue lights shining from the craft vanished as it passed the barn.

When both Penniston and Burroughs returned to the base, they were wary of writing their report of the incident for their commanding shift officer. Both decided to write a version that downplayed what they had seen. In their testimonies, they simply stated:
“…Saw a mechanical object with red, blue and white lights, but the craft disappeared before we could get a better look…” (Cutler and Castro 2019).

To their dismay, both Penniston and Burroughs were ordered to keep silent about what they saw. However, this command did not stop Penniston from returning to the area the next day to examine the landing site. On the forest floor, Penniston discovered circular impressions made by a heavy object, which were spaced 9.8 feet (3 meters) apart. He immediately made plaster cast impressions of the landing marks. Burroughs and Penniston also revealed that burn damage and broken branches were present near the indentations in the ground. Though their commanding shift officer told them to remain silent, the plaster casts and the tree damage made other servicemen extremely curious, turning the sight into a curiosity hotspot for military personnel.

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DOD Outlines Space Strategy

Article by David Vergun                                   October 7, 2020                                (defense.gov)

• In June, the US Defense Department released its Space Strategy Summary document (see here) laying out the DoD’s four-pillar strategy for space activities within the next decade and beyond.

• The first line of effort, says Justin T. Johnson, the acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, is for the Space Force to build a comprehensive military advantage in space.

• The second effort is to integrate space in the joint force of the US Space Command and with allies and partners, to organizes military exercises and prepare for battle in space, should that become necessary.

• The third effort is to shape the strategic environment. This includes educating the public about off-planet threats, promoting responsible activities in space, and putting adversaries on notice that harmful meddling will be met with a deliberate response from the United States military.

• The fourth effort, said Johnson, is to work with allies, partners, industry and other US agencies such as NASA, the FAA and the Commerce Department, to help streamline regulations for the space industry, which the DoD relies upon. The Space Development Agency is the key strategist in this regard. Allies and partners are excited to work with the United States Defense Department. Already, 20 nations and 100 academic and industry partners are collaborating with the DoD.

• “China and Russia are aggressively developing counter-space capabilities specifically designed to hold US and allied space capabilities at risk,” said Johnson. “China and Russia have made space a warfighting domain” by deploying systems that could potentially knock out US satellites – satellites which are vital to the missile warning system; precision, navigation and timing; and weather forecasting.

• In addition to the military aspect of space, Johnson notes that space is vital to US and global commerce. “Our $20 trillion US economy runs on space.”

 

In June, the Defense Department released its Space Strategy document. That document lays out the department’s four-pillar strategy for work that

                 Justin T. Johnson

needs to be done in space within the next decade and beyond.

Justin T. Johnson, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, discussed that strategy at a virtual Heritage Foundation event today.
The first line of effort, he said, is for the U.S. Space Force to build a comprehensive military advantage in space.

The second effort is to integrate space in the joint force and with allies and partners. That mission is primarily the responsibility of U.S. Space Command, which organizes exercises and prepares for the fight in space, should that become necessary, he said.

The third effort, he said, is to shape the strategic environment. That includes such things as educating the public about threats, promoting responsible activities in space and putting adversaries on notice that harmful meddling will be met with a deliberate response from the department at the time and means of its choosing.

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DARPA Awards $14M to Develop Nuclear Rocket Engine for US Military

Article by Luke Dormehl                                    October 2, 2020                                (yahoo.com)

• The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Gryphon Technologies $14 million to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion system for the US military rockets (similar to the one pictured above). The High-Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) system will be used to enable the military to carry out missions in cislunar space, or the area between the Earth and the orbit of the Moon.

• “A successfully demonstrated NTP system will provide a leap ahead in space-propulsion capability, allowing agile and rapid transit over vast distances as compared to present propulsion approaches,” said Tabitha Dodson, Gryphon’s chief engineer. In an NTP system, a nuclear reactor heats a propellant, like hydrogen, to extreme temperatures. It then expels it via a nozzle to create thrust. This method could be significantly more efficient than current chemical rockets, with a ‘thrust-to-weight ratio’ reportedly 10,000 times greater than electric propulsion.

• The CEO of Gryphon, P.J. Braden, said in a statement. “We are proud to support DRACO and the development and demonstration of NTP, a significant technological advancement in efforts to achieve cislunar space awareness.” The NTP system development is part of DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program.

• Between this, the rise of Space Force, NASA commissioning private companies to retrieve space resources, and the continued work of companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, space exploration is about as fast-moving and full of promise as it’s been in many years.

• [Editor’s Note]  The Pentagon’s deep state infested Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency named its advanced propulsion development program “DRACO”? That is a bit on the nose, isn’t it?

 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Gryphon Technologies $14 million to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion system for the U.S. military. Part of DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program, the High-Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) system will be used to enable the military to carry out missions in cislunar space, meaning the area between the Earth and the orbit of the moon.

“A successfully demonstrated NTP system will provide a leap ahead in space-propulsion capability, allowing agile and rapid transit over vast distances as compared to present propulsion approaches,” Tabitha Dodson, Gryphon’s chief engineer on the support team and a national expert in NTP systems, said in a statement.

The militarization of space, this time largely involving the United States and China, has been in the news in recent years in a way that it hasn’t since the decades-old Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviets. The idea of using Nuclear Thermal Propulsion to power spacecraft is that a nuclear reactor utilized to heat a propellant like hydrogen to extreme temperatures, prior to expelling it via a nozzle in order to create thrust, could be significantly more efficient than current chemical rockets. It would also have a thrust-to-weight ratio that is reportedly 10,000 times greater than electric propulsion.

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Space Force Doesn’t Want to Send a Human to Do a Robot’s Job

Article by Nathan Strout                                 September 29, 2020                                 (c4isrnet.com)

• While Space Force officials have tried to keep the focus on what their personnel will do on the ground to support the nation’s space assets, this hasn’t dampened public speculation as to when Space Force will they send humans into orbit. A recent recruiting ad seemingly implied its members would literally be going to space.

• But for anyone joining the Space Force to be an astronaut, Maj. Gen. John Shaw has some bad news. “I think it will happen,” Shaw said on September 29th, “But I think it’s a long way off.” Shaw serves as both commander of Space Force’s Space Operations Command and for the U.S. Space Command’s Combined Force Space Component Command. Shaw sees two big reasons why it’s not likely to happen soon: “First, space isn’t really all that habitable for humans.” “And the second is, we’re getting darned good at this robotics thing in space.”

• “You know, the best robots that humans have ever created are probably satellites — either ones that explore other planets or operated within our own Earth/moon system,” said Shaw. “GPS satellites might be among those …and we’re only getting better with machine learning and artificial intelligence. We’re going to have an awful lot of automated and autonomous systems operating in Earth and lunar orbit and solar orbit in the days and years to come doing national security space activity.”

• The Space Force and the US Air Force are investing in robotic capabilities that preclude the need for humans in space. Most notable is the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Spacecraft (RSGS) program being run by DARPA (illustrated above). With RSGS, DARPA wants to develop a robotic arm that can be placed on a free flying spacecraft which can navigate up to satellites to conduct repairs, orbital adjustments, or even install new payloads. DARPA hopes to launch a robotically enhanced vehicle into orbit in late 2022, where SpaceLogistics will provide the spacecraft and DARPA will provide the robotic arm.

• The Air Force Research Laboratory is building ROBOpilot, a robot that can fly planes, completely replacing the need for human pilots. It can press pedals to activate brakes, pull on the yoke to steer, adjust the throttle, and even read the dashboard instruments to see where it is and where it’s going.

• The secretive X-37b space plane is an unmanned vehicle is currently able to take off, carry host experiments into orbit, deploy satellites, and return to earth without humans on board.

• But Shaw believes that it’s inevitable. “At some point, yes, we will be putting humans into space,” said Shaw. “They may be operating command centers somewhere in the lunar environment or someplace else that are continuing to operate an architecture that is largely perhaps autonomous.”

