While America now has the technological prowess to become a true human spacefaring nation, as explained in Part 1, a clearly recognized national need for this has not yet been identified. Fifty years of space dreamers calling for a permanent lunar base or the human exploration/settlement of Mars hasn’t yielded results. The unwelcome reason is that simply putting Americans on the Moon or Mars to waive the flag would have had no substantive value to the United States warranting the cost. The inevitable question of “why” could not be convincingly answered. Fortunately, this is no longer the case. There are forceful reasons why America now must—MUST—become a true human spacefaring nation. In Part 2, I begin the discussion of these reasons by focusing on preserving America’s “Great Power” status as this will require America becoming a true human spacefaring nation. Surprisingly, this is not a new idea. In fact, American General of the Armies Henry (Hap) Arnold—commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces—wrote of the need for this at the end of World War II.
If not already following this blog, please click the “follow” button at the bottom right to sign up. Receiving notification via email is best to ensure that you do not miss a new posting. Sending notifications is the only use of your email address. It is not sold or used elsewhere. Besides, you can always unsubscribe. Please forward these postings to your friends who share your spacefaring interest. Also, please check out the Spacefaring Institute’s YouTube channel.
America becomes a Great Power
The Merriam-Webster definition of the term “Great Power” is: “one of the nations that figure most decisively in international affairs” with the synonym being “superpower”. This definition is, however, too general. The Wikipedia definition is more useful:
A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence, which may cause middle or small powers to consider the great powers’ opinions before taking actions of their own. International relations theorists have posited that great power status can be characterized into power capabilities, spatial aspects, and status dimensions.
America became a Great Power to preserve its liberty and further its national ambitions. The path to this began immediately at the formal end of America’s War of Independence in 1783 when America was confronted by two Great Powers—Great Britain to the north in today’s Canada and Spain/France to the west and south—both desiring to annex the newly acquired American territory west of the Appalachian Mountains. The early American leaders—including Washington and Jefferson—saw the need to strengthen control of America’s new western territories through settlement, building infrastructure, and by pushing America’s boundaries outward.
While the potential of conflict with Spain/France was resolved peacefully through the Lousiana Purchase in 1803, only a decade later Great Britain tried to reassert its Great Power status over the United States through intimidation at sea, by the forced impressment of American seamen to aid in their war with France, and provocation in America’s Northwest Territory. This led to the War of 1812 with the British burning the White House, the battle that spawned the Star Spangled Banner song; the significant American victories on Lake Erie, in the Northwest Territory, and at New Orleans; and, American military failures to seize control of portions of modern Canada. The primary outcomes of the war were the permanent settlement of a peaceful boundary between what became Canada and the United States and the recognition that it was time for America to grow in Great Power status if it was to avoid being sucked into Great Power conflicts or invaded and conquered.
(To the British, the War of 1812 was a minor footnote in the much larger Napoleonic Wars that took 3.5 million lives. Many Britains apparently are not aware that the words of the Star Spangled Banner refer to the War of 1812; incorrectly assuming it was from the 1776 War of American Independence.)
America’s quest for Great Power status took a century to achieve. Through purchase and warfare, the United States became a continental nation with, by the beginning of the 20th century, becoming a highly industrial nation with the prerequisite of a modern Great Power—a modern navy. When Europe erupted in another Great Power conflict in the early 20th century, the United States finally had the Great Power status to decide what it would and would not do. It had the freedom to choose!
America loses its Great Power status
Warfare at the beginning of the 20th century was still very much a “game of thrones”. Many American national political and business leaders viewed warfare as a legitimate means of national enterprise to further economic and political interests even when homeland national security was not really at risk. After 3 years of horrific warfare, German naval “provocations” swayed American public opinion to enter the war on the side of Britain and France. (Japan would also enter the war on this side although there was no real warfare in the Pacific theater. It was a means for Japan to seize territory in the Pacific following the centuries-old tradition by European nations—and the United States—of seizing territories of defeated enemies.) America’s entry into the “Great War”—”the war to end all wars”—helped to bring the hostilities to an end. The former European Great Powers—England, France, and Germany—were spent. Russia was mired in a communist revolution. America emerged in 1918 with Great Power status based on its naval and industrial strength. However, America’s Great Power status lasted barely 20 years.
