Space Force Becoming Politicized, but Creation Seen as Possible by 2020

President Donald Trump's pledge to create a separate Space Force military branch (see 1806180028) needlessly politicized and muddied a pressing national security issue, House Armed Services Committee member Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., said at an Aspen Institute talk Thursday. He said a separate armed forces branch isn't needed, just a more capable U.S. Air Force. Cooper said Congress and the Air Force have been aware for close to 20 years about the threat of a militarized space, but have done nothing. He said GPS has made much of the world satellite-dependent, but with China and Russia developing rival global navigation satellite systems, that dependence is “a vulnerability that could render us deaf, dumb and blind in seconds.” House Armed Services Committee member Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said Russia and China see space as an area where they can compete head-to-head with the U.S. militarily, and both have been devoting bigger parts of their defense budgets to space capabilities than the U.S. has. He said the Air Force bureaucracy is "beyond repair," necessitating a carve-out of space capabilities and personnel into a Space Corps that would focus on space issues. He said the Air Force regularly takes money from space programs for aeronautic programs. Rogers said Armed Services' vision is a corps within the Air Force, akin to the Marines under the Navy, with its own budget and own channels for promotion. He said it might not be necessary to have an entire sixth military branch that also incorporates space operations from other military branches. Rogers said a Space Corps by 2020 is possible if its structure is kept narrow like what House Armed Services is proposing.