Tales of the United States Space Force, page 1
Table of Contents
Foreword by William F. Otto
Preface by C. Stuart Hardwick
The Eyes of Damocles by Brian Trent
Eye in the Sky by Jody Lynn Nye
The High Ground by Henry Herz
To Boldly Go . . . Understanding the Space Force Mission by Michael Morton
A Kinetic High by Gustavo Bondoni
Luna Lacuna by Laura Montgomery
Whose Idea Was This Anyway?
It’s Classified by Martin L. Shoemaker
A Tight Fit by Marie Vibbert
Zombie by Karl K. Gallagher
The Kessler Gambit by Matt Bille
Did USSF Steal the Seal?
Bubbles from Beneath by Sylvie Althoff
Not a War by Harry Turtledove
Aficionado by David Brin
Defense of Waygo Port by M.T. Reiten
The Pattern by Avery Parks
“Sleek, Modern, and Iconic”: How the Space Force Got Its Out-of-This-World Uniform
Emergency Supplies by Liam Hogan
The Return of William Proxmire by Larry Niven
The Lurkerby Gregory Benford and James Benford
Space Force Nomenclature
Superiority by Arthur C. Clarke
A Fair Defense by C. Stuart Hardwick
Notes from the Editor
Tales of the United States Space Force
Edited by C. Stuart Hardwick
NEW FICTION AND NONFICTION FOCUSING ON THE UNITED STATES SPACE FORCE FROM TOP AUTHORS
It has been six decades since mankind first shook off the yoke of gravity and flew into outer space. After cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s first fateful trip into the vastness beyond our atmosphere, the Apollo missions landed twelve men on the moon. Since the building of the International Space Station, humankind established a semi-permanent base in space. But wherever people and their interests go, the military and law must eventually follow. Enter the Space Force!
Here then, stories and essays of the United States Space Force, the first new United States military service since the establishment of the Air Force in 1947.
With stories and essays by Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Harry Turtledove, Brian Trent, Gregory Benford & James Benford, David Brin, Jody Lynn Nye, Martin L. Shoemaker, M.T. Reiten, Avery Parks, C. Stuart Hardwick, Karl K. Gallagher, Gustavo Bondini, Liam Hogan, Henry Herz, Marie Vibbert, Laura Montgomery, Sylvie Althoff, Matt Bille, William F. Otto, and Michael Morton.
Tales of the United States Space Force
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. government. All stories are works of fiction, as are all persons, places, events, threats, and technologies therein. No spacecraft or alien life forms were harmed in the making of this work. That ought to just about cover it.
Copyright © 2024 by C. Stuart Hardwick
Foreword © 2024 by William F. Otto; “The Eyes of Damocles” © 2024 by Brian Trent; “Eye in the Sky” © 2024 by Jody Lynn Nye; “The High Ground” © 2024 by Henry Herz; “To Boldy Go . . . Understanding the Space Force Mission” © 2024 by Michael Morton; “A Kinetic High” © 2024 by Gustavo Bondoni; “Luna Lacuna” © 2024 by Laura Montgomery; “It’s Classified” © 2024 by Martin L. Shoemaker; “A Tight Fit” © 2024 by Marie Vibbert; “Zombie” © 2022 by Karl K. Gallagher; “The Kessler Gambit” © 2024 by Matt Bille; “Bubbles from Beneath” © 2024 by Sylvie Althoff; “Not a War” © 2024 by Harry Turtledove; “Aficionado” © 2013 by David Brin; “Defense of Waygo Port” © 2024 by M.T. Reiten; “The Pattern” © 2024 by Avery Parks; “Emergency Supplies” © 2024 by Liam Hogan; “The Return of William Proxmire” © 1989 by Larry Niven; “The Lurker” © 2024 by Gregory Benford & James Benford; “Superiority” © 1951 by Arthur C. Clarke; Preface, “Whose Idea Was This Anyway?,” “Did USSF Steal the Seal?,” “Sleek, Modern, and Iconic,” “Space Force Nomenclature,” “A Fair Defense,” and Notes from the Editor © 2024 by C. Stuart Hardwick.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
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Riverdale, NY 10471
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ISBN: 978-1-9821-9345-4
eISBN: 978-1-62579-966-1
Cover art by Kurt Miller
First printing, June 2024
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hardwick, C. Stuart, 1966- editor.
Title: Tales of the United States Space Force / edited by C. Stuart Hardwick.
Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen Publishing Enterprises, 2024.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024004731 (print) | LCCN 2024004732 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982193454 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781625799661 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: United States. Space Force—Literary collections. | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Hard Science Fiction | FICTION / Science Fiction / Space Exploration | LCGFT: Science fiction. | Short stories. | Essays.