By the late 1930s, America had fallen behind militarily due to the rise of Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 using naval airpower was a gamechanger. Ignoring the warnings of the potential of naval airpower by American “Great War” Brig. General Billy Mitchell in the 1920s, the bulk of America’s seapower was still vested in the old paradigm of battleships. Japan, with a substantial land army, the logistical ability to project these forces throughout the Pacific, and a superior naval advantage, was the superior Great Power in the Pacific Theater by the late 1930s. In Europe, with the combined arms invasion of Poland and France, Germany was the superior land and air Great Power in Europe and, due to its growing submarine fleet, a substantial challenge to British and U.S. surface navies and maritime fleets in the Atlantic.
America’s substantial federal focus on social welfare programs
during America’s “Great Depression”; the public’s post-Great War general isolationist views; a failure to embrace new emerging military aeronautical technologies; and a belief by the American public that a last-minute mobilization—harking back to the Minute Men at Lexington and Concord—would be adequate to protect the nation had robbed America of the military strength necessary to maintain its Great Power status—thus inviting aggression and attack. One estimate is that there were over 400,000 American service deaths in World War II with, perhaps, up to 100 million perishing as a result of the war. World War II demonstrated that American ambivalence about national security preparedness can carry a high ultimate price.
America regains Great Power status
America regained its Great Power status the hard way—by mobilizing the nation and expending substantial blood and treasure to defeat its enemies in World War II. At least for a while, the hard lesson that strength deters aggression was relearned. After the defeat of the Axis Powers, America invested heavily in arms and advanced technologies, especially aeronautics and astronautics, to maintain world peace as the communist Soviet Union rose to power and spread its political tentacles around the world. By the late 1980s, President Reagan, calling out the evil that the Soviet Union had become, brought the Cold War with the Soviets to a close with another American victory. However, just as happened after the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II, new belligerent actors rose to replace the Soviet Union and threaten world peace—including the Russian remnants of the Soviet Union, communist China, and totalitarian Iran.
America must remain a Great Power
Especially in the last decade, America’s need to be an effective Great Power has been castigated as a relic of the 20th century. Many Americans publicly advocate for a “utopia” brought on by the surrender of America’s national identity (and Great Power status) to a new world order of globalization fueled by social justice and controlled by a benevolent, but elitist world government similar to what Europe has become. In a world full of increasingly aggressive, anti-liberty governments, such advocacy is naive, if not intentionally anti-liberty. America needs to remain a dominant Great Power so that free nations have a calm port for shelter during turbulent times.
With warfare and the threat of warfare still remaining the final arbitrator of disputes, American Great Power status brings these benefits:
- Prevents the United States from becoming subservient to or being easily defeated by an aggressive Great Power.
- Deters acts of aggression or threats of aggression against the United States and its allies.
- Helps to ensure that the President of the United States will not be intimidated into submission or surrender by an adversary’s break-out new military capability.
- Provides a bulwark against increasingly aggressive, totalitarian nations—e.g., China, Russia, Iran, North Korea—behind which freedom-desiring nations can find common security and partnership.
- Encourages the world’s transition this century to the personal liberty and freedoms needed for peaceful coexistence by demonstrating that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” remains a valid political foundation for freedom-desiring nations.
- Enables the United States to lead the world’s transition this century to sustainable energy to eliminate energy impoverishment, elevate the world’s standard of living, and address excess atmospheric anthropogenic carbon dioxide in an orderly manner—all essential, along with liberty, for the world to achieve lasting peace and prosperity.
The necessity of America becoming a true human spacefaring nation
Before long, someone will start on the construction of a satellite
vehicle, whether in the United States or elsewhere. History shows that the human race does not allow physical development to lag very far behind the mental realization that a step can be taken. This is particularly true of progress which has a direct bearing on man’s conquest of his environment. . . .Since the United States is far ahead of any other country in both airplanes and sea power, and since others are abreast of the United States in rocket applications, we can expect strong competition in the latter field as being the quickest shortcut for challenging this country’s position. No promising avenues of progress in rockets can be neglected by the United States without great danger of falling behind in the world race for armaments. (Emphasis added.)
