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China Space The Military United States

Retired US General Claims Revolutionary Transport Technology, Warns China Could Dominate Space (thedrive.com) 161

"Retired Lt. Gen. Steven L. Kwast says fantastic technology exists that could transport a human anywhere on earth within an hour," reports The Drive, in an article shared by schwit1: As has been common as of late, Lt. Gen Kwast cites rapidly growing Chinese military and technological advances as the reason why the United States must invest heavily in new space-based technologies. "We can say today we are dominant in space but the trend lines are what you have to look at and they will pass us in the next few years if we do not do something. They will win this race and then they will put roadblocks up to space," Kwast argues, "because once you get the high ground, that strategic high ground, it's curtains for anybody trying to get to that high ground behind them." Kwast claims China is already building a "Navy in space" complete with the space-based equivalents of "battleships and destroyers" which are "able to maneuver and kill and communicate with dominance, and we [the United States] are not." Kwast's speech centers on the thesis that the United States needs a Space Force in order to counter Chinese advances and win the competition over the economy of the future and, as an extension, who sets the values of the future...

Around the 12:00 mark in the speech, Kwast makes the somewhat bizarre claim that the U.S. currently possesses revolutionary technologies that could render current aerospace capabilities obsolete... "[T]echnology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour...."

Kwast's comment is only one of several curious comments made by military leadership lately and they do seem to claim that we could be on the precipice of a great leap in transportation technology. We also don't know exactly where he is coming from on all this as it is not necessarily the direct wheelhouse of someone who was running the Air Force's training portfolio, although it does have overlaps...

Is all this setting the stage for a new space race that will benefit mankind by furthering scientific and technological development, or is it ushering in the conditions for the first great space war?

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Retired US General Claims Revolutionary Transport Technology, Warns China Could Dominate Space

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  • by sxpert ( 139117 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @09:37AM (#59547178)

    beam me up scotty !!

    • by alvian ( 6203170 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @09:41AM (#59547188)
      My money is on suborbital flights
      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        They can deliver a human being to any place on the planet in an hour. They're still working on making the stop at the other end survivable, though.
        • by RoccamOccam ( 953524 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:32AM (#59547332)
          Assuming that a sub-orbital flight doesn't greatly increase the distance needed to travel to reach another spot on Earth and half the distance and time to accelerate and the other half to decelerate:

          circumference of Earth is 40 x 10^6 m, therefore, greatest distance to travel is half of that or 20 x 10^6 m and half of that is 10 x 10^6 m
          s = 10 x 10^6 m
          t = 30 minutes = 1800 seconds
          s = 1/2 a t^2
          a = 2 * s / (t^2)
          a = 6 m/s^2 = 0.6 g
          So, unless I've screwed up the calculations, it looks like the acceleration/deceleration wouldn't be a problem.

          • NASA has been doing that distance and speed for more than half a century. The problem is the same as it's always been, reliable safe arrival.

            • Even the reliability is pretty good. The Space Shuttle design which the Chinese and Russians have copied works pretty well, especially with modern materials.

              The primary problem will always be cost. Getting something going at faster speeds requires exponentially more energy - it's what killed the Concorde and jet propelled trains.

              Sure you can always build a faster plane but there is no reason today that physically present within 1h is necessary. With telecom and robotic telepresence, even the most skilled su

          • It's gonna light that nose right up.
            That is why you take a bit of a detour to space as early and from space as late as possible, leading to a longer trajectory.

          • Assuming that a sub-orbital flight doesn't greatly increase the distance needed to travel to reach another spot on Earth and half the distance and time to accelerate and the other half to decelerate:

            circumference of Earth is 40 x 10^6 m, therefore, greatest distance to travel is half of that or 20 x 10^6 m and half of that is 10 x 10^6 m

            s = 10 x 10^6 m

            t = 30 minutes = 1800 seconds

            s = 1/2 a t^2

            a = 2 * s / (t^2)

            a = 6 m/s^2 = 0.6 g

            So, unless I've screwed up the calculations, it looks like the acceleration/deceleration wouldn't be a problem.

            g is about 9.81 m/s^2
            therefore a is about 0.63g

            So I think your calculations are accurate enough for this discussion - except that the take off acceleration will be 1.6 g (assumes rocket is initially climbing vertically), as the calculated acceleration needs to be added to the Earth's gravity!