• In July, the Sierra Nevada Corporation announced it had received a study contract for such autonomous orbital outposts in low Earth orbit. Missions will include hosting payloads, supporting space assembly and manufacturing, microgravity experimentation, logistics, training, testing and evaluations. SpaceNews confirmed that two other companies – Nanoracks and Arkisys – have also received study contracts.

• While these orbital outposts will be unmanned for now, a Defense Innovation Unit spokesperson said that it would be interested in securing a “human rating” for future outposts. So even if humans on orbit are not part of the military’s immediate plans, it remains a tantalizing possibility. “At some point that will happen. I just don’t know when,” said Shaw. “And it’s anybody’s guess to pick the year when that happens.”

 

                  Maj. Gen. John Shaw

Since it was established in Dec. 2019 — and probably even before that — one question has plagued the U.S. Space Force: when will they send humans into orbit?

While Space Force officials have tried to keep the focus on what their personnel will do on the ground to support the nation’s space assets, they’ve done little to dampen speculation. The Space Force probably didn’t help itself when it released a recruiting ad earlier this year that seemingly implied its members would literally be going to space.

But for anyone joining the Space Force to be an astronaut, Maj. Gen. John Shaw has some potentially bad news.

“I think it will happen,” said Shaw during the AFWERX Engage Space event Sept. 29. “But I think it’s a long way off.”

Shaw would know. He’s been a key member of the lean staff standing up both the Space Force and U.S. Space Command, serving simultaneously as commander of the former’s Space Operations Command and the latter’s Combined Force Space Component Command. While Shaw sees humans in orbit as part of the military’s plans somewhere down the line, there are two big reasons why it’s not likely to happen soon:
“First, space isn’t really all that habitable for humans. We’ve learned that since our early space days,” he explained. “And the second is, we’re getting darned good at this robotics thing in space.”

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Laser Weapons in Space Will Shoot Down Missiles

Article by Kris Osborn                                    September 18, 2020                                   (nationalinterest.org)

• The space environment is highly conducive to laser weapons. Laser technology is being developed that carries a multitude of applications, particularly in space. The obvious application is space-based anti-missile laser weapons which can be used at “scalable” levels, ie: they can be used solely for detection and surveillance, or they can be gradually powered-up to stun, disable or destroy a target, or even to simply ‘jam’ enemy weapons or communications networks. A laser can be fired from an orbiting satellite to hit an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) at different phases of the missile’s trajectory.

• Weapons developers are now working on “power-scaling” laser systems to engineer weapons strong enough to incinerate enemy missiles in space. This not only requires range but also power systems sufficient to generate the desired effects. The Pentagon is developing surface ship-fired lasers strong enough to travel out to the boundaries of the Earth’s atmosphere. Defense contractors are working on a new kind of unmanned ‘space drone’ able to travel beyond the Earth’s atmosphere for missile defense, surveillance or attack missions.

• Lasers travel more effectively beyond the earth’s atmosphere and experience less “beam attenuation” or weakening which can often happen due to weather or other obscurants operating closer to Earth. Also, lasers can attenuate at longer ranges, and many beams need to be consolidated into a single weapon to generate enough power to achieve the desired effect.

• A lesser known application is the use of lasers as optical sensors, according to experts with the Air Force Research Laboratory. “Lasers are super useful as optics in space. We view lasers as foundational to our space architecture,” says Colonel Eric Felt, Director, Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, Kirtland Air Force Base.

 

Space-based anti-missile laser weapons calls many military possibilities to mind. After all, there are already different lasers built, some more often

                     Colonel Eric Felt

discussed than others. For instance, is well known that lasers are being explored for intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) defense in space. Moreover, the Missile Defense Agency officials tell The National Interest that weapons developers are now working on “power-scaling” laser systems to engineer weapons strong enough to incinerate enemy missiles in space. This not only requires range but also power systems sufficient to generate the desired effects.

Where would they fire from? Well that is a fascinating question which is already receiving a lot of attention. Lasers could at some point fire directly from satellites to burn holes in ICBMs either in space, during a beginning boost phase or during the terminal phase as it is closing in on a target.

Also, the Pentagon is developing surface ship-fired lasers strong enough to travel out to the boundaries of the earth’s atmosphere. Engineers at firms like Booz Allen Hamilton are already doing conceptual work on the possibility of building new kinds of hardened, space drones or unmanned systems able to travel beyond the earth’s atmosphere for missile defense, surveillance or even attack missions.

Much work still needs to be done, yet initial efforts are beginning to show great promise, as many explain that the space environment is highly conducive to laser weapons. Lasers travel more effectively beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and experience less “beam attenuation” or weakening which can often happen due to weather or other obscurants operating closer to earth. Also, lasers can attenuate at longer ranges, and many beams need to be consolidated into a single weapon to generate enough power to achieve the desired effect.

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Why the US is Risking a Pearl Harbor in Space

Article by Brandon J. Weichert                              September 12, 2020                                    (nypost.com)

• For the last decade, Beijing and Moscow have both reorganized their militaries — and developed weapons to wage a space war against the United States. President Trump created the US Space Force and charged it with ensuring American dominance in space. But over the past 20 years, US leaders have failed to maintain American dominance in space. The situation is now so precarious that we could see another “Pearl Harbor” in space.

• Without the Space Force, America’s satellites would be left completely open to attack. Still, Space Force is criticized, lampooned, or opposed based only on partisan politics. It has received no support from the US Air Force, as it thinks that the Space Force will siphon funding and resources away from it. Congress itself has not adequately resourced the new military branch, and in-fighting at the Pentagon has not helped.

• Meanwhile, China has developed multiple ways of deactivating or destroying an orbiting satellite, from powerful lasers that can blind American satellites to ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) rockets. In 2007, China demonstrated its capabilities by launching an ASAT weapon to decimate a derelict Chinese weather satellite, thereby creating the largest debris field in human history. Beijing even has the ability to “spoof” American GPS satellites, to confuse American military units and weapons in times of war.

• On September 3rd, China launched a reusable spacecraft that, before returning to Earth three days later, released a smaller object that still remains in orbit today. There is concern that this device is an offensive “space stalker” designed to covertly tailgate American satellites and push them from their orbits. (see ExoArticle here) Russia has nearly identical counter-space capabilities. As recently as July, the US and UK governments accused Russia of illegally testing a space stalker in orbit.

• Without the dominant protection of our assets in space, US forces patrolling the South China Sea could find themselves under attack and unable to respond due to our satellites being disabled. Russia could do the same to nudge US satellites out of orbit, rendering vulnerable our NATO forces in Eastern Europe. Space Force will need considerably more support and less bureaucratic squabbling to provide this essential protection – and it must happen in relatively short order.

• [Editor’s Note]   The US’ military and those of China and Russia are well aware of the United States’ vast but undisclosed secret space program which is decades ahead of anything that the Chinese or the Russians have. Starting with Space Force, President Trump is consolidating our disparate space assets and programs to secure space dominance in near orbit (cis-lunar) space while the Navy’s Solar Warden will continue to patrol the solar system and deep space. Not that there aren’t other advanced space programs out there to worry about, such as the Draco Reptilian fleet and the Nazi Dark Fleet. But from an exopolitical standpoint, China and Russia are the least of our worries.

 

For the last decade, Beijing and Moscow have both reorganized their militaries — and developed weapons — to wage a space war against the United States. The situation is now so precarious that America could face a Pearl Harbor in space.

As far back as 2007, China shocked the world when it launched an antisatellite (ASAT) weapon into low-Earth orbit and decimated a derelict weather satellite. ASAT technology is not new but the way China deployed it was both irresponsible and aggressive. Traditionally, countries have publicly announced when they planned to conduct ASAT tests, because they could damage satellites passing by the test site. China told no one. Then, China’s ASAT test created the largest debris field in human history. It also signaled to the West that China was ready for a new form of combat.

China has invested heavily in lasers powerful enough to blind American satellites. Beijing has also developed the ability to “spoof” American GPS satellites, which could confuse American military units and weapons in times of war. On Sept. 3, China surprised the world when it launched a reusable spacecraft that, before returning to Earth three days later, released a smaller object that still remains in orbit today. There is concern that this device is an offensive “space stalker” designed to covertly tailgate American satellites and push them from their orbits.

