Intersting article. I'd add my comment that we should seriously consider the high ground of space for our national defense, yet I submit, the US Navy is who should be in charge of thiseffort. I know the USAF thinks they desreve it, but the Air Force (please sit back down, you jet jockeys, and listen) has experience in things that go up and come back to earth a few hours later, well, if you're a bomber crew person, then maybe a day later.

The key here is staying aloft a day or less only requires you to take a few essentails, if anything at all with you for the period of your operation. The US Navy, on the other hand, has the edge in knowling how to set up for an extended operation. One key here is you can't do it with a few people. The crew has to rotate duty stations, so they are effective after the first 24-36 hours. As a result, they have to have berthing spaces, not just a shared bunk in the rear of the aircraft, and things like mess halls, and medical facilities, and storerooms full of spare parts, and most of all, crews with a reasonable amount of cross training to be able to quickly handle emergencies and combat operations. Gee, sounds like a ship or submarine to me. The Army has more ships thatn the Navy, but they are little ones, so possibily you could argue that some of the sea-going soldiers would have a place in the space faring force, besides being assualt troops. Certainly the Marines know all about having to hang out on ships, working out all day, eating all the ice cream and watching all the movies, then complaining about nothing to eat, and no more movies to watch, so they'd fit right in.

The Air Force does little to train for this type of environment. They have clubs, where you can come back from a mission and have a beer, and then go to the base theater, or bowling alley, have more beer, and be entertained, safe in the rear areas. This is not to say that the Air Force doens't contribute to the battle, they do, just their exposure to combat comes and goes, while the other services enter a combat zone and have to manage in it for extended periods of time, and this implies inclusion of massive logistical support requirements, which, certainly the Navy is well suited to do.

Now, to my crowning point: Can you name a serious space Sci-Fi show or movie where the crew of the craft had the Commanding Officer take a place at the helm in other than emergency conditions? Nope, they fly about the to the final frontier, with the Captain giving orders to the helmsman, who then steers the vessel. Even the series "Enterprise," the postulated first long term exploration of space has a crew hurtling around at Warp, running the show just like a ship!

I say put the Squids in Space! Besides, who need s a zoomie complaining all the way to the asteroid belt about no place within an astronomical unit to get a cold one? That would be really annoying....