- Joined
- Nov 29, 2016
- Messages
- 5,674
- Points
- 63
Dotard very stupid to think opening a space war play ground he would win. NOT AT ALL! He will just get yet another playing field TO LOSE BIG! China will win, Russia will win. USA will not!
https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/20...d-trumps-space-force-defense-budget-bill.html
Congress Fails to Fund Trump's 'Space Force' in Defense Budget Bill
Former Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmitt hands a figurine to President Donald Trump after he signed a policy directive to send American astronauts back to the moon, and eventually Mars, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Dec. 11, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Military.com 25 Jul 2018 By Richard Sisk
On the same day he touted the "Space Force" to veterans, President Donald Trump's plan to create a sixth military branch hit a roadblock in Congress.
A House-Senate conference committee working on the $716 billion defense budget for fiscal 2019, which begins Oct. 1, left out money to start building the Space Force.
Earlier Tuesday, in address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Kansas City, Trump cited the Space Force as part of an unrivaled military buildup under his administration.
"My thinking is always on military and military strength. That is why I'm proud to report that we are now undertaking the greatest rebuilding of our United States military in its history. We have secured $700 billion for defense this year, and $716 billion next year -- approved," he said to applause.
Related content:
"And I just don't mean going up to the moon and going up to Mars, where we'll be going very soon," he added. "We'll be going to Mars very soon. But from a military standpoint, space is becoming every day more and more important."
However, the conference report of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees left out funding for the Space Force in the National Defense Authorization Act. The conference report must still be approved by the full House and Senate.
Instead, the report directs Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to come up with a plan for how the Defense Department would organize for warfighting in space.
The House version of the conference report was also leery of Trump's vision for the creation of a new military branch for space, instead calling for the establishment of "a subunified command for Space under United States Strategic Command for carrying out joint Space warfighting."
Last month, Trump appeared to give the job of creating a Space Force as a separate military branch to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford.
At a White House meeting of the National Space Council, the president said, "I'm hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces."
"We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force -- separate but equal. It's going to be something," he said.
Trump then looked around the room to find Dunford and said, "General Dunford, if you would carry that assignment out, I would be very greatly honored."
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/19/trumps-space-force-faces-hurdles-in-the-pentagon-and-congress/
Report
Trump’s Space Force Faces Hurdles in the Pentagon and Congress
The U.S. president's plan could put him at odds with his defense secretary.
By Lara Seligman | June 19, 2018, 12:33 PM
Astronaut Bruce McCandless II participates in an extravehicular activity outside the Challenger shuttle during the STS-41B mission in April 1983. (NASA)
President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement yesterday that he wants to establish a separate “Space Force” as a sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces may pit him against top military leaders and lawmakers.
During a Monday meeting of the National Space Council, Trump declared that he is directing the Department of Defense to immediately begin the process of creating a space force that is “separate but equal” to the Air Force, the service currently responsible for most of the U.S. military assets and operations in space. The president’s directive to create a separate entity dedicated to military space operations appeared to take the Pentagon by surprise, after senior leaders spent the last year quashing a congressional proposal to do just that.
“We understand the President’s guidance. Our Policy Board will begin working on this issue, which has implications for intelligence operations for the Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy,” spokeswoman Dana W. White said in a statement. “Working with Congress, this will be a deliberate process with a great deal of input from multiple stakeholders.”
Already, Trump’s plan is getting pushback on Capitol Hill. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee pointed out soon after Trump’s comments, the president cannot single-handedly establish a new service branch. “Establishing a service branch requires congressional action,” Turner said in a statement. “We still don’t know what a Space Force would do, who is going to be in it, or how much is it going to cost.”
But the president’s remarks could influence a set of Pentagon reports on the issue due to Congress in August and December, paving the way for lawmakers to include language to create the new space force in next year’s defense policy bill for 2020.
The December report, in particular, is expected to include a road map for creating an independent department for national security space, which should contain the legislative language needed, said Todd Harrison, director of the aerospace security project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
It not clear that lawmakers will ultimately be swayed by Trump’s directive, however. “Some will be encouraged by the president’s statement to try to do just that,” said one congressional staffer. “But there is no consensus in Congress that we should. In fact, I think there is more opposition to a space force than support for it.”