            Though in practice, the take off acceleration will be a lot higher, as most of the journey will probably be coasting, and then there will be deacceleration at the other end (assuming human a safe landing is required!).

            • If the entire flight is powered, then the maximum acceleration will be at least 4 times greater (before you allow for the Earth's gravity!).

              Can you explain this? It sounds like his calculation was that you would need a net acceleration of 0.6g for half the flight and then a net deceleration of -0.6g for the other half the flight. Now, of course, this is incorrect for the trajectories involved around a sphere, but I don't see how you get up to four times that before figuring in gravity.

            • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

              There is an easy way to do it, no rocket required. A plasma cannon, will quite readily do it. Place your capsule in long tube hold it in place by electromagnetic suspension. Create a charged field from the capsule to the tunnel walls (this is important) and have the same charge as the plasma particles you will feed into the tube behind your capsule. The charged field keeps those particles trapped between the tube walls and the back of the capsule. The tube should be in a state of vacuum and well, off the ca

        • ... all you need is to turn the rocket around in the middle of the flight, and do the exact opposite of what you did to launch.

          Being *exact* is where the magic happens. :)

      • Schuler tunnel; 42 minutes. Just a small infrastructure problem...

    • Kwast's speech centers on the thesis that the United States needs a Space Force

      Lucky for him, Trump announced one a few days ago.

      I wonder how it went:
      a) This guy's getting senile and he was supposed to deliver this speech before Trump.
      b) Trump is such an impatient brat that he couldn't wait until after this guy's speech to do his bit.

      • Trump put in National Space Directive 4 for the Defense Department to work with Congress on establishing a Space Force. And he's been talking about it for longer than that. And the House and Senate have been working on what it looks like in the National Defense Authorization Act for months. It's not a surprise.

          https://www.space.com/43161-wh... [space.com]

    • beam me up scotty !!

      Amazon is working on this as a part of their new ultra-premium Quantum Prime membership, which guarantees one hour delivery.

      Amazon will even be able to put the delivery service in reverse, so that they can beam the thief stealing the package from your front porch directly into the prison section of the Amazon warehouse.

    • Anyone else thinking of the President's portal from Rick and Morty?
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Nah, hypersonic trajectory flights. The higher you go the thinner the air becomes. There's an ideal altitude to shoot through after building up speed.
  • Totally believable (Score:3, Informative)

    by irreverentdiscourse ( 1922968 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @09:48AM (#59547216)
    I'm sure this recruiter and trainer had access to top secret technologies. Yup. Sure.
  • by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) * on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:02AM (#59547256)

    When Kwast says things like, "The technology is on the engineering benches today. But most Americans and most members of Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what is going on here. But I've had the benefit of 33 years of studying and becoming friends with these scientists. This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour," the only thing he can be talking about that has a connection to reality is something like what SpaceX proposes with Starship:

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=zq... [youtube.com]

  • by sheramil ( 921315 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:06AM (#59547270)

    He has been working in that field for thirty-three years - he doesn't mention cost. throw enough money at it and you can deliver anyone anywhere on the Earth in an hour.

  • missile gap redux (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Real Dr John ( 716876 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:07AM (#59547272) Homepage

    Here we go again, Generals telling us the evil Russians are going to beat us up with 1/10 the military budget we spend (and waste).

  • by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:09AM (#59547282)
    I'll bet it involves a new kind of battery using a surprising technology.
    • I'll bet it involves a new kind of battery using a surprising technology.

      Doubtful. Batteries tend to have poor energy density overall.

      • Using fuel cells to cleanly "burn" high energy density hydrocarbons, and the turn it them into hydrocarbons with solar power, is out! Boo!
        Mining litium, cobalt etc, to create short-lived, heavyweigt low density energy denisty fuel, is in! Yay!
        Much better path!

  • learn to accept it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:14AM (#59547290) Homepage Journal

    China is a world superpower. China tries to disguise this by also officially holding status as a developing nation in international organizations. But it's all a way to scam the West. Just like China has been scamming the West with their artificial suppression of their own currency. China wins through a combination of central planning, a single party system, and a complete lack of respect for individual liberty. You can see that last one in every announcement China makes about Hong Kong or Macau

    "We will never allow any external forces to interfere in Hong Kong and Macau affairs."

    Except Hong Kong started as an internal movement, by Hong Kongers themselves.