Russia has nearly identical counterspace capabilities. As recently as July, the US and UK governments accused Russia of illegally testing a space stalker in orbit.

This is all deeply worrying. Either Beijing or Moscow could use their technological might to rewrite the geopolitical order in their favor. US forces patrolling the South China Sea, for example, could find themselves under attack from China but unable to call for reinforcements or coordinate a viable defense — simply because their critical satellites have been destroyed before the siege began.

Similarly, Russia could disable NATO forces charged with defending an Eastern European state — simply by nudging US satellites out of orbit.

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The Pentagon Has No Intention of Sharing UFO Information

Article by Jazz Shaw                                  September 10, 2020                                         (hotair.com)

• All of the UFO/UAP (‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’) news this summer created a considerable excitement in the air. Florida Senator Marco Rubio made an unprecedented request for a report from the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force. Most people, civilians and government officials alike, didn’t even know we HAD a UFO task force. Then the Pentagon came out and officially announced the ‘formation’ of the task force. Then the NY Times published an article alluding to additional programs and an acknowledgment of a government “crash retrieval program” that could be in possession of “off-world materials”. Heady stuff.

• Journalist Roger Glassel contacted Pentagon UAP spokesperson Susan Gough with some specific questions about the new task force. Ms. Gough provided answers in a professional fashion, but seemingly doused most hopes for some new era of government transparency on the subject.

• Question: Will the public be informed about any findings from the UAPTF of the nature and/or origins of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena?   Answer: “[T]o avoid disclosing information that may be useful to our adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examination of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.” (ie: “No.”)

• Question: Will the newly established UAP Task Force look into other aspects of the nature and origins of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, or will the UAPTF just look at the aspect of UAP being a potential threat to U.S. national security?   Answer: “The Department of Defense established the [task force] to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAP incursions into our training ranges and designated airspace. The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAP incursions that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security. (ie: Pentagon is sticking to its position that they have no curiosity as to what these things are or where they came from, and are solely focusing on the potential national security threat, severely limiting the scope of what might be examined.)

• To summarize, the Pentagon’s UFO task force will take reports about UAP encounters if they might constitute a threat to national security and they promise to do a better job collecting and correlating such reports. But they won’t be releasing any of it for public consumption. The same goes for the Senate Intelligence Committee and the report the “requested”. That committee request may not even make it to the House bill, much less law. Furthermore, Congress hasn’t tied the request to any funding, so the DoD is under no obligation to comply. They can simply thank Congress for their input and proceed to ignore them, just as Ms Gough evaded the journalist’s questions.

• If there’s going to be any serious UFO disclosure it’s going to be up to the private sector and organizations such as Tom DeLonge’s ‘To The Stars Academy’, or whistleblowers like Luis Elizondo, or some high-ranking deathbed confessions – which the Pentagon can deny or obfuscate.

 

                 Roger Glassel

Some disappointing news on the UFO front came out this week, likely dampening the hopes of many people in the ufology community who have been eagerly looking forward to some sort of forthcoming disclosure from the government on this subject. As regular readers are already aware, there was considerable excitement in the air this summer following a number of revelations and surprising announcements on the topic of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). First we saw a request from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, led by Marco Rubio, for a public report from the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force. This came as quite a surprise to people, including many in the government, who didn’t even know that we had a UAP Task Force.

           Susan Gough

That was followed by an official announcement of the formation of the task force by the Pentagon. After that, major newspapers such as the New York Times began digging into the subject, even raising the prospect of the potential disclosure of additional programs that might even include an acknowledgment of a government “crash retrieval program” that could be in possession of “off-world materials.

This led journalists in the ufology field to press the Pentagon for additional details. One such person was investigative journalist Roger Glassel, who contacted Pentagon UAP spokesperson Susan Gough with a number of specific questions about the new task force and its anticipated activities as they proceed to compile existing information on UAP encounters by the military and create channels for the collection of future reports. I first saw the article teased on Twitter.

The answers Roger received give us the disappointing news I alluded to above. Ms. Gough (which is pronounced “Goff,” by the way, as I only learned from her this week) provided Glassel with answers in a professional fashion, but seemingly doused most hopes for some new era of government transparency on the subject. Here are two of the key questions that produced bad news.

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Space Coast Air Force Members Transfer to Space Force

Article by Emre Kelly                                 September 4, 2020                              (floridatoday.com)

• On September 2nd, more than two dozen Air Force service members stationed on the Space Coast of Florida transferred to the Space Force. They are a small part of the 2,410 active-duty airmen that will transfer to the military’s newest branch before the end of the year.

• 26 airmen – 19 officers and seven enlisted – transferred during ceremonies at Patrick Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. All are assigned to either the space operations or space systems operations career fields.

• To transfer, airmen have to officially separate from the Air Force and re-commit to the Space Force under the same rank. Both officers and enlisted personnel must agreed to a two-year minimum active-duty commitment.

• “This is a momentous occasion for the Space Force and for each of these space professionals,” said Space Force leader Gen. John “Jay” Raymond said. “We intend to give our newest Space Force members and their families the special recognition they deserve.”

• What still remains to be seen are the planned name changes of the Space Coast’s two Air Force bases to Patrick Space Force Base and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. A ceremony was planned earlier this year, but the coronavirus pandemic put those plans on hold. A wing spokesperson confirmed the name changes will still happen, but the timeline is under review.

 

More than two dozen Air Force service members stationed on the Space Coast officially transferred to the Space Force on Wednesday, marking a small part of the overall effort to move thousands to the military’s newest branch before the end of the year.

             Gen. John “Jay” Raymond

The 45th Space Wing confirmed that 26 airmen – 19 officers and seven enlisted – transferred during small ceremonies led by their squadron commanders at Patrick Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. All are assigned to either the space operations or space systems operations career fields.

The local moves are part of a branch-wide effort that started Tuesday to transfer 2,410 active-duty airmen in those two roles to the Space Force over the coming months. The first batch includes airmen who volunteered for the transition in May.

To transfer, airmen have to officially separate from the Air Force during the ceremony and re-commit to the new service under the same rank. Both officers and enlisted personnel agreed to a two-year minimum active-duty commitment to the Space Force.

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China Working Toward ‘Space Great Power Status’

Article by Jack Beyrer                                    September 2, 2020                                    (freebeacon.com)

• In September 1st, the US Department of Defense (DoD) rolled out its ‘2020 China Military Power Report’. (see here) In assessing Beijing’s militarized space program’s capacity and long-term strategy, the Pentagon announced that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has every intention of reaching “space great power status”.

• President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist leadership have developed a “space great power by every measurable yardstick that you can throw out there, not least of which is capacity for their military,” the DoD’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Chad Sbragia, told the Washington Free Beacon.

• The DoD report concurs: “The PRC’s space enterprise continues to mature rapidly. Beijing has devoted significant resources to growing all aspects of its space program, from military space applications to civil applications such as profit-generating launches, scientific endeavors, and space exploration,” the report reads. “Its primary target is the United States.”

• China now boasts the second-largest fleet of satellites, regularly works with Russia on weapons development, and has launched a series of rockets and rovers as it takes aim at Mars. The report details China’s plans to have its own permanent space station by 2022 and a lunar surface research station by 2025. Significant portions of China’s missile warning and military communication networks will also reside in space.

• Such efforts have required the full thrust of Chinese Communist Party investment and commitment. “They have a very clear and definitive aspiration for becoming a global power preeminent by all measures, at least in terms of status, to any others. And space is not the least of that,” says Sbragia.

• Meanwhile in Washington, the 2018 National Defense Strategy (see here) explicitly outlines space as a potential “warfighting domain,” and calls for extensive investment in space-facing defensive capabilities. Donald Trump has promised to make Space Force a priority in his second term.

 

A top Pentagon official announced on Tuesday that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is building its capacities

               Chad Sbragia

toward “space great power status.”

