For better or worse, the idea of an independent Space Force seems to be gaining traction within the White House, in Congress, and even the halls of the Pentagon. The Air Force stands to lose the most in any such arrangement, so, perhaps not coincidentally, some members of the service’s senior leadership seem especially keen to show that they understand that space, and potential threats to American assets up there, is an important issue. But some of the statements these individuals have made, including the idea of prepositioning supplies in geosynchronous orbit or preparing to monitor activities in other galaxies, are highly unrealistic and difficult to view seriously. On Aug. 3, 2018, our good friend Stephen Trimble, who is editor of Flightglobal's Americas Bureau, alerted us that the issue of watching for threats outside the Milky Way had come up in question and answer session with U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Veralinn Jamieson, the service’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, after her speech at an event the Air Force Association had hosted the day before. At a separate gathering, U.S. Air Force General Carlton Everhart, head of Air Mobility Command, had off-handedly raised the possibility of using space as a huge cargo dump.

The relevant portions of Trimble’s exchange with Jamieson, which he generously shared on Twitter, are worth reading in full:

Lieutenant General Jamieson: “I am convinced that there are more domains – man-made domains – that will come, and I would offer you that if we look at galaxies – sounds nuts – but there’s going to be a man-made domain in galaxies.” FlightGlobal’s Stephen Trimble: “I don’t know what you mean – galaxies?” Jamieson: “Space has got different galaxies. And in those galaxies in the future we’re going to actually have capability that we have right now in the air. We don’t know what it is because we haven’t freed our mind to think about what is that space and how we are going to utilize it. Space is contested. It’s going to happen.”

Trimble remains understandably baffled by what this was supposed to mean, as are we.

Adam Evans via Wikimedia So far, there is no "man-made domain" in the Andromeda Galaxy, seen here, that we know of.

These comments came after General Everhart had caused his own stir by mentioning that he had visited space launch firms SpaceX and Virgin Orbit and brought up the possibility of moving cargo and personnel from one point on Earth to another through space in the future. The officer said he hoped to find time to sit down with representatives from another company, Blue Origin, in the future to discuss this and other topics. “Think about this. Thirty minutes, 150 metric tons, [and] less than the cost of a C-5 [cargo plane],” he said on Aug. 2, 2018. “I said, I need to get me some of that. How do I do that?” That’s a good question and one that the Air Force, as well as other services, has been looking to answer since the very beginnings of the Space Race in the late 1950s. It’s become something of a holy grail over the decades.

Douglas via Scott Lowther Concept art from circa 1963 depicting Douglas Ithacus T-100 cargo and personnel carrying rockets launching Marines on a mission from the deck of a supercarrier.

It goes without saying that the ability to use space as a hypersonic transport route to rapidly deliver cargo and personnel could revolutionize routine operations and enable entirely new offensive and defensive strategies. But developing a system that works safely and reliability and is anywhere near fiscally feasible, let alone cheaper than traditional means of transportation, for any substantial volume of cargo, is a tall order. The idea of putting cargo-carrying satellites into orbit and being able to request an orbital supply drop at the touch of a button is even more fanciful. “I think in the next five years we can be right in on that concept stage,” Everhart said. “Actual routine, probably within the next 10.” The most recent formal U.S. military’s projects in this realm, the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion program, or SUSTAIN, began in 2002 and received support from the U.S. Marine Corps. It was also purportedly “doable in 5-10 year timeframe” as of 2009. By the end of that year, the program was effectively dead.

DOD A briefing slide from circa 2009 describing "conclusions" from a study the University of North Dakota did regarding about the SUSTAIN concept under contract to the US Marine Corps and the Pentagon's National Security Space Office.