Missileers were treated like red-headed step-children in the USAF and they could be expected to quash space in favor of aviation every time..so air-to-air is all they should have gotten.
Eh, not really. There was conflict at first but as the overall Air Force command wanted long range missiles (and the warheads they carried, because at the time in question who ever had warheads got the budget) under their purview they got the Bomber mafia to accept a compromise that got the long range missiles under the Air Force. Initially this caused problems but once Missiles were firmly under SAC then missilers were initially on-par with the bombers and later surpassed them. Similarly the missile development and operations branch was coopted to perform and act as the "official" US launch providers with the NRO built up in the background.
Initially "space" was just seen as an extension of the Air Force missile development with pretty much full Air Force support because at its most basic level flying in space was pitched and seen as simply flying "higher and faster" anyway.
Of course the main issue was by that point every branch (except maybe the Marines
) was trying to get into the missile and space game as it was a sure way to get an increased budget. But in context at that point everyone had different things they were doing that could in theory complement each other but instead were in competition. The Army had a large launch vehicle (Saturn) in development, the Navy had advanced microelectronics and navigation and communications work going on and the Air Force arguably had the organization and contractor support to actually run things. And needless to say all were at loggerheads over who should/would get the funding.
Hence NASA came about and ended up taking most of the Army/Navy development and using (initially) mostly Air Force rockets and support.
To be fair each branch had its own vision but they differed enough that at a very fundamental level each pursuing that vision would have ended up with a fairly mediocre "space program" from the rather simple fact they didn't have much more than some vague ideas of expanding "current" operations into space. What was needed was a broader and more complete vision along with the support to push it forward. Instead what the US got was a singular "goal" oriented "waste anything but time" mission that arguably fit the initial Air Force operational map so that's what NASA ended up going with.
We're still dealing with that fallout today.
The USAF got its ICBM money. It was producing and fielding 4 systems at once. The missiliers were protected. Missiliers in the army would have been worse off.
Not really as evidenced by the Army missile deployments and operations historically. Biggest operational and doctrinal difference was the Air Force wanted non-mobile missiles while the Army wanted mobile systems. It was a good enough point the Air Force ended up lobbying for mobile systems but by that point the costs were going to be too high to implement.
Nope, they were protected in DC.
To the break out of the Korean War the Air Force had been the main monetary and supported service, (and even that was not enough to actually do much with) and once that kicked off money was poured into all the branches to try and repair the damage. Unfortunately the time between the end of WWII and the beginning of the Korean War had hardened and deepened the regular inter-service rivalry between the different branches to the point where it had been expected that (had the Korean War not happened) only one service would be retained with the other branches being absorbed by that branch or being turned into essentially "National Guard" level sub-services.
Once the Korean War broke out that policy and doctrine was replaced in DC by one of wanting to pump up all the services to near-WWII levels because of how off guard Korea caught US policy and doctrine. The "problem" was that all three branches were still in "panic/survival mode" initially which meant they were all trying to become THE premier service over the other two which meant not only taking on as much of the "nuclear" mission as possible but meanwhile denying the other branches as many missions as possible.
As it stood the Air Force was going to end up with bombers and ICBM's so two of the three legs of the "triad" with the Navy having to initially scramble to gain the SLBM mission. Arguably it would have been better for the Army to have the ICBM's because it didn't really fit with the Air Force's initial (post WWII) mission but that ship has sailed already. As it is, today one can argue (and it's been done... a lot
) that the only "leg" of the triad we actually need are the SLBM's but again that's a ship that has sailed and is unlikely to be revisited at this point.
It can be argued that DC at this point really does not understand "deterrence" or the "triad" very well and only looks at the votes/money that a new system would provide but given they have been hemming and hawing, and starting and stopping for almost 50 years now on getting new systems up and running it's rather obvious that they are not very well versed or even care about the actual "missions". So it's more finding a way to work around them at this point rather than being "protected" by them
Space was better off because it was in the Air Force. They knew how to deal with the CIA and they knew how to work with high altitude vehicles.
We got Agena, Delta and Titan III because of the Air Force.
We got the NRO.
"Space" was arguably better off with NASA but as noted above they had to absorb a lot of the Air Force doctrine and operations to get to the Moon in under a decade. That has hurt them in the long run and they've been having to try and adapt back to being "just another agency" of the US since 1969. The Air Force never had a clear "mission" or "vision" of space, any more than any of the other branches did it was always more than just the "new high ground" and frankly an Air Force space program would have been pretty much a mirror of the Soviet space program rather than what we got with NASA.
That is inane. There is no reason for ABMA to produce such a rocket.
Best thing that happened to ABMA was NASA coming around and taking WVB's group. They would have been wasted working on Pershing and Nike or gone back to Germany. It was better that US industry was making rockets. There was more and varied designs.
You've already pointed out that ABMA WAS developing such a rocket at the behest of ARPA, and the main obstacle to that development was in fact the US Air Force who kept stopping the ARPA development money with promises of literally paper rockets and future development "someday" versus ABMA's actual development of a working rocket. It was literally the only thing that could carry Dynasoar to orbit by the time the design was finalised. Even the Air Force acknowledged that, (grudgingly) and ended up requesting ABMA do some redesign work on the Saturn to allow it. (And then Dynasoar got canceled and ABMA had to literally take metal saws to the rocket before it's first test flight. Which went off without a hitch unlike so many Air Force missiles before it. Yes taking WVB/Marshall into NASA was a very good thing but considering how the first test Saturn was literally built from mostly scavenged parts it says something good about that team and the Army was very aware of that. As was the Air Force and what was to become NASA so win-win I'd say
)
In the very end I'm sure you will all be "shocked" find out the background and history is very, very complicated by forces and issues that today we'd find really confusing and often hard to understand because we've never had to deal with them and didn't have to find a solution for. Pretty much nobody was 'useless' in building up what the US has. It was often wasteful, contentious, and at times cut-throat but we're better for it I think. (Of course the Air Force is still the premier service, after all they had me for 21 years so there is that
)
Randy
