16:39 14.12.2019(updated 16:48 14.12.2019) Get short URL
The recently retired officer made the bizarre claim in a little reported lecture at a college in Washington late last month.
The United States already has the theoretical capability to deliver human beings anywhere on Earth using radically advanced technology, US Air Force Lieut. Gen. Steven L. Kwast (ret) has claimed.
“The technology is on the engineering benches today. But most Americans and most members of Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what is going on here. But I’ve had the benefit of 33 years of studying and becoming friends with these 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,” Kwast said, speaking at Hillsdale College on November 20.
According to the officer, in addition to people, advanced already-existing technologies can deliver Wi-Fi and energy from space, doing away with the need for cell towers and cellphone chargers, with the technology also applicable to homes and vehicles.
“The power of space will change world power, and it doesn’t have to be a big country to do it. It can be a small island country, let’s 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…You either have it, and your values rule, or you do not have it, and you must submit. We’ve seen that play out again and again in history, and it’s playing out now,” the retired officer stressed.
Kwast did not expand on or specify what sort of technology the US supposedly has to increase the speed of human travel in such a radical way, but given the theme of his speech, devoted to the US Space Force, the new branch of the US military announced by President Trump in August, he seemed to be talking about Earth-Space-Earth travel, rather than some sort of Star Trek Transporter - or a The Fly-like teleportation pod.
Kwast, who retired from the Air Force in August, allegedly for speaking on and writing about military space-related issues despite orders from his superiors not to do so, is known to be an active proponent of a US struggle for military dominance in space. The Drive, which reported on his Hillsdale College speech, suggested that the retired officer may even be tapped to take command of Trump’s Space Force, funding for which was approved by the House this week as part of the Pentagon’s $738 billion 2020 fiscal budget.
In his speech, Kwast warned that although the US remained “dominant” in space at the moment, it needed to act now to retain this dominance, because America’s adversaries – particularly China, could “win this race and then…put roadblocks up to space.” The officer claimed China was already building a space-based navy, including “battleships and destroyers” capable of manoeuvring and destroying their adversaries, while the US was not presently engaged in such efforts.