“When you listen to the Chinese Communist leadership—particularly Xi Jinping, who serves as the core of the party—he’s outlined very specific requirements and expectations,” Chad Sbragia, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, told the Washington Free Beacon. “Xi’s done the same in terms of having space great power status—and that’s being a space great power by every measurable yardstick that you can throw out there, not least of which is capacity for their military.”

Sbragia’s comments came at an American Enterprise Institute event rolling out the 2020 China Military Power Report. The report offers a bird’s-eye view assessment of China’s military capacities, as well as its long-term strategy and trajectory. It also details Beijing’s development of a militarized space program.

“The PRC’s space enterprise continues to mature rapidly. Beijing has devoted significant resources to growing all aspects of its space program, from military space applications to civil applications such as profit-generating launches, scientific endeavors, and space exploration,” the report reads. “Its primary target is the United States.”

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Army’s Senior Space Officer Preparing Space Force for Army Forces

Article by Carrie Campbell and Lira Frye                              August 28, 2020                              (dvidshub.net)

• On August 21st, during the flag unfurling ceremony with U.S. Space Command at Schriever Air Force Base, the Army’s senior space officer, Lt. Gen. Daniel L. Karbler, highlighted the importance of a warfighting culture and preparing the U.S. Space Force to accept Army forces. “As we look down the road and we look at the potential for transfer of Army forces to the USSF, we have to make sure that it’s a conditions-based transfer and that before we do that, it’s done with meticulous analysis,” Karbler said. “My commitment to you (USSPACECOM) is that we retain that warfighting readiness with any kind of transfer decisions.”

• Transfers from the Air Force to the U.S. Space Force started in 2020. The timeframe for Army or Navy personnel transfers to the Space Force is no earlier than 2022. The Army Service Component Command for USSPACECOM will integrate ‘Army space’ into the USSPACECOM warfighting culture through trained and ready Army forces performing crucial missions around the globe and supporting other combatant commands.

• In his first official act as commander of the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Lt. Gen. James H. Dickinson said at the unfurling ceremony, “In my mind, this is a great integration opportunity for some of our very important mission areas between USSTRATCOM and USSPACECOM.” At an August 20th ceremony at Peterson Air Force Base, Dickenson said, “To be clear, our objective is to deter a conflict …extending to space, and to enable our nation to compete in space from a position of strength. However, should deterrence fail, our imperative is clear: we will win. To do so, we will require a space warfighting culture that permeates our entire command.”

• Karbler said his command will support Dickenson’s warfighting mindset. “My commitment to you is to make sure our operational brigades and the developmental work we do is at the forefront of that warfighting readiness,” said Karbler. “Winning matters. But I will tell you that in space, winning first really matters.”

 

SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – During an historic ceremony solidifying the relationship between the Army’s and the Department of Defense’s space commands Aug. 21, the Army’s senior space officer highlighted the importance of a warfighting culture and preparing the U.S. Space Force to accept Army forces.

    Lt. Gen. Daniel L. Karbler

During the flag unfurling ceremony with U.S. Space Command at Schriever Air Force Base, Lt. Gen. Daniel L.

  Lt. Gen. James H. Dickinson

Karbler, USASMDC commanding general, emphasized readiness, stressing that any transfer of forces into the U.S. Space Force is conditions based to ensure no readiness gap.

“As we look down the road and we look at the potential for transfer of Army forces to the USSF, we have to make sure that it’s a conditions-based transfer and that before we do that, it’s done with meticulous analysis,” Karbler said. “My commitment to you (USSPACECOM) is that we retain that warfighting readiness with any kind of transfer decisions.”

Transfers from the Air Force to the U.S. Space Force started in fiscal year 2020. The timeframe for Army or Navy space requirements to move to the Space Force remains no earlier than fiscal year 2022 or 2023.

The flag unfurling designated USASMDC as the Army Service Component Command for USSPACECOM. In this role, USASMDC integrates Army space into the USSPACECOM warfighting culture through trained and ready Army forces performing crucial no-fail missions around the globe while continuing support to other combatant commands.

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Space Weapons to Counter China and Russia

Article by Dave Makichuk                                August 28, 2020                                 (asiatimes.com)

• The Pentagon and President Trump consider space to be a warfighting domain on par with land, air and sea. And the newly established US Space Command indeed faces a clear and present danger. China has already tested anti-satellite missiles, while Russia has deployed on-orbit systems that could threaten US satellites. America’s adversaries now have the ability to use jammers, ground-based lasers, ground- and space-based kinetic weapons, attack ground facilities that support space operations or even carry out a nuclear detonation in space.

• “As a geographical combatant command focused on the space domain, those are the things that keep us up at night,” says Army National Guard Major General Tim Lawson. But Lawson told the virtual audience at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Space Warfighting Industry Forum (on August 21st) that America has new capabilities are on the way to mitigate the threat. But these capabilities classified as “black budget” projects, and he can’t tell you about them.

• “A lot of times you listen to that threat picture and you kind of get a little dismayed at what you’re seeing, but then you look at our side and — trust me — we’ve got some things coming. So, it’s good news,” said Lawson.

• Lawson highlighted the need to have resilient space architectures that utilize large networks of small communications and intelligence-gathering satellites that would be less vulnerable to enemy attacks. “If you had hundreds of small satellites up there in a constellation … the enemy can take out quite a few of those and it will really never have an impact on us,” he said. “That really is the resiliency piece that we’re seeking out there and we need.” The ‘Spacecom’ command is also interested in developments in space logistics such as on-orbit refueling or servicing of satellites. Lawson says that if American industry could put assets into orbit to overwhelm adversaries’ ability to shoot them down, “it would be a game-changer”.

• But it’s not the first time a US president has launched a major military defense project in space. President Ronald Reagan envisioned a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) as an array of space-based X-ray lasers would detect and deflect any nukes headed toward the United States. On March 23, 1983, Reagan called upon the US scientists who “gave us nuclear weapons to turn their great talents to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.”

• But politicians and scientists argued that SDI was overambitious. Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy referred to it as Reagan’s ”reckless ‘Star Wars’ schemes.” The “Star Wars” moniker stuck. Over the course of 10 years, the government spent up to $30 billion on developing the concept without achieving operational status. It was scrapped by President Bill Clinton in 1993.

• [Editor’s Note]   So where did this $30 billion go? By coincidence, the 1980’s was when the US Navy created and deployed its deep space fleet of eight oversized submarine-type warp drive spacecraft known as ‘Solar Warden’, unbeknownst to the public.

 

To say that officials at the newly established US Space Command face a clear and present danger, is an understatement.

                       Tim Lawson

America’s adversaries now have the ability to use jammers, ground-based lasers, ground- and space-based kinetic weapons, attack ground facilities that support space operations or even carry out a nuclear detonation in space.

               Ronald Reagan

China has already tested anti-satellite missiles, while Russia has deployed on-orbit systems that could threaten US satellites.

But according to Army National Guard Major General Tim Lawson, new capabilities are on the way to mitigate the threat — he just can’t tell you about them, because they are classified under the umbrella of “black budget” projects.

“As a geographical combatant command focused on the space domain, those are the things that keep us up at night,” said Lawson, who made the remarks at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Space Warfighting Industry Forum, which was held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

                Sen. Edward Kennedy

“I would love to sit behind some closed doors and have this discussion on some of the things we really think we need,” Lawson said when asked about the types of capabilities Spacecom is seeking.

“A lot of times you listen to that threat picture and you kind of get a little dismayed at what you’re seeing, but then you look at our side and — trust me — we’ve got some things coming. So, it’s good news.”

Significant portions of the US military’s space programs are classified, making it difficult for outside observers to know what’s coming down the pike.

Meanwhile, Lawson highlighted the need to have resilient space architectures that utilize large networks of small communications and intelligence-gathering satellites that would be less vulnerable to enemy attacks.

