Trump signs defense bill establishing U.S. Space Force: What comes next
President Donald Trump on Dec. 20 signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. The bill creates the U.S. Space Force as the sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces.
Trump signed the NDAA flanked by top defense and military officials at a ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.
"Today marks a landmark achievement as we officially inaugurate the newest branch or our military, the U.S. Space Force," Trump said. "This is very big and important moment."
The NDAA authorizes the establishment of the U.S. Space Force as a separate military branch to reside within the Department of the Air Force, the same way the Marine Corps is organized as an independent service in the Department of the Navy.
The USSF has launched a website.
See also:
U.S. Space Command eager to hand over space traffic duties to Commerce Department
U.S. Space Command chief Raymond: 'I'm really excited for the Space Force'
NDAA conference agreement establishes U.S. Space Force, directs major overhaul of space acquisitions
Barrett: Air Force to 'move out smartly' on Space Force
Space Force may finally become real — but it won't be an overhaul
Following standup of U.S. Space Force, Air Force bases could be renamed as space bases
Related Stories
CNet:
Someone working for the US Space Force must be a Trekkie. Star Trek fans say a new logo is a direct ripoff of Star Trek's Starfleet Command logo.
President Donald Trump revealed the new logo for the Space Force on Friday via Twitter.
[...]As soon as it was posted, eagle-eyed Star Trek fans responded, pointing out the logo's similarities to the Starfleet Command logo. The arrow, the swirl around the arrow, the star background and text placement are almost identical.
Cultural references and inspirations are only allowed for the right people?
Previously:
Space Force Offers First Peek at Camouflage Uniform
U.S. Space Force is Official
US Space Force debuts first recruitment ad and previously secret spacecraft:
"Maybe your purpose on this planet isn't on this planet."
That is the tagline accompanying the US Space Force's recruiting ad that appeared on Twitter on Wednesday.
The 30-second commercial is a montage of young people looking to the stars, intercut with images of rockets rising from monolith-like hangars, all colour graded the familiar teal and orange of blockbuster action movies.
[...] In addition to the expected military recruitment fare included in the video [...] the ad also includes the first official glimpse of the X37-B reusable space vehicle.
Previously:
US Space Force has its First Launch Today; Delayed but Successful Launch [Updated]
Star Trek Fans are Not Pleased about the New US Space Force Logo
Space Force Offers First Peek at Camouflage Uniform
U.S. Space Force is Official
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday December 25 2019, @11:38AM (14 children)
so they've asked for $10million to start the process.. no word on reducing the USAF budget.
Also no figures for how much SSA costs to run, and how a new Department gets the equipment and staff to run satellite tracking..
Who tells the civilians when a DoD space craft is active?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Booga1 on Wednesday December 25 2019, @11:48AM (10 children)
This is just a distraction from Trump's impeachment and a show piece for propaganda so he can say he accomplished something other than giving tax breaks to the wealthy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Booga1 on Wednesday December 25 2019, @12:33PM (4 children)
Heh, off topic? I am commenting directly on the creation of the space force and the timing of this announcement. I can understand disagreement, but not off topic.
I think this is one of several things Trump has pushed for so he can try to have some sort of "legacy" to hang his hat on.
Besides, it also fills the spot nicely for an appeal to military families to show how much he supports expanding the military. He's gone and created a whole new branch!
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:35PM
Please see: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/12/24/154254 [soylentnews.org]
SN is not immune such tactics.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @08:09PM
But the real concern is the political ramifications for this worldwide. We've now stated our interest in militarizing space. Even if the space treaty is (sort of) followed for now, this is going to cause Russia and China to both focus on their own militarized rampup towards space. Once China, Russia, USA, India start lobbing material into space, it will become a strategic asset for ground based threats. They can hit you but you can't hit them. This takes their risk of losses away entirely and allows them to threaten every other country on earth into compliance. Best part? They can lob conventional or slug projectiles down on their targets for cheap and difficult to deflect attacks against anyone. No war crime like using NBC methods which previous had to be used as the deterrent threats, and the other spacefaring countries will be in tacit agreement, using it as a new form of cold war with the proxy countries under threat. Between this and the new surveillance initiatives the world is becoming a much less free place to live, no matter how far away you try to get.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Wednesday December 25 2019, @10:26PM (1 child)
The problem with "disagree" is that has no impact on mod points. That's why people don't use it.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Thursday December 26 2019, @03:55AM
Of course. I get it. If I were to pick anything it would be flamebait since that's probably more accurate than off topic. I was being cynical at the very least. It's not a particularly interesting thought, and I certainly wasn't shooting for insightful.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @01:09PM (1 child)
Ok booga [snowflakevictory.com]
(Score: 1, Redundant) by captain normal on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:37PM
Again see: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/12/24/154254 [soylentnews.org]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 26 2019, @12:26PM
Space Force is just the renaming of a 36 year old air force space command. The renaming has been on the cards for some time. But hey don't let me get in the way of your TDS.
