The Pentagon remains unenthusiastic about organizing the new United States Space Force championed by president Donald Trump. And the odds are on its side Trump's space force won't become the sixth service branch of the United States Armed Forces.
U.S. Air Force officials and national security experts strongly oppose the creation of a separate Space Force as an additional bureaucracy that won't be worth the money to be spent on it. Then there's the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), which already does much of what the proposed Space Force is supposed to do.
Informally referred to as U.S. Space Command, AFSPC is a major command of the U.S. Air Force. It supports U.S. military operations worldwide by satellites, launch and cyber operations in the conduct of military operations.
Vice President Mike Pence on Aug. 9 said the administration is pushing forward with its plans to establish a Space Force. He said the Space Force will become the sixth branch of the United States Armed Forces. In a Pentagon address, Pence said establishing the Space Force is an idea whose time has come. Donald Trump, the main backer of the new service, tweeted, "Space Force all the way!"
Pence said Congress will have to establish a new department, which will organize, train and equip the United States, Space Force. His remarks coincided with the release of a Pentagon report detailing the steps needed to create a Space Force.
The Pentagon report also recommended a plan to establish U.S. Space Command, a unified combatant command, by the end of 2018 and that this command is under the command of the Air Force for now.
What Pence unveiled is a set of interim steps the Department of Defense will begin to take immediately to start building the foundations for a Space Force, said Todd Harrison, a director and aerospace expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Harrison noted that it will ultimately be Congress that will establish the Space Force through legislation, and the only thing the administration can do in the interim is to gather support in Congress for the Space Force.
Creating the Space Force will depend on whether the existing AFSPC can protect U.S. satellites, and tackle other military challenges in space. One of the main reasons for creating a Space Force is to improve their capabilities to defend attacks on the U.S. military satellites. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis admitted space is becoming a contested warfighting domain and the U.S. has to adapt to that reality.