A previous attempt on Capitol Hill to support a “Space Corps” within the Air Force already failed.
Last year Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee, spearheaded an effort — over Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s objections — to insert language into last year’s defense bill that would have created a space corps sitting under the Air Force umbrella, similar to the Marine Corps-Navy structure. “I believe it is premature to add additional organization and administrative tail to the department at a time I am trying to reduce overhead,” Mattis wrote to Rep. Turner last year, in an attempt to thwart the proposal.
Ultimately Rogers’ Space Corps effort failed – legislators removed the language in the final defense policy bill for 2018.
Although the details are not yet clear, it appears the new space force would differ crucially from Rogers’ space corps effort in that it would be an entirely separate entity outside the Air Force, likely with a separate chain of command.
Though the latest space force effort appears to have the support of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, who Trump asked to oversee the change (Dunford responded “got it”), Mattis is not the only senior military official on record repeatedly opposing the establishment of a separate entity for space. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein also voiced opposition to the space corps plan.
“I do not support it at this time in our history based on where we are in this transition from a benign environment to a warfighting domain,” Goldfein said during a Senate Armed Forces Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing last year. “Right now, to get focused on a large organizational change would actually slow us down.”
And Gen. John Raymond, commander of Air Force Space Command, has advocated the Air Force’s imperative to “normalize … space as a war-fighting domain” in lieu of establishing a separate service dedicated to space.
Proponents of a space force or space corps argue that space operations often play second fiddle to jets and nuclear missiles within the Air Force, and that space needs its own separate funding stream and career path. But the Air Force says it has recently made moves to prioritize space, including establishing a new three-star vice commander of Air Force Space Command, and accelerating fielding of a next-generation missile warning satellite constellation.
The president has also apparently not yet put the new charge in writing. He did sign a directive on space policy during the event, but it primarily addresses space traffic management and contains no mention of a new space force.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...orce-but-congress-remains-lukewarm/710909002/
Trump renews Space Force plan, but Congress lukewarm on plan it would have to approve
Ledyard King, USA TODAY Published 2:40 p.m. ET June 18, 2018 | Updated 3:23 p.m. ET June 27, 2018
President Trump directed the Department of Defense to begin plans to form a U.S. Space Force. The idea of forming a sixth military branch shocked some, but it’s not a new idea. Here’s how we got here. Just The FAQs
President Donald Trump on Monday relaunched his call for a Space Force and used a National Space Council meeting to direct the Pentagon ASAP to create a new command in the Defense Department.
One problem: Congress needs to sign off on the plan first – and it probably won't any time soon.
"It is not enough merely to have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space. So important," the president said before saying he would direct the Pentagon "to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the Armed Services."
"We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force," Trump continued, instructing U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to carry out the assignment. "Separate but equal. It is going to be something."
Several times before and as recently as last month, the president has promoted the idea of a fighting force dedicated to defending the United States and its interests in Earth's orbit and beyond. But the proposal has languished in Congress, most recently when the House last month rejected a plan that would have carved out space-related combat functions from the Air Force.
The president needs congressional authorization to approve the move and cover the costs of such a realignment.
Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat and a leading voice on space issues in Congress, wrote in a tweet shortly after the president's comment that "now is NOT the time to rip the Air Force apart. Too many important missions at stake."
There’s general consensus among lawmakers that it’s time to grant special attention to military space issues — but not how it should be done.
The House last year approved a proposal from Alabama GOP Rep. Mike Rogers to create a Space Corps, which would be the first new military branch since the Air Force was broken out of the Army in 1947.
The Alabama Republican contends the Pentagon’s lack of focus on extraterrestrial priorities has eroded the nation's dominance in space. Military satellites aren’t being deployed fast enough because of a bureaucracy that cares more about superiority in the air than space, said Rogers, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on Strategic Forces.
Under Rogers' plan, the Space Corps' primary purpose would be to oversee the acquisition, development and deployment of military satellites and the ground stations that control them. It would not include intelligence satellites or the National Reconnaissance Office, the government agency in charge of designing building, launching and maintaining intelligence satellites.
The Space Corps also would not have direct oversight of missile launches conducted by the military.
