HMM: Let’s Kick The Air Force Out Of Space.

So who should talk over in orbit?

The Navy should. And the result could be an even stronger American presence in space.

Like the sky and the sea, space is a commons; no state has a right to exclude others. Both the Navy and the Air Force have developed conceptual approaches to this commons.

Air Force space doctrine pre-emptively militarizes space. “Due to its speed, range, and three-dimensional perspective, air and space power operate in ways that are fundamentally different from other forms of military power,” the flying branch has stated. “Thus, air power and space power are more akin to each other than to the other forms of military power.”

But we argue that the Navy’s cooperative concept of the commons is more applicable to space than the Air Force’s concept, that the responsibility for space would fit more comfortably in the Navy than in the Air Force, and that, consequently, American pre-eminence in space can survive the end of the USAF.

Well, Starfleet follows a navy model. So there’s that.