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Ex-Air Force Members’ Stories Will Convince You UFOs Are Real

Article by Patrice A. Kelly                             August 27, 2020                                   (filmdaily.co)

• Are UFOs real? According to Luis Elizondo, former military intelligence officer and past head of the Pentagon’s now-defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, “I think we’re at the point now where we’re beyond reasonable doubt that these things exist. We know they’re there – we have some of the greatest technology in the world that has confirmed their existence.”

• Since the term ‘UFO’ describes aerial objects that defy explanation, some believe that they represent technology deployed by a hostile human source. Evaluating the potential threats posed by UFOs should, therefore, involve the collaboration of leaders around the world, said Elizondo, who is now a director of global security and special programs at To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a private agency pursuing evidence of UFOs.

• The U.S. government has been collecting reports on UFOs since the 1950s – in the Air Force’s Project Blue Book, from 1952 to 1969, and through the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), a federal agency that compiled witness accounts of UFO encounters from the 1950s through the 1980s.

• On November 14, 2004, Cmdr. David Fravor (pictured above) and Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight were on a routine training mission in their F/A-18F Super Hornets, 100 miles out into the Pacific from the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier. An operations officer aboard the USS Princeton asked if they were carrying weapons. Commander Fravor replied that they only carried ‘dummy missiles’ as they had not been expecting any hostile exchanges off the coast of San Diego. “Well, we’ve got a real-world vector for you,” the radio operator said.

• For two weeks, the Princeton had been tracking UFOs. The objects appeared suddenly at 80,000 feet, and then hurtled toward the sea, eventually stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering. Then they either dropped out of radar range or shot straight back up. The radio operator instructed the pilots to investigate. The two fighter jets headed toward the “merge plot” with objects. When they reached that point, they could see nothing around them. Then Fravor looked down at the ocean. Although the seas were calm, waves were breaking over something that was just below the surface. Whatever it was, it was big enough to cause the sea to churn.

• Hovering fifty feet above the churn was an oval aircraft of some kind, whitish, around forty feet long. The craft was jumping around erratically, staying over the wave disturbance but not moving in any specific direction. Commander Fravor began a circular descent to get a closer look, but as he got nearer the object began ascending toward him, as if the UFO were coming to meet him halfway. Fravor abandoned his slow circular descent and headed straight for the object. Then the object peeled away. “It accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said Fravor.

• The operations officer on the Princeton told the jets to rendezvous at a ‘cap point’ sixty miles away. The jets were near the cap point when the Princeton radioed: “Sir, you won’t believe it,” the radio operator said, “but that thing is (already) at your cap point.” “We were at least 40 miles away, and in less than a minute this thing was already at our cap point,” Commander Fravor related. By the time the two fighter jets arrived at the rendezvous point, the object had disappeared.

• The fighter jets returned to the Nimitz, where everyone on the ship had learned of Commander Fravor’s encounter and was making fun of him. Fravor’s superiors did not investigate further and he went on with his career, deploying to the Persian Gulf to provide air support to ground troops during the Iraq war. But recalling that day off of San Deigo, Commander Fravor said, “I have no idea what I saw.” “It had no plumes, wings or rotors and outran our F-18s.” Fravor added, “I want to fly one.”

 

There’s no question that the world has an ongoing fascination with UFOs. Although reports of sightings are often met with derision– as delusions of people who wear “tin-foil hats” – there is no doubt that many people have seen something unexplained whizzing through the sky. So the question becomes – are UFOs real?

According to Luis Elizondo, former military intelligence officer and past head of the Pentagon’s now-defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), they just might be.

They do exist . . .

“I think we’re at the point now where we’re beyond reasonable doubt that these things exist,” Elizondo said. “We know they’re there – we have some of the greatest technology in the world that has confirmed their existence.”

Though some label UFOs as alien spacecraft, the term merely describes aerial objects that defy explanation. One possibility is that they represent technology deployed by a hostile human source, so it’s impossible to say for sure that UFOs are harmless, Elizondo said.

        Luis Elizondo

Evaluating the potential threats posed by UFOs should, therefore, involve the collaboration of leaders around the world, remarked Elizondo, who left the Pentagon in 2017 and is now a director of global security and special programs at To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a private agency pursuing evidence of UFOs.

UFOs or UAPs

UFOs are also known as unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs. The U.S. government has been collecting reports of these enigmatic objects since the 1950s in the Air Force’s Project Blue Book, from 1952 to 1969, and through the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), a federal agency that compiled witness accounts of UFO encounters from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Nimitz sighting

One of the most famous cases of UFO sightings happened to pilots assigned to the USS Nimitz on November 14, 2004, over the Pacific Ocean. Cmdr. David Fravor and Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight were on a routine training mission 100 miles out into the Pacific when the radio in each of their F/A-18F Super Hornets crackled. An operations officer aboard the U.S.S. Princeton, a Navy cruiser, wanted to know if they were carrying weapons.

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Pentagon Launches Task Force to Study UFOs

Article by Brandi Vincent                                 August 17, 2020                                   (nextgov.com)

• On August 14th, Pentagon officials confirmed the recent creation of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, an investigative unit to probe puzzling UFO sightings and encounters by U.S. military personnel, particularly near military bases and restricted airspace. The Task Force will be steered by the Department of the Navy.

• “[The DoD] established the (Task Force) to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs,” Pentagon officials wrote in a press release. “The mission of the Task Force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.”

• Though Defense personnel did not immediately clarify what sparked the creation of the new task force, in April the defense department authorized the release of three videos captured by U.S. Navy pilots that appear to show airborne objects operating in inexplicably aerodynamic ways. Shortly after the release, President Trump deemed the footage “a hell of a video,” and added, “I just wonder if it’s real.”

• In May, The Drive published multiple hazard reports spotlighting brushes between unidentified aerial phenomena and Navy aircraft obtained through a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA request. (see previous ExoArticle here)

• In June, The Senate Intelligence Committee voted to require the Defense Department to craft a detailed report for the public synthesizing all UAP-related data so far collected. (see previous ExoArticle here)

• “[T]he safety of our personnel and the security of our operations are of paramount concern,” Pentagon officials said. “[Defense] and the military departments take any incursions by unauthorized aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace very seriously and examine each report.”

 

The Pentagon set up a new investigative unit to probe puzzling UFO sightings and incidents reportedly encountered by U.S. military personnel, officials confirmed Friday.

Officially assembled in early August, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, or UAPTF, will be steered by the Department of the Navy. Its formation follows increasing focus from Defense officials and Congress on unexplained flying objects spotted near military bases and restricted airspace.

“[Defense] established the UAPTF to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs,” Pentagon officials wrote in a press release published Friday. “The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.”

Though Defense personnel did not immediately clarify what sparked the creation of the new task force, the department in April authorized the release of three videos captured by U.S. Navy pilots that appear to show airborne objects operating in inexplicably aerodynamic ways. “The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified,’” the agency revealed at the time. Shortly after the release, President Trump deemed the footage “a hell of a video,”—and added, “I just wonder if it’s real.”

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Space Force Graduates First Candidates of Space Intelligence Program

Article by 1st Lt. Tyler Whiting                                  July 23, 2020                                 (spaceforce.mil)

• June 23rd, the Space Force Intelligence Intern Program (SIIP) graduated its first two interns, Capt. Rebecca Bosworth and Capt. Devin Hightower (the two standing to the right in the photo above). The two graduating interns spent two years working alongside and learning from some of the most experienced intelligence personnel in the space community. The graduates then briefed Chief of Space Operations, General John “Jay” Raymond, his senior leadership, and the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance for the U.S. Air Force.

• The Space Force Intelligence Intern Program was created in 2018 after recognizing there was no in-depth training for intelligence professionals to address the rising threats in the space domain. “The program itself went from inception to execution in less than five months,” said spokesperson Col. Suzy Streeter. “… and they surpassed all expectations. Both were game-changers for space operations and the intelligence community.”

• Intelligence support has historically been provided through small intelligence elements responsible for numerous programs. But the SIIP program interns were embedded directly with the team responsible for test and development of a new system, which improved their ability to provide intelligence support to the program. “The best advice is to be creative, always keep the problem in mind, and to always find a way over obstacles that will inevitably arise,” said Hightower.

