Axe is in Lebanon. So he’s not around to give his Pop Sci cover story, “Semper Fly,” a proper shout-out. Allow me.
The Marines have typically been the American military’s emergency fighter, its “911 force,” the guys you want to get to a trouble zone, ASAP. But these days, getting overflight rights and managing logistics right can slow things to a crawl. So a bunch of waaaay out-of-the-box-thinkin’ Marines have come up with an almost insanely ambitious new plan: send squads through space, instead. The concept is called “Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion,” or SUSTAIN.
Each Sustain lander is intended to hold a squad of 13 Marines. Mounted on wedge-shaped carrier aircraft, the lander would detach, climb, and accelerate with scramjet engines to 100,000 feet and then fire rocket engines to get above 50 miles, following an arc over hostile countries. Composite shields would absorb or deflect the searing heat of reentry as the vehicles angle for the landing zone.
Lafontant arrived at this Space Marines vision after years of analyzing military space needs. A 44-year-old Queens, New York, native who joined the Corps in 1984 as an infantry officer and progressed through Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he studied space systems operations and joined the small fraternity of Marine Space Operations Officers. In 2001 he took a job in the Pentagon working for the National Reconnaissance Office. He was serving as liaison to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in November 2001 when the Marine Corps launched its deepest air assault ever.
Five hundred Marines from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit prepared to fly 441 miles through the mountains of northern Pakistan in CH-53E Sea Stallion helicopters to capture an airstrip near Kandahar, Afghanistan. It was to be the beginning of the first large offensive against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. If all went well, the Marines expected to walk away with Osama bin Laden.
But political considerations sabotaged the mission. For weeks, the Marines had bobbed on the Indian Ocean aboard two assault ships while State Department officials negotiated with Pakistan for the right to fly through the countrys airspace. Pakistan granted access only after winning economic and military concessions that, some say, have reinforced a repressive regime. When U.S. troops finally touched down on November 25, bin Ladens trail was cold. We ended up selling our soul to the devil to get through, Lafontant says. He grew determined to find a way around that sort of diplomatic entanglement. What if we dont have to have anybodys permission? he asked himself. What if we just go above and drop in?
Now, David just loves this idea. But he knows it’s pretty damn far-fetched. He does a good job at laying out the obstacles to making SUSTAIN happen. Not just the extremely high technical hurdles; the Marines’ total and utter lack of funds for the project, too. He warps up his story on a balanced note:
Whether or not Sustain ever makes it past the concept stage, its clear that military planners are looking to increase the mobility of American forces. A Marine space transport one that would reduce politically charged bureaucratic delays and the potential for mission snafus might sound impossible, but to Lafontant and others entrusted with imagining the future of war, it is simply the next logical step.
A few questions that I hope David or someone else could answer:
1) How do the Marines intend on refeuling these supersonic space crotch-rockets once they to their destination? Or will the SUSTAIN aircraft (spacecraft?) carry enough fuel to get there and back?
2) How are the Marines proposing to get SUSTAIN home once it lands on foreign soil and its squad gets the job done?
3) SUSTAIN can probably fly over hostile territory with few problems, but can it land in hostile territory without air support?
I’m a huge “Starship Troopers” fan (the movie less so than the book), but hasn’t Iraq taught us that the “transformed” military is stuck moving at the speed of its logistics tail?
Love the concept. Its never going to happen.
I have a great idea, an airplane that lands and takes off like a helicopter! Right. It only took a decade and nearly got cut a thousand times before the Osrey became operational.
Look at the Dragon skin armor and the reception it has gotten.
Kelly johnson is spinning in his grave.
oh my. this Nam era Marine says.…‘svaporware supreme
a squad? a squad? just how many of these super duper space transports are supposed to be needed to accomplish ANYTHING? lesseee, now, we got how many Marines in the mideast muddle right now? and some magic space SQUAD is going to do.….what, exactly?
’n yeah, what about support for these poor souls? or supply? or return?
it’s bull.
Now, if DARPA would just update and improve upon ol WALRUS airship idea, to create large RIGID SHELLED, AMPHIBIOUS, 300 ton, 200mph, armed,solar/jet powered, surviellance/com/sensor/transport.…AIRSHIPS.…
ya’ll might consider: linger time of weeks over any area…easy unrefueled intercontinental range.…no immideate overflight permission? airships can take weeks long circuitous route…most persons carried thus far in history..207, and that 70 years ago, nothing to upgrade that to 500.…..airships’ hull big enough for solar power.…properly built out of rigid carbon fiber materials can be built to carry several hundred tons (DARPA Walrus took to high a rung on payload)…huge airships hull is support for huge sensor capabilities as well
(dont bother commenting with easy-to-shoot-down nonsense)
saw the Pop Mech article. cute pictures though
my oops. Popular Science
> Posted by: Robot.Economist
> A few questions that I hope David or someone else could answer:
> 1) How do the Marines intend on refeuling these supersonic space crotch-rockets
> once they to their destination? Or will the SUSTAIN aircraft (spacecraft?) carry
>enough fuel to get there and back?