Classification: LCC PN6071.S33 U7333 2006 (print) | LCC PN6071.S33 (ebook) | DDC 808.83/8762—dc23/eng/20240212
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024004731
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024004732
Printed in the United States of America
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Electronic Version by Baen Books
www.baen.com
Dedicated to the memory of Mike Resnick,
whose “pay it forward” generosity touched all us Writers
of the Future newbies lucky enough to sit up with him
in the bar, sipping equally of soda and wisdom.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Kyle Russell, who gave me my first editing job, and to the officers of the United States Air Force Command and Staff College and the United States Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs office, for invaluable assistance in the course of this one.
Thanks also to Arlan Andrews and the membership of the Sigma think tank, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Garretson, and Alex Shvartsman, each of whom gave assistance, and especially to William Ledbetter and Martin Shoemaker for years of friendship, support, ideas, and commiseration without which this work would certainly never have happened.
Illustration attributions
“Look at My New Space Force” by Phil Hand, used by permission.
Roswell balloon and wreckage, courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.
“Mission Failed” by Pedro De Elizalde.
“Romulan Piracy” by Dave Granlund, used by permission.
“Space Captain” by Ed Bickford.
All materials not otherwise attributed are the work of your editor.
“Some people don’t want to hear this . . .
but—absolutely—we’re going to fight in space.
We’re going to fight from space,
and we’re going to fight in space when
[U.S. and allied assets on orbit]
become so precious that it’s in our national interest.”
—General Joseph Ashy, CINCSPACE, 1996
Foreword
“Star Wars” Program Chief Space Laser Engineer
William F. Otto
In 2011, Perseo Mazzoni from the Italian music group Lunocode contacted me for help with song lyrics about a set of primates launched into space in 1948–51 aboard V-2 and Aerobee rockets. Having grown up in Huntsville, Alabama, where every manned space flight was broadcast over the school’s public address system, I thought I knew the space program, but this was the first I had known of early Air Force and Army flights.
People of my generation are familiar with the Navy feeling pressure to launch a small satellite on the mostly untested Vanguard-derived three-stage missile. We remember because we witnessed the failure on live television in 1957.
The following year, President Eisenhower established NASA to coordinate civilian space exploration and be the public face of the space race. At the time, the U.S. was very concerned with the space environment and its effect on ICBMs. A number of nuclear tests in space were carried out by the Defense Nuclear Agency with assistance from the Navy in Operations Argus and Hardtack II which explored the effects a nuclear blast would have on military hardware, including satellites.
In that same time frame, the Air Force funded the Atlas missile, the Army developed the Redstone, and the Navy the Polaris missile. NASA may have brought civilian space exploration under one roof, but the branches of the service were each going their own ways in the ICBM arena.
It wasn’t just ballistic missiles, but satellites, antiballistic missiles, navigation, communication, and weather. And then the CIA got involved with reconnaissance, and the Advanced Research Project Agency with potential space weapons like lasers and particle beams.
The successor to ARPA, DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) was researching the space-based laser when I came into the workforce and I got involved in 1979. Reagan was elected president and soon established the Strategic Defense Initiative. The high-tech world of a “missile shield” exploded into an intense effort that was transferred from D
A lot of things were happening. The Air Force centralized their space activities within the Air Force Space Command, but people were mentioning that maybe the services shouldn’t be duplicating efforts and that space activities should be brought under one Space Agency. Others felt that the independent efforts had a higher probability of success despite the duplication.
In the 1990s, GOP leaders spearheaded by Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld sought an effective missile defense. There was renewed interest in various interceptors like EKV (the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle), THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), and the Aegis missile. At the time, however, all of these mostly failed to hit their targets.
Congress directed the Air Force to pursue the space-based laser (which would have scuttled the Outer Space Treaty against weapons in space), but the Air Force didn’t believe the technology was ready. Gingrich and Trent Lott responded with a clear threat: If the Air Force had other priorities, then the time had come to set up the U.S. Space Force and shift the budget from the existing branches. I thought this was pretty bold, and it started to look like I would be writing some proposal material after all.
Boeing made me technical lead for their bid to be part of the program. We went through a competitive phase, but after a lot of good work, the Air Force (acting for BMDO, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization) directed that Lockheed Martin, TRW, and Boeing team up to do the work. I ended up as the systems engineering, integration, and testing lead for the program, or in short, the “chief engineer.”
At a conference in Oxnard, California, on large space optics at the time, I was shocked by a presenter from the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office). The existence of the NRO had been a highly guarded secret, but he openly announced that not only did they exist, they had worked out an agreement with NASA and the Air Force to share technology. Since I’d worked for all three, I had seen three independent developments of much of the same technologies, a colossal waste of effort.