• Both graduates will be assigned to the Space Security and Defense Program’s Threat Assessment Division, and have volunteered to join the US Space Force once the transfer window opens. “Originally we became a part of this program to develop ourselves into leaders to improve space intelligence in the Air Force. Now, we are helping to lay some of the groundwork for a new branch of the DoD,” said Hightower. “The best part of the transition to the USSF is that the vision is constantly evolving.”

• Two new interns will be added to the program each year. The program itself will continue to evolve based on feedback from graduating participants to improve and formalize intelligence support to space operations needed to ensure the U.S. continued superiority and ability fight and win in a conflict, should it extend to space.

 

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — The new U.S. Space Force Intelligence Intern Program graduated its first cohort on June 23, 2020, preparing them to succeed in future space intelligence leadership roles. The two graduating interns had an opportunity to out-brief the Chief of Space Operations, General John “Jay” Raymond, his senior leadership, and the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, headquarters U.S. Air Force.

The Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Directorate at Headquarters, USSF (formerly Air Force Space Command) and the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Cyber Effects Operations at Headquarters U.S. Air Force stood up the SIIP in July 2018, after recognizing there was no in-depth training for intelligence professionals to address the rising threats in the space domain.

The SIIP is designed to build a foundational knowledge of space intelligence for its participants. Interns spend two years working alongside and learning from some of the most experienced intelligence personnel in the space community.

The SIIP placed two company grade officers in its inaugural cohort: Capt. Rebecca Bosworth and Capt. Devin Hightower – in the Space Security and Defense Program’s Threat Assessment Division, where they worked on real-world, experiential projects concerning space threats, trends and how they affect U.S. space assets.

For two years, Bosworth and Hightower have been growing their experience as intelligence professionals in the space domain, improving the USSF’s ability to effectively integrate and action ISR data in support of the services mission to protect U.S. and allied interest in space.

“The program itself went from inception to execution in less than five months so there wasn’t much time to create expectations or structure,” said Col. Suzy Streeter, director of ISR at HQ, USSF. “Nonetheless, I had full confidence in their abilities to roll with whatever came their way and they surpassed all expectations. Both were game-changers for space operations and the intelligence community.”

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Are UAPs a THREAT? SOME OF THEM A THREAT? NO THREAT AT ALL?

UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy "CBS Reports" (1966) - YouTube
Come on, let’s try to think about these issues with greater granularity…or detail about the threat issue because we (all of us) tend to oversimplify and choose sides. I recently saw a video in which the anti threat + consciousness accepting position was stressed in excess, forgetting about the few negative interaction accounts in Ufology.
 
For what we seem to know out of decades of contact research and analyzing behavior, most are not an actual threat (technology + bad intentions or hostility against us). Some …a few are an actual threat, but they possibly are (for the most part) under a certain control or, according to some contactees (under an apparent agreement with a large confluence of several groups) not to exceed in their activities. There’s complexity here.
 
Our need to understand through over-simplification may be our own primary internal “enemy.”
Yes, there are SOME cases (a minority) that seem to be “negative.”
Depiction of a craft throwing a blood-suctioning beam on some individuals as was seen in Colares, Brazil, and thoroughly researched by the Brazilian Army.
 
Perhaps 6-9% according to the anonymous, international, FREE Foundation survey with more than 3,000 contact experiencer anonymous respondents and considering knowledge about a few verified hostile cases like the Colares case in Brazil (and what current cattle mutilations in Argentina and Skinwalker Ranch or other places might mean) relate to the actual threat that -according to some serious contact experiencers – are under control or functioning under some agreed-upon limitations.  
But we also need to find out who among “them” already is or can be our FRIENDS and ALLIES in spite of our current human frailties. And some serious contact experiences that have provided evidence over decades appear to show that specific varieties have respected us integrally during more than 40 years of interactions.
 
But since – among many of the movers and shakers – there is no direct knowledge about who is who among “them,” naturally, for any military, aviation, and national security evaluation team most have to be considered a “POTENTIAL” threat. However, whether we are supposed to depend on external protection forever or evolve in consciousness and – perhaps – not need external protection is an open question.
 
Moreover, as a species, we should be careful not to extend our own bellicose ways into space with nuclear weapons and especially directed against otherworldly civilizations in unfounded ways, without becoming part of a more inclusive exopolitical inter-world/inter reality agreement! At least not until we mature as a unified species worldwide that takes care of its planetary life and of its own members!
 
Thus, I can agree with Dr. Greer in some issues but not in his “all are benevolent,” absolutist stance. And I also agree about some issues with the ‘space brother’ crowd (in which I participate) that – in more recent times – has acquired a more balanced view in general. This means that (in spite of popular misconceptions) the entirety of this “crowd” doesn’t necessarily believe that “all are benevolent.” Again, we need to try to think with greater granularity and to… “CONNECT THE DOTS.”
UAPs: THREAT? SOME THREAT? NO THREAT?
We need to teach ourselves to overcome the habit of dichotomizing and over-simplifying things.  It is the tendency of our unprepared human minds to rely on fractional thinking, choosing the information that confirms our beliefs (cognitive bias), getting us into mutually distrusting identity groups based on our sacred partial beliefs and this doesn’t allow our species to move forward in understanding. But if we ‘grow up’ and enough of us reach a plateau of stable integrative values, thinking, activities (as oftentimes benign extraterrestrial entities tell “experiencers” that we are capable of doing), then we may be able to establish a reasonable degree of public open contact with the kindest types of non-human intelligent beings that we can choose. Through it, we may not just learn who is who among the intelligences behind the UFOs but also learn about the rules and principles governing a cosmic society probably waiting for us to join.  
What if besides the potential threat of an object that approaches our airplanes and some weird cases of cattle mutilation and a few deleterious cases there is some simple people that have been maintaining a close, friendly and mutually respectful relationship over decades of “working” good causes with benevolent extraterrestrials, like in the Amicizia case from Italy and some Mision Rahma groups or participants capable of working in a sincere ad rational way? Should contacteeism remain a taboo or become a possibility for learning about who is who among “them?”
 
To get a better handle on who is who in the non-human exopolitical community we also need to invest time in direct contact experience efforts and studies of the information bequeathed to us by persons that have allegedly experienced such contacts. And this includes remote viewing testimonies of vetted and credible former military viewers like former Sargeant Leonard E. Buchanan who mentions a whole variety of friendly and unfriendly psychic and non-psychic gray-type beings and other types of friendly and unfriendly ETs. This is after being asked to research the cases that project Blue Book had to admit as proven.
 
But is the only reason that the “threat” narrative is so much mentioned because it mobilizes politicians? Because it is sincere and natural to consider a “potential threat?” Because it is convenient either to lay the ground for a fake extraterrestrial invasion that would give more power to the powers that be? All of the above? Some of the above?
 
If we really find these issues important and care to find out, we really need to engage in a really serious COMPREHENSIVE study!

House Lawmakers Propose Navy Ranks for Space Force

Article by Oriana Pawlyk                                 July 21, 2020                                 (military.com)

• A House of Representatives amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, as proposed by Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, would have the Space Force adopt the Navy’s ranks and structure. On July 20th, the House approved the proposed amendment to the NDAA legislation, and the vote on the overall bill is pending.

• Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, said that “a good reason to use Navy ranks in the Space Force is to better distinguish [Space Force] personnel from Air Force personnel, kind of like [the Marine Corps] using different ranks than the Navy.”

• Retired Lt. Col. Peter Garretson said that a naval command structure would align with strategic similarities space operations have to laws of the sea. “In maritime theory, navies exist in order to secure commerce,” he said. The space domain has evolved beyond putting equipment in orbit to fostering free movement for commercial purposes, much like ocean shipping routes. Businessmen such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are now monetizing the domain and even plan to create space colonies. “Once that happens,” said Garretson, “it starts to look a lot more like naval power.”

• Last month, Space Force announced how its personnel will be organized. The service will operate with three primary field commands: Space Operations Command which will support combatant commanders with Space Force personnel and capabilities; Space Systems Command which will acquire space systems from industry; and Space Training and Readiness Command which will be responsible for training space professionals.

