
According to one retired three-star Air Force general, the technology already behind it can deliver a person from any place in the world to another location in less than an hour.
When President Trump announced the US Space Command would be the sixth military branch it was treated as a joke by his critics and fans alike. Its mission statement sounds like a joke, too: "To Develop Ready and Lethal Joint Warfighters: USSPACECOM will improve the development of joint space operations forces and capabilities to enhance space warfighting readiness and lethality while accelerating the integration of space capabilities into other warfighting forces." You can read the full mission statement, here https://www.spacecom.mil/About/Fact-Sheets-Editor/Article/1948216/united-states-space-command-fact-sheet/
But in plain English what is the purpose of USSPACECOM? According to Steven L. Kwast, the retired Air Force general and former commander cited above, it's about energy. He gives us an idea of what this command has been doing behind the scenes since it was created in September 1985:
"Energy, the seed corn of all development, all growth, all survival. Energy. So energy, transportation, information and manufacturing -- these are the things that change humanity and will change world power, and they are descending upon us in ways that are very unique.
"The technology is on the engineering benches of today, but most Americans and most in Congress have not had time to look deeply at what is really going on here. But I've had the benefit of 33 years of studying and becoming friends with these engineers and scientists.
"This technology can be built today, with technology that is not developmental, to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour, to deliver Wifi from space where you never need a cell tower to connect. To deliver energy from space where you never have to plug your phone in and it trickle-charges, and you can use that energy over time. It can be applied to cars to houses.
"The technology of Edison and Tesla that we live with in our energy environment paradigm today is expensive, it's dangerous and it's wasteful. Plug it into the wall and yet that's what we all do because we're used to paradigms. The power of space will change world power forever and it doesn't have to be a big country to do it. It can be a small island country, say New Zealand, because the technology if optimized can change world power and there is nothing you can do if you don't have that power.
"The nature of power: you either have it and your values rule or you do not have it and you must submit. We see that play out again and again in history, and it's playing out now."
In space.