Times were changing. The idea of a unified Space Force came up again and again, but when it finally happened under the Trump administration, I found a lot of people confused about what the Space Force would do. Was it a bunch of space rangers flying in space, shooting at aliens or their Russian and Chinese counterparts?
That was not entirely out of the question. In 1965, the Air Force had secretly selected astronauts for its planned Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). You might recognize the names Richard H. Truly, Robert L. Crippen, Robert F. Overmyer, and Henry W. Hartsfield from NASA’s Space Shuttle era. Another, James A. Abrahamson, I knew later when he was the first head of SDIO.
By now the reader will have noted a pattern: despite the Outer Space Treaty which prohibits the development of space-resident weapons, there is a long history of delivering weapons to space, through space, or from space. As soon as innovations allow, they are applied to new weapons—by inventors all over the world. And so, new weapons will continue to be added to the growing U.S. military presence in space, helping prevent attack, support national interests, and ultimately benefit us all. Remember, even the Global Positioning System was originally designed to guide missiles and bombers to pinpoint surgical strikes.
Of course, once valuable hardware is up there, we have to protect and defend it. Imagine if Russia or the United States suddenly lost their early warning satellites. Each would feel vulnerable to surprise nuclear attack, and that insecurity would make hostilities more likely. A large role for the Space Force is in defending the defense assets in space for monitoring and intelligence gathering. But it goes beyond military interests. Much of modern life is space based. Automated teller machines, credit card verification at point of sale, airplane navigation, tour guide navigation, entertainment, news . . . almost everything you can think of depends on space assets. Farmers program their harvesting machines to follow a GPS track. If satellites were attacked by some rogue power, much of modern commerce would grind to a halt. People would starve. We must defend our space assets with every bit as much diligence as our airspace.
And there’s no doubt that some of the concepts and technologies to do that were inspired by science fiction. One of the more talked about space resident weapon concepts is Jerry Pournelle’s “Rods of God” in which orbiting tungsten rods are de-orbited over an enemy and allowed to strike a target with kinetic energy roughly equivalent to a tactical nuclear warhead. Although there are significant technical challenges with this concept, it shows how science fiction and technology spur each other forward. I know I was inspired by countless science fiction movies in the fifties and sixties along with shows like Star Trek, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, and The Time Tunnel, and so were many others producing defense concepts and ideas over the course of the past fifty years. We still call SDI “Star Wars” after all!
But science fiction doesn’t only generate ideas, it also gets us to think about the world in new ways. The 1985 Canadian movie Def-Con 4 comes to mind, and illustrates why we will probably always have a military presence in space. This anthology is in the same vein, with a mix of fact and fiction to inspire both reflection and innovation. There are articles about the Space Force, its origins, trappings, and mission, and stories that inspire and that present new ideas and concepts that can find their way one day into experimental or even everyday operations—for space defense and everyday life.
It was Arthur C. Clarke who, in a 1945 letter to the editor of Wireless, suggested that geostationary satellites would be ideal for global communications. That attracted the military, but it ultimately revolutionized everything from logistics to weather forecasting, to delivery of entertainment on transoceanic flights. How many ideas in the volume you’re holding will one day be equally transformative?
Let’s find out.
—William F. Otto
Albuquerque
After consulting for DARPA on chemical lasers, Bill Otto was the technical lead for Boeing’s Space-Based Laser Integrated Flight Experiment, and later lead systems engineer for the Air Force Space-Based Laser joint venture that formed the backbone of President Reagan’s “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative. A Boeing Technical Fellow and member of the Missile Defense National Team, he enjoys science fiction and can often be found listening to Feynman’s Lectures on Physics while doing projects around the house.
Preface
The idea for this anthology sprang from my first introduction to what is now the United States Space Force back in 2017, when as guest of FenCon XIV in Dallas, I was to moderate a panel called “Join the Space Corps: Improvise, Adapt, Overpower.” Sounds pretty badass, right? And the other panelists were heavy hitters, including a veteran NASA astronaut and a Lockheed Martin engineer working on Air Force weather satellites. I would be asking the questions and I’d never heard of this “Space Corps,” so I needed an education—fast.
The panel description told me that in June of that year, the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee had voted to create a Space Corps as a subset of the U.S. Air Force, similar to the way the Marine Corps is set up. Google opined that the new Trump administration opposed the measure, that Defense Secretary Mattis had taken the unusual step of writing a letter in support of a Republican amendment to kill it, arguing the idea was premature and in need of more study.