• Other pending Space Force decisions include uniform updates, insignia and a logo design. Officials are also deciding what to call its members.

 

House lawmakers have signed off on a proposal calling for the military’s sixth branch to adopt the Navy’s ranks and structure.

             Todd Harrison

 

                  Rep. Dan Crenshaw

The amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, proposed by Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, would require the Space Force to use “the same system and rank structure as is used in the Navy,” according to a summary of the text. Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, medically retired as a lieutenant commander.

The House approved proposed amendments to the NDAA legislation in a 336-71 vote Monday; it is expected to vote on the overall bill this week.
“A good reason to use Navy ranks in the Space Force is to better distinguish [Space Force] personnel from Air Force personnel, kind of like [the Marine Corps] using different ranks than the Navy,” Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, said last week via Twitter.

Harrison had previously told Military.com that Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, head of the Space Force, getting the title of “chief of space operations” is similar to the Navy’s “chief of naval operations” role — hinting that the newest branch of the military could follow in the Navy’s footsteps.

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The Ripple Effects of a Military Space Skirmish

Article by Ramin Skibba and Undark                                July 12, 2020                              (theatlantic.com)

• On April 22, with the successful launch of a military reconnaissance satellite, Iran joined a growing list of nations having weapons and military systems in orbit. In April, Russia tested a missile program designed to destroy satellites, and in March 2019, India launched an anti-satellite weapon. Many more countries now have space programs, including Iran, North Korea, France, Japan, and Israel.

• Two think-tanks, e.g.: the Secure World Foundation in Broomfield, Colorado, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., both released reports this year (see SWF report here; see CSIS report here) pointing to an increase in countries deploying satellite-destroying weaponry and disruptive technologies that could put all peaceful activities in space at risk. Many of these technologies could ratchet up an arms race or spark an actual skirmish in space.

• “What worries us in the international community is that there aren’t necessarily any guardrails for how people are going to start interfering with others’ space systems,” said Daniel Porras, a space security fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva.

• Thousands of satellites already circle low-Earth orbit (below an altitude of 1,200 miles) to provide key services such as internet access, GPS signals, long-distance communications, and weather information. More than half of those satellites are from the U.S., and most of the rest are from China and Russia. Any missile that smashes into a satellite would disperse thousands of bits of debris. “If you create debris, it might just as well come back and hit one of your own satellites,” says David Burbach, a national security affairs expert at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. “So I think we’re pretty unlikely to see countries actually use those capabilities.”

• When China conducted an anti-satellite missile test in 2007, it created a massive cloud of space junk that drew international condemnation. India’s engineers tried to limit debris from their recent test by conducting it at a low altitude, so that Earth’s gravity would pull the pieces down and they would burn up on descent. But some pieces were flung up to the International Space Station’s orbit. There were no collisions; as of February, only 15 trackable pieces of debris remained in orbit.

• A number of countries are developing new military technologies for space. France is working on laser beams that could dazzle another country’s satellite, preventing it from taking pictures of classified targets. North Korea is studying how to jam radio frequency signals sent to or from a satellite. And Iran is devising cyberattacks that could interfere with satellite systems. Meanwhile, the big three space heavyweights – the U.S., Russia, and China – are already capable of all three approaches, according to the SWF report.

• The big three have also begun to develop satellites that can be used as surveillance devices or weapons. A satellite could maneuver within miles of a rival’s classified satellite, snap photos of equipment and transmit the pictures down to Earth. Or the satellite could sidle up to another and spray its counterpart’s lenses or cover its solar panels, cutting off power and rendering it useless. Russia may be ahead with this technology. Last fall, Space Force General John “Jay” Raymond accused Russia of deploying a satellite near a U.S. spy satellite, which he called a “potentially threatening behavior.”

• The SWF report notes that an incident or misunderstanding could escalate tensions if it’s perceived as an attack. With the new Space Force, the U.S. Defense Department seeks to “strengthen deterrence” and improve capabilities to “defend our vital assets in space,” says Space Force spokesperson Christina Hoggatt. The U.S. military will focus on making satellites more resilient to attack, however, rather than developing offensive weapons, said Hoggatt.

• Tense regional relationships could be particularly unpredictable. For example, if North Korean leaders found themselves in a standoff with South Korea and the U.S., they might launch and detonate a nuclear weapon in space where the radiation would disable most satellites. The U.N. and other international groups – including SWF and the Outer Space Institute, a global research organization based in British Columbia – are working to avoid such scenarios.

• Existing international laws offer little guidance. While the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibit weapons of mass destruction in space, they don’t explicitly limit other kinds of space weapons, tests, or military space forces. So until non-interference rules involving space weaponry are hammered out, unexpected satellite tests will inevitably fuel speculation and paranoia.

 

On April 22, after several failed attempts, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a successful launch of what it described as a military reconnaissance satellite. That satellite joined a growing list of weapons and military systems in orbit, including those from Russia (which in April tested a missile program designed to destroy satellites) and India (which launched an anti-satellite weapon in March 2019).

Experts like Brian Weeden, director of program planning at the Secure World Foundation (SWF), a nonpartisan think tank based in Broomfield, Colorado, worry that these developments—all confirmed by the newly rebranded United States Space Force—threaten to lift earthly conflicts to new heights and put all space activities, peaceful and military alike, at risk. Researchers at SWF and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., both released reports this year on the rapidly evolving state of affairs. The reports suggest that the biggest players in space have upgraded their military abilities, including satellite-destroying weapons and technologies that disrupt spacecraft, by, for instance, blocking data collection or transmission.

Many of these technologies, if deployed, could ratchet up an arms race and even spark a skirmish in space, the SWF and CSIS researchers caution. Blowing up a single satellite scatters debris throughout the atmosphere, said Weeden, co-editor of the SWF report. Such an explosion could hurl projectiles in the paths of other spacecraft and threaten the accessibility of space for everyone.

“Those are absolutely the two best reports to be looking at to get a sense of what’s going on in the space community,” said David Burbach, a national security affairs expert at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, who was not involved in the new research.

Today, Burbach added, the world is very different compared with the Cold War era, when access to space was essentially limited to the United States and the Soviet Union. Many more countries now have space programs, including India, Iran, North Korea, France, Japan, and Israel.

Despite this expansion—and the array of new space weapons—relevant policies and regulatory bodies have remained stagnant. “What worries us in the international community is that there aren’t necessarily any guardrails for how people are going to start interfering with others’ space systems,” said Daniel Porras, a space security fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva. “There are no rules of engagement.”

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Pentagon Has ‘A Lot More’ Classified UFO Videos, Ex Head of Secret Government Program Says

Article by Aristos Georgiou                            July 10, 2020                                (newsweek.com)

• “Am I surprised that the government acknowledged the validity and the veracity of those videos? Not at all,” says Luis Elizondo (pictured above), director of government programs at ‘To The Stars Academy’, told Newsweek. “It was a matter of time. They didn’t have a choice because ultimately, the paper trail goes back to the authenticity of these videos. And anybody who does a little bit of research will recognize that they are real.” “It is truly a historical moment.”

• Last year, both the Navy and the Pentagon publicly confirmed that the three UFO videos captured by Navy pilots in 2004 and 2015 are real. “I knew they were genuine,” says Elizondo. “[A]nd there’s also a lot more (UFO video) the Pentagon currently has, unfortunately (they) remain highly classified.” And he should know. Elizondo once ran the Pentagon’s secret government UFO research project known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which helped facilitate the release of three UFO videos.

• While the veracity of the videos have been confirmed, this does mean that they show alien spacecraft. Officials simply cannot explain the phenomena in the video clips. Some experts suggest that the objects could be atmospheric effects or technical glitches in the fighter jet imaging systems. Elizondo welcomes this kind of skepticism, but says, “I would just encourage those who jump to conclusions prematurely to take in all the data that’s available, because it’s not just eyewitness testimony. It is electro-optical data from some of the most sophisticated intelligence sensors that we have on the planet. It’s also radar data all looking at the same object and coming to the same conclusion that the eyewitnesses are coming to.”

