Trump’s US Space Force is a ‘dumb idea,’ former NASA astronaut says

Mark
Kelly prepares for a flight in a NASA T-38 trainer jet in August
2010.

David
Dehoyos/NASA

• President Donald Trump’s administration hopes to create
  a sixth division of the military called the Space
  Force.
• Mark
  Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut, tweeted in June that it’s
  “a dumb idea.”
• The US Air
  Force already has a Space Command and a space
  force.

President Donald Trump and his administration are angling to
create a
Space Force, a sixth branch of the military that sounds
straight out of a sci-fi movie.

On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence
set a deadline for its creation: “Our administration will
soon take action to implement these recommendations with the
objective of establishing the United States Department of the
Space Force by the year 2020,”
Pence announced.

Neither the White House nor the Pentagon can create a Space
Force  without the approval of Congress, though Trump has
pushed for the plan
many times since becoming president.

At a meeting of the National Space Council on June 16, Trump
said, “we are going to have the
Air Force, and we are going to have the Space Force — separate
but equal.”

The idea is part of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act,
which became
law in December and defines the force as “a separate military
department responsible for the national security space
activities.” It asks the Defense Department to submit a final
plan for its structure and functions by December 31.

But retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly — a former Navy pilot,
combat veteran, four-time space-flyer, and the
identical twin brother of the former astronaut Scott Kelly —
doesn’t support the plan, and some members of Congress have also
voiced their distaste for the idea.

“This is a dumb idea. The Air Force does this already. That is
their job,” Mark Kelly tweeted in June, following
Trump’s remarks. “What’s next, we move submarines to the 7th
branch and call it the ‘under-the-sea force?'”

Kelly reiterated that point yesterday.

“There is a threat out there but it’s being handled by the US Air
Force today,” he said during an MSNBC interview, according

to Reuters. “[It] doesn’t make sense to build a whole other
level of bureaucracy in an incredibly bureaucratic DoD.”

Why the US already has a Space Force

An
augmented-reality demonstration by the Air Force Space
Command.

USAF

Kelly was referring to the Air Force Space Command, though the
group has had different names over the years.

Space Command is headquartered in Colorado, and its
responsibilities include supporting military use of satellites,
rocket launches, and cyberwarfare operations. The group also
helps
track the countless pieces of space junk and debris around
Earth that pose a
persistent threat to anything in orbit.

Space Command is managed by US Strategic Command, one of 10
groups that direct major pieces of the Defense Department. Its
responsibilities include oversight of the country’s
nuclear-weapons capabilities, which involves space because
long-range, nuclear-tipped missiles
fly through space.

In July 2016, Space Command even announced the creation of a
Space Mission Force, which military leadership said was
akin to an expeditionary force.

Red
dots are known pieces of China’s destroyed FY-1C satellite. Green
dots are low-Earth orbit satellites.
Celestrak/Analytical Graphics, Inc.

This force was created in part to quickly respond to outer-space
attacks from adversaries. The main countries of concern are
Russia, which continues to publicize
new
weaponry, and China, which
destroyed one of its own satellites in a 2007 test with a
“kill vehicle” — essentially a giant bullet launched by missile.

“Despite world interest in avoiding militarization of space,
potential adversaries have identified the use of space as an
advantage for US military forces, and are actively fielding
systems to deny our use of space in a conflict,” Gen. John E.
Hyten, the commander of US Strategic Command, wrote in a white paper about the
decision in 2016, when he led Space Command.

The Trump administration wants to peel these space-related
capabilities from the Air Force, however, and form a new division
entirely.

For and against a Space Force

Sen. Bill
Nelson.
Aaron
Bernstein/Reuters

Some members of Congress, especially those in the House of
Representatives, appear warm to the idea.

“As we get all these briefings about what adversaries are doing,
our dependence on space, it’s clear that we have to do better,”
Rep. Mac Thornberry, the Texas Republican who chairs the House
Armed Services Committee, told reporters in early June,
according to Space News. “Organizational changes don’t fix
all the problems. But on the other hand, they can sometimes help
make sure space gets the kind of priority it should have, like
cyber, as a domain of warfare.”

But others in Congress — and apparently some high-ranking
military officials — have, like Kelly, questioned and pushed back
on the idea of a Space Force.

“The president told a US general to create a new Space Force as
6th branch of military today, which generals tell me they don’t
want,” Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida tweeted on June 18.
“Thankfully the president can’t do it without Congress because
now is NOT the time to rip the Air Force apart. Too many
important missions at stake.”

Stationing or testing any weapons of mass destruction in space,
including nuclear weapons, is banned by the United Nations’

Outer Space Treaty of 1967. While peaceful use and
exploration is permitted, smaller-scale weapons are not
explicitly barred, and experts fear that militarizing space with
them could stoke a costly new arms race.

A war in space might also lead to something called
a Kessler event. In this scenario, uncontrolled space debris
could collide and create even more uncontrolled space debris,
ultimately shutting off human access to space for decades, if not
centuries.

This story has been updated with new information. It was
originally published on June 19, 2018. A previous version
misidentified Rep. Thornberry’s state.

Ben Brimelow contributed reporting.