J.E. Lipp, RAND Report RA-15032, “Reference Papers Relating to a Satellite Study,” February 1, 1947
The above quotation was used to open the formerly classified history report, “Origins of the USAF Space Program 1945-1956“. Over 60 years ago, less than three years after the Nazi German V-2 ballistic missile was first used, the importance of America becoming a spacefaring military power was recognized, especially within the new service: The U.S. Air Force.
General of the Armies H. H. (Hap) Arnold, who led the U.S. Army Air Forces, wrote of the importance of the new space technologies in his post-World War II “Third Report of the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces to the Secretary of War”, November 12, 1945:
. . . we should be ready with a weapon of the general type of the German V-2 rocket, having greatly improved range and precision, and launched from great distances.
If defenses which can cope even with such a 3, 000-mile-per-hour projectile are developed, we must be ready to launch such projectiles nearer the target, to give them a shorter time of flight and make them harder to detect and destroy. We must be ready to launch them from unexpected directions. This can be done from true
General H. H. Arnoldspace ships , capable of operating outside the earth’s atmosphere. The design of such a ship is all but practicable today; research will unquestionably bring it into being within the foreseeable future. (Emphasis added.)
… even our more conservative engineers agree that it is definitely possible to undertake design and construction now of a vehicle which would become a satellite of the earth.
… that the maximum acceleration and internal temperatures can be kept within limits safely withstood by a human being. Since the vehicle is not likely to be damaged by meteorites and can be safely brought back to earth, there is
Mid-1946 RAND studygood reason to hope that future satellite vehicles will be built to carry human beings.
Stop and think about this for a moment. At the end of World War II, the top American “air power” general—being intimately knowledgeable about the tremendous advances then underway in aeronautics and astronautics—fully anticipated the need for the United States to have “true
Closing thoughts
To remain a Great Power in the 21st century, America must become a dominant human spacefaring nation. History is very clear that America’s liberty and freedom of operation are enabled by its technological ability to operate effectively in domains of political, national security, scientific/engineering, and economic importance. Failure to do so will not only invite coercion if not attack but also increases the probability of defeat or surrender. Outer space has become a domain of political, national security, scientific/engineering, and economic importance just as the air domain became during and after World War II. Its importance can no longer be ignored or dismissed.
Going forward, bold national leadership is essential to preserve America’s great power status in space against the growing challenge of totalitarian and anti-liberty governments. It is noteworthy that the new acting U.S. Secretary of Defense—the same DOD official also charged with leading the formation of a Space Force—repeated “China, China, China” when emphasizing where the U.S. military needs to focus its attention.
As General Arnold first recognized 70 years ago, the United States must become a true human spacefaring nation, both militarily and commercially. This is required to deter aggression in or through space AND to enable the United States to lead the world in the forthcoming spacefaring industrial revolution needed to commercialize GEO space solar power to replace fossil fuels. By the end of the century, the world will be powered substantially by GEO space solar power—what I refer to as astroelectricity. It is imperative that the United States leads the world’s transition to
James Michael (Mike) Snead is an aerospace Professional Engineer in the United States, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a past chair of the AIAA’s Space Logistics Technical Committee. He is the founder and president of the Spacefaring Institute LLC (spacefaringinstitute.net) which is focused on space solar power-generated astroelectricity and the astrologistics infrastructure necessary to enable the spacefaring industrial revolution that will build space solar power energy systems. Mike Snead has been involved in space development since the mid-1980s when he supported the U.S. Air Force Transatmospheric Vehicle (TAV) studies, the National Aerospace Plane program, and the Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) project. In 2007, after retiring from civilian employment with the Air Force, he began to study the need for (and politics associated with) undertaking space solar power. Beginning in the late 1980s, he has published numerous papers and articles on various aspects of manned spaceflight, astrologistics, and energy. His technical papers are located at https://www.mikesnead.com and https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Snead/research. His blog is at: https://spacefaringamerica.com. His eBook, Astroelectricity, can be downloaded for free here. He can be contacted through LinkedIn or through email sent to spacefaringinstitute@gmail.com.