• “Let’s not forget that in today’s age of social media, anytime a (UFO) video comes out, within 24 hours someone has been able to disprove it,” notes Elizondo. “In this case, that’s never happened. They truly are anomalous.”

 

The Pentagon has “a lot more” highly classified videos of so-called unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP,) the ex-head of a secretive government program has said.

Luis Elizondo—who once led the U.S. government’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which was set up to investigate UAPs—helped facilitate the release of three videos showing unidentified aerial phenomena captured by Navy pilots in 2004 and 2015.

In April this year, the Department of Defense published the declassified videos online, which had already been circulating in the public domain following unauthorized releases in 2017 and 2018 by The New York Times and a company co-founded by Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge called To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences (TTSA) that researches unidentified aerial phenomena.

Last year, Navy and Pentagon spokespeople confirmed that the videos—which show strange objects appearing to accelerate incredibly fast, travel at spectacular speeds and perform other unusual maneuvers—are real.

“Am I surprised that the government acknowledged the validity and the veracity of those videos? Not at all,” Elizondo, currently director of government programs at TTSA, told Newsweek. “It was a matter of time, they didn’t have a choice because ultimately, the paper trail goes back to the authenticity of these videos. And anybody who does a little bit of research will recognize that they are real.”

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The Perils and Promise of LEO Constellations

Article by Sandra Erwin                                 July 4, 2020                              (spacenews.com)

• Mike Griffin, the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, says that the Pentagon must reduce its dependence on large, billion-dollar satellites in geosynchronous orbit that are vulnerable to anti-satellite weapons. As an alternative, the DoD’s Space Development Agency plans to deploy satellites in ‘proliferated low Earth orbit’ constellations, or ‘PLEO’, to put up a communications transport layer and a surveillance and tracking layer of satellites for hypersonic missile defense.

• The smaller satellites comprising the PLEO constellations provide a resilient space infrastructure that is cheaper and easier to replace than geostationary systems, should they be destroyed by anti-satellite weapons. A key question is whether satellites and launch vehicles can be made cheap enough to make the cost of taking down a LEO system not worth it. “Changing the “cost equation” for an enemy will be a key challenge for DoD and the U.S. Space Force,” said Michael Martindale, the Director of Space Education for Space Force.

• ‘Low Earth orbit’ (LEO) satellites are easier to hit from ground-based anti-satellite weapons. Sophisticated in-space weaponry is not required for LEO satellites, as it would be to take down satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO).

• A recent study by Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that China and Russia, despite their rhetoric about wanting to ban weapons in space, are building arsenals of ground-based anti-satellite weaponry. This sends a message to other countries that ground-based anti-satellite weapons are fair game. Says Harrison, “With its 2019 ASAT test, India made clear that it believes kinetic Earth-to-space ASAT weapons are a legitimate means of self-defense by deterrence.”

• In their respective space-arms control proposals, China and Russia do not prohibit ground-based weapons. “Their behavior says they’re only interested in banning the capabilities that they don’t already have,” says Martindale. With more LEO systems about to be deployed by the DoD, which are vulnerable to the ground-based anti-satellite missiles, American space superiority is now being contested.

• Space Force can’t possibly protect every satellite in Earth’s orbit, so it must figure out ways to deter countries from even attempting to take one down. The United States has more to lose than anyone else if satellites become targets in a war. The key is to make it too costly for an enemy to mount an attack. “You have to reduce the value of each individual target.” Says Martindale, “[I]f there are hundreds of targets, and the enemy knows that the U.S. can replenish those assets quickly, the cost equation changes and using missiles is not as effective.”

• Such a deterrent strategy would require a ready supply of replacement satellites and rapid access to launch services so constellations can be replenished quickly and inexpensively. Right now, it generally takes years to get a DoD satellite off the ground. Space Force needs to bring this equation down to days or weeks to launch and replace a LEO positioned satellite.

 

                        Mike Griffin

The Pentagon has already created an acronym — PLEO — for its plans to deploy satellites in proliferated low Earth orbit constellations.

DoD’s Space Development Agency is leading the way as it prepares to put up a communications transport layer and a surveillance and tracking layer for hypersonic missile defense.

The Pentagon’s staunchest proponent of PLEO, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering Mike Griffin, has argued that the Pentagon must reduce its dependence on large, billion-dollar satellites in geosynchronous orbit that are vulnerable to anti-satellite weapons.

              Todd Harrison

The case for proliferated constellations in low Earth orbit is based on the idea that it provides a resilient space infrastructure. Smaller satellites would be cheaper and easier to replace than geostationary systems if they were destroyed by anti-satellite weapons. That approach should work in theory. A key question is whether satellites and launch vehicles can be made cheap enough to make the cost of taking down a LEO system not worth it.

Changing the “cost equation” for an enemy will be a key challenge for DoD and the U.S. Space Force, says Michael Martindale, a former U.S. Air Force space operator and currently the director of space education for the Space Force Association.

As much as DoD worries about GEO satellites becoming targets of China’s orbital weapons, LEO systems are much easier to hit — no sophisticated in-space weapons required. So-called direct-ascent weapon such as ordinary surface-to-air missiles and anti-ballistic missile interceptors are far more likely to be used against low-orbiting satellites than space-based weapons, Martindale says.

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Space Force Details Structure of New Service

Article by Christen McCurdy                                  June 30, 2020                                (upi.com)

• Since the military branch’s inception in December 2019, more than 16,000 military members and civilians have been assigned to the Space Force, including over 8,500 active-duty members of the Air Force who have volunteered for Space Force. Said Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett, “This is the most significant restructuring of space units undertaken by the United States since the establishment of Air Force Space Command in 1982,”

• General Jay Raymond, USSF Chief of Space Operations said in a June 30th press release, “This is an historic opportunity to launch the Space Force on the right trajectory to deliver the capabilities needed to ensure freedom of movement and deter aggression in, from and to space. How we organize the Space Force will have a lasting impact on our ability to respond with speed and agility to emerging threats in support of the National Defense Strategy and Space Strategy.”

• Under the new organizational structure, Space Force will be comprised of three field commands: the Space Operations Command (aka ‘SpOC’); Space Systems Command (aka ‘SSC’); and Space Training and Readiness Command (aka ‘STARCOM’).

• Space Operations Command is the “field command” comprised of commands, deltas and squadrons. The field organization would “consolidate and align all organize, train and equip mission execution” from space-related units formerly run by the Air Force. It will be headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

• Space Systems Command will be responsible for launch, developmental testing, on-orbit checkout and maintenance of USSF systems. It will also be responsible for developing and acquiring lethal space capabilities for warfighters.

• Space Training and Readiness Command will train and educate space professionals and develop combat-ready troops to address the challenges of combat in space.

• “Innovation and efficiency are driving our mission as we position the Space Force to respond with agility to protect our nation’s space capabilities and the American way of life,” said Barrett.

 

           Gen. John “Jay” Raymond

June 30 (UPI) — The Space Force will be comprised of three field commands, with many of the Air Force’s existing space acquisition organizations being moved into a newly created Space Systems Command, the service announced on Tuesday.

Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett

USSF officials said the field organization would “consolidate and align all organize, train and equip mission execution” from space-related units formerly run by the Air Force.

“This is an historic opportunity to launch the Space Force on the right trajectory to deliver the capabilities needed to ensure freedom of movement and deter aggression in, from and to space,” Gen. Jay Raymond, USSF chief of space operations, said in a press release. “How we organize the Space Force will have a lasting impact on our ability to respond with speed and agility to emerging threats in support of the National Defense Strategy and Space Strategy.”

The USSF field echelons will be called, in order of hierarchy, field commands, deltas and squadrons.

The service’s field commands will be called Space Operations Command, or SpOC, Space Systems Command, or SSC, and Space Training and Readiness Command, or STARCOM.

The first two field commands will be led by three-star general officers, and the third will be led by a two-star general.

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