    You can pour through speeches by Chinese officials, and you'll not find them discussing individual liberty, or even class equality (a Marxist concept). China is not communist (maybe long ago they were). They picked up some of the traits of capitalism, but do not operate a welfare state that most of us in the West enjoy. Why? Because citizens of China are not citizens in a sense that we would understand, they are more accurately described as property of China. People's Republic of China? more like Republic of China's People.

    • Sounds like they need some government regulation!

      What do you mean, eww? ;)

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by hackingbear ( 988354 )

      China tries to disguise this by also officially holding status as a developing nation in international organizations. But it's all a way to scam the West.

      Have you checked out the definition of developing countries [wikipedia.org] and China's ranking in the GDP per capita [wikipedia.org]? Besides the West classified China as a developing country without criteria for re-assessment. Must be that the West scammed themselves.

      Just like China has been scamming the West with their artificial suppression of their own currency.

      This is a perpetual lie spread in the West. Go to a bank in China today and try to wire more than US$50,000 out of China and you can find the truth. That's not allowed [scmp.com] because China has to limit the outflow of hard foreign currency in order to POP UP its currency; and that

      • by Maxwell ( 13985 )
        GDP per capita is, itself, the scam. If USA had 700M people living cheaply their GDP per capita would be much lower too. But they don't, and China does so like OP stated, they get to cry poor when they are actually just as wealthy as any western country. And please spare me the 50k export joke. I can pull a million out of China for you tomorrow. You'll need 2-4M for a nice house in Vancover. Mengzhou has two at 10M a piece. Wonder how she got the money out of China? In summary you are just one of 1.3
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Except that the United States have on many occasions actively interfered in the internal affair of Hong Kong and China.

        Sorry Charlie, human rights is not "an internal affair".

  • by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:17AM (#59547300) Journal
    Strap a person to an ICBM and you've solve the delivery. Might be a messy ending, but they'll be there in less than an hour!
  • Replace the nuclear warhead in an ICBM with a human.

    Worry about the details, like survivability, in Phase II of the project.

    • Replace the nuclear warhead in an ICBM with a human.

      Worry about the details, like survivability, in Phase II of the project.

      ... Gottfried? Are you okay up there?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity%27s_Rainbow

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:28AM (#59547322)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Dallas May ( 4891515 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @10:38AM (#59547346)

    All sorts of things the military says is BS. For example, we grossly over advertise the capability of our stealth technology. The Blackhawk was shot down just using WWII radar tech. There was never a such thing as a stealth helicopter.

    The military had been doing this for ever. They spread a rumour that they had teleported a whole ship in WWII. It's always about confusing other militaries so that they are never sure what is true and what is BS. And most of it is BS.

    • by tsqr ( 808554 )

      The Blackhawk was shot down just using WWII radar tech.

      I would dearly love to see a citation to back up that claim. As far as I can tell, no SR-71 has ever been shot down. There have been crashes, but no losses to enemy missiles or (obviously) gunfire that I could find references to. Maybe you're thinking of the U-2? Or, are you claiming some kind of coverup/conspiracy?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Blackhawk is a helicopter (UH-60, I believe)

        SR-71 is the Blackbird.

        Blackhawks have been shot down, see the movie Blackhawk Down, for instance. But this whole discussion kind of slides around the edge of the point/abilities behind current stealth tech.

      • Re:BS is BS (Score:5, Insightful)

        by thrich81 ( 1357561 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @01:03PM (#59547752)

        Probably too wordy and OT of a reply... but your parent poster may be talking about the F-117 Nighthawk, the first "stealth fighter". A F-117 was indeed shot down by an old missile battery of an air defense unit of the Yugoslav Army during the 1999 NATO operations in the Kosovo War. The missiles which brought the aircraft down (NATO designation, SA-3) were relics of the 1960's and considered obsolete by the USAF and almost everyone else. The whole shoot down is a fascinating story in the use of tactics by the Yugoslav unit to counter the advanced NATO systems (including NATO air defense suppression efforts), which is told here, https://nationalinterest.org/b... [nationalinterest.org]. The commander of the air defense brigade which accomplished the shoot down and the pilot of the F-117 met and struck up a friendship after the war.
        The lesson is that "stealth" like all weapons and tactics is not invulnerable, just tilts the odds, maybe by a lot in most cases.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        I think he means the F117 (Nighthawk) that was shot down in Kosovo. The air defence operators said that they spotted the F117 on radar when it opened its bomb bay doors. That's a known, and pretty unavoidable vulnerability.