(Score: 4, Funny) by deimtee on Thursday December 26 2019, @03:11PM (1 child)
He also saw this documentary about how tough and awesome the space force was and how Service Guarantees Citizenship.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Funny) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday December 26 2019, @05:15PM
I Want to Know More!
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Informative) by purdy on Wednesday December 25 2019, @12:34PM
Actually, they asked for $73M and got $40. But even $40M isn't even a drop in the bucket and nowhere near enough to fund a working group to start looking at thinking about how to start the process of spinning up USSF. (Hope that acronym doesn't' stick)
To give you an idea, the best estimates are that it costs a little over $1M per year to pay and support a flag officer. So a USSF chief (3 or 4 star), a deputy (2 or 3 star), chief of staff and a couple of BGs eats up about $10M of that just for the most senior command staff. Then you actually have to pay people to do some work.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/08/robert-gates-wants-to-eliminate-50-generals-from-the-military-will-that-save-a-lot-of-money.html [slate.com]
USSF's real budget, counting what got moved over from SPACECOM is north of $10B.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:35PM (1 child)
10 million won't buy an ashtray.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @06:45PM
or a toilet seat.
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 25 2019, @02:34PM (6 children)
Man, I was born too late. I could have carried a lightsaber instead of an M60 if I'd been a couple decades younger.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @03:55PM (2 children)
Ok boomer [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:12PM (1 child)
Not a boomer. Not even a squid. Army, hooah.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @05:20PM
Watch that documentary soldier or you're never going to space! Space explorers need to know such things and also all about the vegetation on mars. [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:38PM (1 child)
That was weird, did you check your math?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @05:12PM
The ancient art of lightsaber fabrication was lost when Emperor Palpatine turned them all into heated butt plugs. They went out of fashion right quick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @09:33PM
"Man, I was born too late. I could have carried a lightsaber instead of an M60 if I'd been a couple decades younger."
Could be. After all, I frequently think you are a bit of a space cadet anyway.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday December 25 2019, @03:33PM (3 children)
Good to know the united states will open this new frontier as combatively as possible and led by the greatest traitor in the history of the world.
Everyone who is still carrying water about oswald being a lone gunman and OBL attacking the WTC really should look themselves in the mirror about what we are unleashing here.
I also think the United States Space Force sounds profoundly unintelligent. Like something printed on a cheap toy.
Who here has recently rewatched Stargate SG-1? I have. I can tell you right now re-imagining any of those situations with Trump picking Nickey-Haley-esque amoral stooges to make any of those day-to-day decisions would result in the end of the world as we know it.
I don't mean tyranny for us, I mean, she's not smart enough. Stephen Miller would be the first one tricked by the brain parasites, heck he could probably just be bought. Then given the parasite later once he thought he was safe.
Which is the same thing I have to say about Trump, even on his best day pre-presidency he wasn't smart enough to realize that they could replace him with a body double, and how he would have to defend against that.
The trump I knew from pre-2016 couldn't have managed 10 tweets a day, much less 100.
So you want to talk about the Space Force, I want to talk about the means we, The Public, have any means of knowing if any of this is true or not, once it is so far removed, as in, not just orbit, but neptune.
Are you trusting Anderson Cooper, or anyone with a background in any spy agencies, to tell you about the approaching alien invasion, or the true intentions of The Sarakoidians? (made up word)
I sure as hell am not. If you can't give me an explanation for the night of epstein's escape, or 9/11, or the kennedy assassination, or count votes honestly, why would I ever trust you about that?
That is my perspective, this is just another attack on the human mind, one among many of late. 'You are the worst president we hate you' response: 'So I am making a bold initiative to take over space.' 'We don't trust you' response: 'I am going to do something that takes a lot of trust.' This stuff is mechanical breakdown tactics common to all psychopathic abusers. All of my nutty roommates would do it. As soon as I told them to stay away, they would start going in my room and banging on my door. They know what they are doing, it feels like they are reading me a script. They floated it two years ago, now it is normalized.