> 2) How are the Marines proposing to get SUSTAIN home once it lands on foreign soil
> and its squad gets the job done?
From a briefing they gave the Air Force I downloaded ( USAFSUSTAINBrief.ppt ) that varies. In some configurations they use small expendable craft, or ones that can be picked up later by helos or a snag lift by a C-17. Other bigger craft carry enough jet or rocket fuel for a short hop out to friendly territory or a aircraft carrior.
> 3) SUSTAIN can probably fly over hostile territory with few problems, but can it land
> in hostile territory without air support?
Well you could launch air support the same way, or just count on the surprise factor when you show up in the middle of someone
The fundamental tech problems of launching a small reusable glide-to-landing spacecraft were demonstably solved when Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne secured the Ansari X-Prize: http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/
Presumably this design can be scaled up to suit the mission described. I’m not a military guy so I don’t know how you’ll get the troops back out, given the initial constraints, but the tech aspect of this seems readily within the military’s grasp.
What a great idea! Develop a mini-space shuttle that will cost what, tens of millions of dollars so that we can transport ONE SQUAD of Marines into combat. BRILLIANT!
Or we could just tell the Paki government to shove the request to use their airspace up their ass and just fly through. Come on Marines. You’ve done better with the ad hoc solutions than the star wars concepts.
May be it’s just me or did they copy that Marines from aliens?
http://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Colonial-Marines-Technical-Manual/dp/0061053430
Two huge issues:
1)Size of vehicle (I assume that — if one wants to go through the trouble and expense of sending Marines through space, you’d want to send a bunch in several large craft).
2)Method of landing.
For 1), A large hypersonic-speed craft has never been developed. Someone mentioned Rutan’s success, and perhaps Virgin Atlantic’s larger version might do the trick, except: It has no useable hypersonic range to speak of.
For 2), landing an aircraft-like vehicle from hypersonic speed to a likely landing speed is out of the question, because you really need to have very short landing distances in unpredictable terrain. Something like the DC-X (VTOL) that Blue Origins is emulating would be the best bet, but would have to be large.
Another option is paraglider technology combined with brief rocket breaking. You would definitely want major air support for any of these schemes, because the weight penalties for self-defense on any of these approaches would be prohibitive payload-wise.
When I read things like this I can’t help but to think that the DOD has become a bunch of imaginative children who have lost touch with reality.
There is a war on, one that is not going well, and is said to be of vital importance.
Someone needs to be slapped in the face Bogart style and told: “We don’t have time for this!”.
This is not a new idea. It was proposed as a strawman over fifty years ago by a Marine general. I forget his name but will research it and get back to you.
He did not propose it as something that could be done then or could even be done in fifty or a hundred years. He mentioned it as just one item in a laundry list of many in an attempt to get officers thinking about how to conduct warfare in a future that would have different restraints than in the 20th century.
You may be able to get the original article from the archives of the Marine Corps Gazette.
mike
Doesn’t it seem like an operation involving SUSTAIN would bear similarities to the allied use of glider-borne troops in WW2?
As mentioned, this idea is not new…check out Douglas Bono’s 1964 concept for a ballistic troop transport:
http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/SpaceLVs/Slides/sld013.htm
“The smaller
Even thought I am not old enough to get into the Marines yet, I would be willing to be in a squad like that. I think that would be a wonderful way to transport squads. You also get to go into space, somthing that would be so sweet. And props to who ever made the picture of the moon base, it really caught my eye.
Drop Marines from space, awesome.
Practical? no.
Possible? you better believe.
The fact is that Marines are water based, if a country is bordered by a sea, the Marines can and will attack, but attacking a landlocked country is kinda new to the Corps and they are just brainstorming ways to get around enemy/neutral(bs) countries that refuse to give fly through rights. Thats why the Marines attacked Iraq before the Army, I believe it was a problem with Turkey. Off the wall ideas lead to inovative techniques that will shape the Corps for years to come.
Great way to move the Marines tomorrow.
Aside sub to the shoreline submerged.
Best bets for Team Units only.
Must fund SUSTAIN.
Nice.
Why not just have the Army do it? If I’m not mistaken, the Air Force is working on a hypersonic vehicle named the Falcon, that promises to strike anywhere in the world in two hours, and this from a state side air field no less. Insertion from an air field sounds like a role more befitting outfits like the 101st and 82nd airborne.
Just my two cents.
Who told that don. t exist.Are you forghot former 47 space wing,even Apollo crue,even some hidden army programms.How about Area51.Beleive or not:it exist.Many of them will never told that is member of USMC/ United Space Marine Corpus/. And that people exist he, live around world and newer will told that they are servicing as SMC mebers, as ordinary marines kept secret what they douing in space. Y know that somebody would not belive me,bat it,s thrue and will stay in shadow what they douing. It is thrue, and will stay in secrecy. Do not ask me if y am, y will not answer you back if y am. Y am proud in to his yob; His logo is:Y will never leave may comrad behinde and y will not fail.You know that as part of the Airman creed it is a logo of USMC.Even usmc song is :From the time of Motezuma Siencerely. PS:If somebody ask me y will denayed that y am meber of the USM.