As the "Ship" is "Spaceship" Should Make Clear; Space Has a Navy

As the USAF was picking its collective navel over a, "Space Corps" last week, a fair bit of grumbling could be heard from the Navy/SciFi fandom world.

The SciFi canon & just plain common sense tells anyone that from ranks to culture to structure, that any force in space will have a nautical heritage.

Our friend Matt Hipple over The National Interest makes the case;

Sustained operations in space resemble operations at sea. Diversely specialized sailors crew forward deployed ships, conducting voyage planning and contact management familiar to naval personnel. There are orbital buoys to maintain, infrastructure to protect, and eventually boarding inspections to conduct.
...
The orbital equivalent of afloat forward staging bases will shuttle supplies and rotational crews to vessels that remain in theater, years after launch. In achieving orbit and stationing, maritime professionals will recognize the similarities to anchorage and underway replenishments. To those who point to the challenges of maneuvering a vessel in three dimensions – the Navy already has submariners and naval aviators.

Even if the majority these operations remain automated – manned support craft and control stations will be necessary. Terrestrial, orbital, or onboard watch standers will seek adversary threats and navigation hazards in the vast domain of our congested orbit, to the moon, and eventually mars. The controlling teams will need to combine the naval mentalities associated with surface, subsurface, mine, and air warfare.

It is a fun read, with some history and serious points,

Give it a full read.