Ted Cruz Thinks the U.S. Needs to Defend Against Space Pirates

[TomSea]

Ted Cruz Thinks the U.S. Needs to Defend Against Space Pirates

Yesterday, during a meeting at the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz extolled reasons why the U.S. needs to adopt a sixth branch of the military, known as the Space Force.

While there are certainly valid reasons for the U.S. to invest more resources into protecting space assets, Cruz decided to highlight one threat in particular that's pretty perplexing—the advent of space pirates.

Here's exactly what he said:

    Since the ancient Greeks first put to sea, 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. In this same way, 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.

Read more at: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a27483291/ted-cruz-space-pirates/

[kidd]

His statement comes off as a little bizarre, but there is some substance to it.

A potential enemy could, for example, place a small robotic thruster in the vicinity of our GPS satellites. The enemy could, with the push of a button, reposition those satellites, making them useless. All of our GPS guidance-based systems (missiles, ships, troops, etc.) would have to adapt to less accurate systems