This year he is floating civil war, you do the math.
https://archive.is/U36hd [archive.is] (someone send this one to the traitor)
https://archive.is/dmjdm [archive.is] #pickaside
decultification.org https://archive.is/HsRal [archive.is]
or we just spread the shit problems we have here further into space and probably find an enemy bigger than us, or smarter than us, or brainslugs, replicators, borg, or all kinds of things the epstein class can't handle, and live with skylab falling on us randomly forever, as if we don't have enough problems.
note: what I refuse to do under any circumstances tho is pay debt on any of this borrowed and printed money that is disappearing from the pentagon, that i will not do, and anyone who thinks that dollar in your hand is actually meaningful in any supply/demand sense is under the sway of a powerful mania. Red-tinted banking cartels are giving the united states unlimited money so long as they do what it wants, and they will say we have no money at all the second that were to change. Don't fool yourself, being part of that on earth or outer space is something you may have to morally answer for before a court some day, and overthrowing bolivia and venezuela, putting kids in cages, makes the united states firmly the bad guys.
Happy Holidays! Sleep tight.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:41PM (2 children)
Don't get too caught up in the Space Force. They are a preexisting function of the Air Force mostly concerned with satellite defense (and hypothetical offense). I assume they will get custody of the X-37B (and any BC-304 Daedalus-class battlecruisers we might have).
It could be decades before the Space Force does anything interesting or pro-humanity, such as deflecting asteroids or traveling to other worlds.
The previous name was Air Force Space Command. Space Force does lend itself to more jokes than Space Command and they will be the known as the new Chair Force or Space Farce for a while until we have Space Marines getting rekt by Zerg.
Stargate SG-1 is the best propaganda the U.S. Air Force ever produced. Too bad USAF is just another tool of the Empire to wage Infinity War around the globe.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:45PM
More like they already had it as Air Force Space Command and it's going nowhere.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @06:48PM
May the Farce be with you.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 25 2019, @03:50PM (5 children)
What the? A whole new branch of the military!? Of all the provocative, stupid, wastes of money .... This is far worse than the wall. What are we going to see next, lots more debris in low Earth orbit, from more testing of satellite destroying missiles? China creating their own Space Force?
How tiresomely typical that Republicans would go for more military spending. Cry about fiscal responsibility when it comes to expanding health care, but when the Military Industrial Complex comes calling with more scary fearmongering, they crap themselves and rush to run up the deficit, much like a person running to the payday loan bandits for another loan with a 300% interest rate. We have a ton of much more urgent things that need attention and resources, like converting our energy production to solar, wind, and water.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:44PM
They have existed as Air Force Space Command since 1982 and have gotten plenty of money for X-37B and other stuff. The only question now is how much extra money they will be spending as a new branch on fancy uniforms and space orgies.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:44PM (2 children)
Control the house, obviously. Strongly enough to impeach, even with defections.
Did they try to stop this? No. The House Democrats voted to give Trump even more money than he asked for.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 26 2019, @05:25PM (1 child)
Yes, it was a compromise bill. Imagine that! Compromise! Your "everything my way or we shut shit down" approach is why we have a dysfunctional government.
Indeed, everyone isn't happy with this bill, but believe it or not, but compromise is actually a GOOD thing and is how good legislation gets passed.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday December 26 2019, @06:15PM
No, it wasn't. See, a compromise bill is when we give you *some* of what you want and you give us *some* of what we want.
This was a total surrender. Everything Trump wanted, even more than he had dared to ask for, and he didn't have to compromise on anything to get it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday December 26 2019, @07:45AM
Just get him a Crunchyroll/Funimation/VRV account and let him binge-watch everything. In between episodes/titles he'll keep changing his mind about how the space force should work, the military will get the idea that they don't need to do anything because his opinions will change within the week, and he'll stay out of the news cycle for a while -- if we're lucky, until the election.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @05:10PM (5 children)
pshaw! who cares for a space force if what really counts is the TIME force! ^_^
obviously that's in the russian department as anyone knowing the secrit level knows the ruskis let the japs shot down a dummy time-machine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @05:15PM (4 children)
Time is but a factor of the force! Live long and reach out with your feelings!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @05:33PM (3 children)
Felony sexual battery charges expected?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @07:50PM (2 children)
You do you, but my recommendation is to not sexually assault anyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @08:26PM (1 child)
Kill them with kindness? [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 26 2019, @12:14AM
I'm Keyser Söze [twitter.com]