Sure, that headline may seem ridiculous. But to get the full effect, you need to experience it with the full pomposity with which Republican Sen. Ted Cruz brought this dire warning to the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Since the ancient Greeks first put to sea,” said Cruz, “nations have recognized the necessity of naval forces and maintaining a superior capability to protect waterborne travel and commerce from bad actors. Pirates threaten the open seas, and the same is possible in space.”
No. No, it is not possible. Poor Somalis, living in chaos and an economic system that runs on bullets, may board rubber dinghies to assault tankers off their coast. No one, no one, is or will be cobbling together a backyard rocket to buckle their swash in space.
But avast there: Cruz is not done. “In this same way,” he said, “I believe we too must now recognize the necessity of a Space Force to defend the nation and to protect space commerce and civil space exploration.”
At other points in Cruz’s complete speech, he discusses how a Space Force may be needed to protect America in “asteroid mining in which a small asteroid could contain rare materials such as platinum worth billions.” Which seems to overlook a few things.
First, we’re not doing any asteroid mining. We’re not going to be doing any asteroid mining for decades, at best. Second, anyone with the technology to be a pirate against asteroid miners could just mine their own asteroid. Third, the material from asteroids only has value if there is somewhere to sell it; you can’t, shockingly, smuggle an asteroid back to Earth for easy sale at the local bodega.
But hey, screw facts. Ted Cruz is on the floor of the Senate, demanding billions to fight space pirates. That is where we are.
There might be, in a few decades, a need for some sort of military presence in space. But probably not.
There is a near- infinite amount of resources out there, making conducting a squabble over any lump of rock far more costly than simply finding another. There’s no reason to believe that there will be any reason, any reason at all, to have an armed presence in space in the next century. Or longer.
Cruz points out that nations such as China have developed satellite-killing technology, but those are essentially missiles launched from the Earth. We have them as well. It’s not clear how any “space force” would help with this situation in any way.
You can’t sneak up on someone in space. You can’t dash out from the nearest shoreline, make a quick hit, and return. It’s … space.
There are not space pirates. Unfortunately, there is a Ted Cruz.