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Donald Trump Wants a 'Space Force,' But America Already Has One

Donald Trump's proposed 'Space Force' will not exist engaging in laser battles anytime shortly — if it ever gets created. (Image credit: Corey Ford/Stocktrek Images/Getty)

In a meeting of the National Space Council yesterday (June 18), President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to get keen on building a 6th co-operative of the U.S. military called the Infinite Force.

This ambitious projection, which Trump has been teasing for several months at present, would issue in the outset new branch being added to the U.S. military since the Air Strength was created in 1947. But what exactly will this Space Force exercise? Who volition pay for it, when will it launch and — most important — will it involve lightsabers?

None of that is actually clear even so. Since first bringing up the idea for a Infinite Force in March, Trump hasn't provided many physical details nigh the project, relieve for some philosophical talk about recognizing infinite every bit "a war-fighting domain" and assuring "American dominance" in that location.

While this sort of language might conjure up images of interstellar laser battles or armadas of hovering battleships, the reality of American space security is far less scintillating. According to Laura Grego, a senior scientist in the Global Security Programme at the Marriage of Concerned Scientists, space security mainly involves keeping other countries abroad from American satellites. [22 Weirdest Armed services Weapons]

"The U.S. military is strongly underpinned past a very capable satellite fleet," Grego told Alive Science. "And the U.S. is in the centre of trying to figure out what its strategy should exist to proceed its satellites condom. I encounter this push button to take a Space Strength as merely i other feature of doing this."

What is infinite security?

Since 1984, the U.S. Air Force has put more than than 280 satellites into orbit. (The virtually contempo one — a missile-detection satellite named USA-282 — was launched in Jan.) These satellites do everything from predicting the atmospheric condition, to monitoring ballistic-missile launches, to helping soldiers call their families, Grego said. They are crucial for surveillance, reconnaissance, navigation and communication — and every branch of the military relies on them.

Certainly, preventing foreign nations from interfering with these satellites — say, by jamming their sensors or hacking into their networks and stealing information — is a paramount national security concern, Grego said. A Space Force, presumably, would take accuse of protecting and maintaining America's space capabilities.

The trouble is, the U.S. military already has an bureau that does this.

"The Air Force does most of this," Grego said.

In 1982, the Air Force formed a new agency called The Air Force Infinite Command (AFSPC). Co-ordinate to the AFSPC's website, the command's mission is "to provide resilient and affordable space and net capabilities for the Articulation Force and the Nation."

This portfolio includes commanding and controlling government satellites, helping NASA and individual companies conduct rocket launches, monitoring infinite junk that could interfere with American space missions and generally "maintaining space superiority."

Today, the agency employs more than 35,000 people.

The final frontier of bureaucracy

So, why separate infinite security from the Air Force after more than than 30 years? To Grego, the reasoning is not clear. If created, the Space Strength runs the risk of calculation another layer of bureaucracy to an already complicated system, she said.

"Space and space access right now are really function and parcel of the other things that the military does," Grego said. "Infinite Force holds them separate where they might exist amend integrated."

The Pentagon tends to agree.

"The Pentagon is complicated enough," Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters last June, after dismissing an armed services beak that proposed the creation of a new space-based military branch. "This volition make it more than complex, add more than boxes to the organization chart and toll more money. If I had more money, I would put information technology into lethality, not bureaucracy."

Brandon has been a senior writer at Live Science since 2017, and was formerly a staff writer and editor at Reader'due south Digest magazine. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, CBS.com, the Richard Dawkins Foundation website and other outlets. He holds a bachelor'southward degree in artistic writing from the University of Arizona, with minors in journalism and media arts. He enjoys writing most nearly space, geoscience and the mysteries of the universe.