    • It reduces the amount of energy reflected. For the frequencies it was designed for.
      By reducing the amount that is dirextes back where it came from. Basicall by making specularity ("shinyness") very high.

      Obviously if you're at the right angle, that means *all* of it comes back to you. And obviously, the vehicle still has to have a function. Meaning it cannot just be a cube shape or something. It needs to have rotors. And exhausts. And windows. And weapons. Etc. All details cause a bigger radar reflection.
      So

  • There is an entire genre of stories based on this scenario, and the vast majority end up with people making giant, multi-ton combat vehicles which duke it out in space [fandom.com].

  • On this earth being a globe with a 40,000 km circumference the maximum distance for travel is 20,000kms.
    To survive the G forces you need to start and end 'slow' but the middle trajectory will need a speed that's pretty close to escape velocity...
  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @11:07AM (#59547424)

    Trump signed the space force into reality. Now all they needed, was a justification, for taking even more money out of them pockets of Americans, and giving it to job^Wprofit-creation shemes for the arms industry.

    And suddenly, some crazy people with silly fearmongerig stories get dragged through the news.

    Toootally unrelated coincidence.

  • Budget time is coming, and the military wants new tools. Classic military bargaining tactics: present the potential threat (emphasize worst-case), advise doing nothing is not an option, promise fantastic solutions, and flavour with hints of "unknown" technological abilities. Probably will go over well at the White House.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @11:24AM (#59547472)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ... I am a little bit worried that those will not be transferred in the meantime. And as similar-minded fellow general said perfectly: “I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”
  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Sunday December 22, 2019 @12:18PM (#59547594)

    I thought you would need to have the capability to transport humans to space without hitching rides from the Russians to call yourself 'dominant'.

  • "deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour...."

    You'll have to get to the check-in 2.5 hours before boarding though.

  • by dwater ( 72834 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @12:29PM (#59547630)

    ... does the USA seem to think everyone is their enemy?

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Because they're a frontier people who won independence through violent revolution. That combination results in a national identity that combines individualism and self reliance with a healthy dose of paranoia and distrust of foreigners.

    • We don't. We see them as our rivals. And like anyone who has been #1 as long as anyone can remember, we struggle with the paranoia stemming from imposter syndrome.

    • ... does the USA seem to think everyone is their enemy?

      The USA thinks half their own citizens are the enemy. Never mind dirty foreigners.

  • This sounds a lot like general Ripper [magicalquote.com]. Did he [magicalquote.com] change his name recently?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • To those who follow the field of UFOs, this is not news. As the late Ben Rich, head of Lockheed's Skunk Works, said, "We have the technology to take ET home." Of course the disinformation specialists are quick to debunk this. It's not that he didn't say it, it's just that it was a joke. Ha ha. But just recently the "Wilson Document" has come to light, which tells the story of how Admiral Wilson, J2 at the Joint Chiefs, was refused access to a top secret program run by private industry to reverse engineer an

  • What's the evidence of China's militarization of space? This sounds like the Red Scare all over again. It's a money grab using specious analysis to frighten dipshits into handing over truck fulls of cash to defense and aerospace companies. Hucksters swindling us using our elected representatives.

  • They can get you anywhere on the Earth in just an hour, but only if you don't really care about the condition of the passengers when it arrives. Sudden extreme acceleration and deceleration syndrome is a bitch.

    But, hey, if you don't mind G forces in the hundreds, go for it!
  • This from the country that hasn't even sent a dozen people into orbit? Who are still mostly using converted ICBMs for launchers? Who have only put up two small stations and those two stations together have been occupied for less than 2 months? I'm sure they have some wicked plans drawn up, just look at some of the amazing ideas they had in the heyday of the American/Russian space programs. But most of those plans never came to fruition. Hopefully they can achieve some of those ambitious (peaceful) plan

  • I thought it was revolutionary tech at first, but he's talking about:
    1. SpaceX Starship e2e
    2. SpaceX Starlink
    3. The Tesla tower out near Austin that the Airforce is funding.

    1. is "no new development" in only the roughest sense. I think Starship will succeed but permitting is going to be a bitch for e2e.
    2. He says Starlink is wifi from space that you can get with your cellphone. I can't even - maybe in the 2030's.
    3. This is the most interesting one since it's new and the small-scale test tower worked.

    Thes

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