U.S military space ships?

Question

So basically I am wondering when the Navy will have space ships instead of large water braced boats. It's obvious that eventually it will just be more practical to have ships in the air rather then in the water. Instead of having a ship that takes weeks to get to where it needs to go perhaps just minutes or hours. Not just small fighters or anything but like the ships you see in Star Trek or other science fiction. So when will there be ships capable of leaving orbit and are the size of an aircraft carrier?

Answer 1

Currently the USAF, not the USN is responsible for space operations and runs US Space Command. IF we ever get around to building legitimate space craft, it will be the USAF operating them. They won't start off being the huge ships like in the movies. Which negates the argument that people like voonie put out. They would be largish craft with small crews with most functions being automated. Reference large cargo planes or bombers. Not massive chunks of steel that need a crew of hundreds. At least at first anyways.





IF we ever got around to building the large sized ships, the likely an entirely new branch would be born.

Answer 2

Space is currently the domain of the USAF, and likely to remain that way unless we find ourselves sending military expeditions to far-away planets... in which case we would most likely create an all-new branch (ie: United States Space Force / USSF) specifically for that purpose.



@ voonie: The physics involved with submersibles and spacecraft are not even remotely similar. Even the oxygen system.

Answer 3

What would the purpose of such ships be? It's not like there are space pirates out there to defend the Martian colonies from.

Answer 4

NASA barely has any funding and the military funding is being reduced, how much will a single spaceship cost, and we are nowhere near the kind of technology from Star Trek

Answer 5

At the very least we are looking at a few hundred years or more.

Answer 6

The Navy will absolutely have space ships and the Air Force will be limited to earth's atmosphere or small crews in low earth orbit. By the way the first American in space was a U.S. Navy man, and so was the first man on the moon.



The Navy already has almost 60 years' experience operating warships with large crews, that operate for many months at a time in isolation, that are completely self-contained, that generate their own life support (breathable air and drinking water), that have unlimited range, and that nowadays do not have to be refueled for 33 years, and that navigate in 3 dimensions. They are called "nuclear submarines".

Answer 7

I doubt the Navy will ever have space ships, they don't work very well at sea.

Answer 8

It actually isn't as practical to have ships in the air instead of the sea because of the cost of refueling. It is also illegal to have weaponized crafts in space. What you are talking about will never happen do to the cost of sending something that large into space. Maybe one day we will build some type of giant space station capable of traveling to other planets and moons, but there is a very low probability of this happening do to the fact there aren't enough resources on earth to build and fund such a large project. So dream on kid it will never happen. Unless we colonize other planets, solar systems and have far more advanced technology then we do now. By then earth will be a barren polluted wasteland with no water, atmosphere, or life of any kind on it.