well, actually there are some SF stories that are Air Force-esque with structure.

The main thing though, is in most SF with large "fleets" of spacecraft, a large crew typically lives aboard a large ship. Such a large (and naturally powerful) ship represents a significant investment of capital on the part of the civilization that constructed the ship.

Additionally, many aspects of possible scenarios for space warfare closely match naval combat on earth, e.g. if your ship is blown up you're pretty much dead; ships tend to have a captain that is entrusted with every single aspect of caring for/managing the vessel.

So, while the USAF is the space combat arm of the US, I suspect that any civilization which develops dedicated or combined-arms space warfare capability will have a more navy-esque+air force-esque structure, in that aspects of both are employed, since- most plausible depictions/descriptions of space warfare are similar to both sea and air combat; space warfare in real life will be unlike anything else ever seen (consider the same thing with sea vs. land warfare; you wouldn't cross the 't' in a dogfight and a battleship wouldn't perform an Immelman (sp for sure) maneuver.

You've a point there. I think in a Sins or Star Wars like situation, it feels more like a Naval situation, partly because of the top-down view. However, I think in our near(maybe) future situation, it would look more natural with and Air Force title.

Here's my reasoning- right now, any fighting in space would probably be with satalites or space stations. I'm imagining unmanned craft trading shots for the advantage of orbital recon, maybe bombardment, although I'm guessing that's unlikely. Probably at some point there will be space bases used to hold combatant craft. Whether they're more like individual fighters or light frigates I won't try to guess. See, I think it's more realistic to count on space stations, not ships in reality. In this case, I'd feel launching light craft from a base (I guess you could say carrier, although I won't since this would probably be much more akin to an entire base, as just having a carrier floating in space seems unlikely) is similar to an Air Force-ish setting. What feels right to us doesn't really matter in reality, however. The Air Force, like any other branch of the military, will adapt to whatever it needs to in order to fight in the field they're in.

Well, I suspect the Navy might have a future in space too. They DO have their own planes after all. Theoreticly, we'll be seeing Army and the Marine Corp. out there too, with that way of thinking. Anyone else want to bet that once war between planets is a reality, the Air Force and the Navy will merge? (I'm betting my life savings against anything, by the way)

I thought that a while back, however I've changed my mind. I assumed Nasa would become a Military branch or something else would take that place, like you said.

Here's why I changed my mind:(other then it actually being in the court of the Air Force, like I said before) When we think of the Military (well, I actually mean me but I assume everyone else in the world will automaticly agree with my unquestionably superior point of view) *cough* anyway, when WE think of the Military, WE think of the Air Force bombing, the Army or Marine Corp. slugging it out on the ground, and the Navy trading shots with enemy ships.

However, that's closer to a Battlefield (as in the EA game) situation then reality. I've noticed that every branch is well-equiped to take on a rival nation by itself, even though they do work together a lot. (The Marine Corp. having to steal medics from the Navy for instance) The Navy, oxymoron as it is, could fight across the land. They have their own Air Support, their own ground troops (Seals being only one example). The Air Force, more recently I think, is fighting on the ground more and more. They have their own grunts for defending bases, police, and such just like the Army. They may not have them in as great supply as the Army (I really have no idea how many of them there are) but they could easily do pretty much the same thing. The Marine Corp., as seems all the rage these days, has it's own Air support, and, well, it's the freaking Marine Corp. On top of that, they all have their own spec ops crews meant to do anything- Don't think Seals were just the Navy's idea. Any branch of service could put men on the field trained to fill in and do similar things. Think of The Red/Black Barrets, Delta Force, Army Rangers, Pararescue, Force Recon, to name the few I can remember)

Well, that's looking at it practiclly, although disreguarding the present advantages space has even right now for fighting over earth. We use satalites to spy, you could isolate something (the perfect place to hide the President's daughter or keep a prototype), it's out of range of present-day missiles, (I think) and it's between anything off-planet. I doubt it, but there may one day be useful materials found on the moon or Mars, and in that case, I'd like America to keep the opposing colored player's hands off it.

well, if we develop a fusion-based economy then- the gas giants (particularly Saturn&Neptune (or is Uranus?)) would be of great value, as they have large Helium-3 reserves in their atmospheres (assuming we develop 3He-D/3He-3He fusion cycles).

