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Military Space

SPD-4 Signed Creating The United States Space Force

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 19, 2019
Filed under
SPD-4 Signed Creating The United States Space Force

Video of signing activities at the White House, CSPAN
Text of Space Policy Directive-4: Establishment of the United States Space Force, White House
“Section 1. Introduction. Space is integral to our way of life, our national security, and modern warfare. Although United States space systems have historically maintained a technological advantage over those of our potential adversaries, those potential adversaries are now advancing their space capabilities and actively developing ways to deny our use of space in a crisis or conflict. It is imperative that the United States adapt its national security organizations, policies, doctrine, and capabilities to deter aggression and protect our interests. Toward that end, the Department of Defense shall take actions under existing authority to marshal its space resources to deter and counter threats in space, and to develop a legislative proposal to establish a United States Space Force as a sixth branch of the United States Armed Forces within the Department of the Air Force. This is an important step toward a future military department for space. Under this proposal, the United States Space Force would be authorized to organize, train, and equip military space forces of the United States to ensure unfettered access to, and freedom to operate in, space, and to provide vital capabilities to joint and coalition forces in peacetime and across the spectrum of conflict.”
Remarks by President Trump at Signing Ceremony for Space Policy Directive-4 (Space Policy Comments Excerpt)
“Our adversaries and — whether we get along with them or not, they’re up in space. And they’re doing it, and we’re doing it. And that’s going to be a very big part of where the defense of our nation — and you could say “offense” — but let’s just be nice about it and let’s say the defense of our nation is going to be. America must be fully equipped to defend our vital interests. Our adversaries are training forces and developing technology to undermine our security in space, and they’re working very hard at that. That’s why my administration has recognized space as a warfighting domain and made the creation of the Space Force a national security priority. I think we’ll have great support from Congress, because they do support something when we’re talking about such importance. And a lot of the generals, a lot of the people involved have been speaking to Congress. And we have some very interesting dialogue going on.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

9 responses to “SPD-4 Signed Creating The United States Space Force”

  1. Tim Blaxland says:
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    Despite the rhetoric, it doesn’t actually create USSF (United States Space Force) though? It is just a plan for a plan as I read it.

    • David Fowler says:
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      Only Congress can establish the service and give it a budget.

    • Bill Keksz says:
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      I think it’s even less than that. It seems to require DOD to lobby Congress to propose creating an organization that does something to protect our space assets.
      I think….

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      Yeah, this bit from Section 1, Introduction: “and to develop a legislative proposal to establish a United States Space Force as a sixth branch of the United States Armed Forces”

      Congress needs to act in order for this to become an actual 6th branch of the United States Armed Forces.

  2. Brian_M2525 says:
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    I think its a good idea to establish the Space Force and for exactly the reason Trump stated: space is becoming a part of man’s working, operating (and potentially its fighting) environment.

    As far as NASA’s role, for the last 35 years the people in NASA’s human space flight program made the mistake of thinking they were the “operations force” when it came to space flight. Maybe they got carried away with the Shuttle? They thought they were operating an airline. They kept putting flight controllers in charge and the flight controllers starting in the 1980s were actively trying to give space vehicle design and development away because they and NASA’s human space effort were “operators”. At that time they were just as happy if MSFC led the design effort. More recently the JSC people were just as happy if the contractors like Boeing or Lockheed or even Space-X led the effort. NASA’s human space team forgot their roots.

    NASA, like NACA, was established to expand the US technological capability. Sure, as long as operating in space was small potatoes and we were only launching a handful of astronauts each year, they could lead operations. But as travel into space becomes commonplace and routine, as Space-X is promising, and as operations become routine NASA’s human space effort needs to head back to its roots in advancing technology. The DOD Space Force might ask for some assistance on occasion, as they did with X-planes and advancing supersonic or hypersonic flight designs, but the DOD and commercial will be the operators. Its going to happen and the sooner the better as the current crop of NASA is leaderless. Bridenstine is the wrong type-he is a pilot, an operator, not a developer. Gerstenmyer grew up in operations-wrong place performing the wrong functions. He is not a developer and unfortunately projects like Orion and SLS have shown what happens when no one knowledgeable is in charge. They have been lost since before Columbia. They’ve never even admitted that it was their poor operations discipline that destroyed Columbia and the Shuttle Program. Today they have no idea what direction in which they are heading.

    Even when it came to operating ISS, the only real function NASA’s humans space effort has today, they lost their way in integration processes, safety assurance, and any science other than their own internal life sciences. Their leaders thought it was all about operations. They squandered NASA’s hard won capabilities of the previous 50 years. They’ve been wandering aimlessly since 2003. It is time for NASA to move in a new direction and maybe the Space Force can help to clarify and define that direction.

  3. Daniel Woodard says:
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    Does anyone in the administration know how the DOD actually works? Or even glance at a history book? The “service branches” may choose the uniforms, but the unified commands fight the wars. That’s why Space Command was created way back in 1985. Then, in 2002, after 9/11 the decision was made (by Dick Cheney?) that maybe space wasn’t so critical and the resources were needed to invade Iraq, and Spacecom was merged with Stratcom, later emerging as Air Force Space Command, which it is today. The current DOD plan, in response to the administration request is to return Space Command to the unified command level it had before 2002. I suspect DOD is hoping the administration will come to its senses and be satisfied with that. The personnel, from all the service branches, are fully capable of doing the job. No new uniforms or Space Force Academy needed.

    The DOD is effective when it is unified, not when it is divided. That’s why the separate Departments of the Army and Navy were combined after WWII into the DOD. This is no time to move backward on a whim.

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      I am in flavor of a Space Force. Maybe like sometime in the late 2020s with a better defined mandate and force structure. Not the current bureaucracy building exercise.

      Think the DoD is waiting for the next Federal election.

      It is likely that the GOP will loss both Houses of Congress plus the White House. According to my reading of the recent polling results.

      IMO anything associated with the current administration will be examined by the 2020 Congress and will be deal with severely if find wanting.

      • David Fowler says:
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        Personally, I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to launch a combined cyber and space service, that would eventually split as the domains become more mature.

    • David Fowler says:
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      The concepts that you present about jointness and separate services are not mutually exclusive. They only appear to be if you ignore how the services are designed to be plug and play within the unified command structures. It doesn’t matter what uniform color they wear in operational domains. Having a distinct service does help, however, with acquisition, training, budgeting, recruiting, and very importantly: doctrine.