There are already missiles that are designed to kill satellites (ASAT) and ballistic missiles (ABM); ABMs can't be used for ASAT (usually), while ASAT can I think be used a little for ABM.

As for the Moon- a very small Helium-3 reserve, not much though. The main attraction for colonizing the solar system and eventually "slow-boating" accross the stars to other solar systems is for the preservation of the human race. And for exploration/colonization for the sake of colonization.

Hiding something in space is actually very hard, as it is very (re: nigh impossible) to hide in space. Hiding something on an astronimcal object (re: asteroid, moon, dwarf planet, planet) would be a lot easier.

And believe it or not, hiding something on Earth is much easier, as it is EXTREMELY difficult to detect something on Earth, and if the balkanization (re: big nations turning into little ones) continues, it will be even harder due to many conflicting interests.

for sabotage- you would either have to 1) physically board an enemy asset or 2) engage in cyberwarfare against it.

I advise you to perus the site "projectrho.com", specifically the section entitled "Atomic Rockets". While it is more oriented towards a writers/game-devs resource, it is also very interesting for "casual" reading, or for forming debates. It also does make mention of "space hackers" as weapons in space warfare.

hmm, subs will never be able to leave atmosphere.

My personal impression is that all types of craft will still be useful, and used, but lines will blur between atmospheric and space capable craft, hover tanks and VTOL gunships, heavy weapons emplacements and anti-orbital craft gunnery.

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1277

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=514

Ive thought of similiar ideas to yours before, and it turns out that future aircraft may often be submersible.

Am I the only one who thinks we need new words for self-propelling space machines? Ones that don't end in -ship or -craft?

If it's on the ground we call it a vehicle. Or, more specifically, a car, truck, tank, etc.

If it's in the water we call it a boat, ship, vessel, craft, or submarine.

If it's in the air, we call it a plane, jet, helicopter, glider, fighter, bomber...

If it's in space we call it...what? Star-ship? Space-craft? Space-fighter? It's a completely different locomotive paradigm with decades of educated speculation and experimentation behind it, and we're just glueing adjectives to fancy words for boats. We have "satellite" for unmanned orbital machines and "shuttle" for hybrid atmosphere-capable transport, but nothing for true, manned, fully space-based.....things.

There was probably similar confusion in early aviation with people using the words "airplane" and "airship", but nowadays most people just shorten the former to "plane" and the only ones using "airship" anymore are blimp enthusiasts and Japanese RPG developers. I suppose we may have to wait until we actually build some of these things before we get real names for them. That's understandable, but I'd still like to be able to say something like "This ship looks awesome" and have people know I'm talking about a Starfury and not an aircraft carrier.

Spheres. Not cubes. If the thing is pressurized, a sphere doesn't get as much point stress as a cube does, because there are no points.

Ugh. That kind of space battle does NOT sound very cinematic. Screw that whole Space-branch idea. =P

I've seen other space craft (sorry, Jalicos) with jets like that on all sides- but this was a cylinder. It might have dawned on that fighters would be the same, though I would bet on one or two jets that can rotate, but I would NEVER have assumed it would be a box.

I'm glad my random idea was actually tried somewhere. I wonder if the Navy will pick up on that?

Hmmm. I see what you mean. However, I have to say your point is more on the theoretical and asthetic sides of the spectrums to me. That being said, I do agree with you.

See, the fact that deep-space warfare will include "ships" really doesn't nessesarily have any relation to the Navy. You're right in that it will need to change- but it's not for us to decide whether the Navy or Air Force is better for that job, since I doubt we really know enough to make a sound guesstimate.

Yeah, even if the Air Force is given command of space operations, I think it will still make sense for them to use naval terminology and to some extent command structure. That is once we actually have space ships that spend most of their time in space (which will probably still be a while). Until then it will still be the Air Force, though if a major reorganisation of the military is undertaken, I suppose Congress could give it to whomever they want (the coast guard? )