At the time, Trump administration officials resisted the idea.
“The Pentagon is complicated enough,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters last year. “We’re trying to simplify. So to make it more complex would add more boxes to the (organizational) chart and cost more money. And if I had more money, I would put it into lethality, not bureaucracy.”
https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/20...d-trumps-space-force-defense-budget-bill.html
Congress Fails to Fund Trump's 'Space Force' in Defense Budget Bill
Former Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmitt hands a figurine to President Donald Trump after he signed a policy directive to send American astronauts back to the moon, and eventually Mars, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Dec. 11, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Military.com 25 Jul 2018 By Richard Sisk
On the same day he touted the "Space Force" to veterans, President Donald Trump's plan to create a sixth military branch hit a roadblock in Congress.
A House-Senate conference committee working on the $716 billion defense budget for fiscal 2019, which begins Oct. 1, left out money to start building the Space Force.
Earlier Tuesday, in address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Kansas City, Trump cited the Space Force as part of an unrivaled military buildup under his administration.
"My thinking is always on military and military strength. That is why I'm proud to report that we are now undertaking the greatest rebuilding of our United States military in its history. We have secured $700 billion for defense this year, and $716 billion next year -- approved," he said to applause.
Related content:
- Creation of Trump's 'Space Force' May Take Years, Experts Say
- After Trump Comments, Air Force Punts Again on Space Force
- 'Space Force' Study to Be Ready by August: DoD Official
"And I just don't mean going up to the moon and going up to Mars, where we'll be going very soon," he added. "We'll be going to Mars very soon. But from a military standpoint, space is becoming every day more and more important."
However, the conference report of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees left out funding for the Space Force in the National Defense Authorization Act. The conference report must still be approved by the full House and Senate.
Instead, the report directs Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to come up with a plan for how the Defense Department would organize for warfighting in space.
The House version of the conference report was also leery of Trump's vision for the creation of a new military branch for space, instead calling for the establishment of "a subunified command for Space under United States Strategic Command for carrying out joint Space warfighting."
Last month, Trump appeared to give the job of creating a Space Force as a separate military branch to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford.
At a White House meeting of the National Space Council, the president said, "I'm hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces."
"We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force -- separate but equal. It's going to be something," he said.
Trump then looked around the room to find Dunford and said, "General Dunford, if you would carry that assignment out, I would be very greatly honored."
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/19/trumps-space-force-faces-hurdles-in-the-pentagon-and-congress/
Report
Trump’s Space Force Faces Hurdles in the Pentagon and Congress
The U.S. president's plan could put him at odds with his defense secretary.
By Lara Seligman | June 19, 2018, 12:33 PM
Astronaut Bruce McCandless II participates in an extravehicular activity outside the Challenger shuttle during the STS-41B mission in April 1983. (NASA)
President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement yesterday that he wants to establish a separate “Space Force” as a sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces may pit him against top military leaders and lawmakers.
During a Monday meeting of the National Space Council, Trump declared that he is directing the Department of Defense to immediately begin the process of creating a space force that is “separate but equal” to the Air Force, the service currently responsible for most of the U.S. military assets and operations in space. The president’s directive to create a separate entity dedicated to military space operations appeared to take the Pentagon by surprise, after senior leaders spent the last year quashing a congressional proposal to do just that.
“We understand the President’s guidance. Our Policy Board will begin working on this issue, which has implications for intelligence operations for the Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy,” spokeswoman Dana W. White said in a statement. “Working with Congress, this will be a deliberate process with a great deal of input from multiple stakeholders.”
Already, Trump’s plan is getting pushback on Capitol Hill. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee pointed out soon after Trump’s comments, the president cannot single-handedly establish a new service branch. “Establishing a service branch requires congressional action,” Turner said in a statement. “We still don’t know what a Space Force would do, who is going to be in it, or how much is it going to cost.”
But the president’s remarks could influence a set of Pentagon reports on the issue due to Congress in August and December, paving the way for lawmakers to include language to create the new space force in next year’s defense policy bill for 2020.
The December report, in particular, is expected to include a road map for creating an independent department for national security space, which should contain the legislative language needed, said Todd Harrison, director of the aerospace security project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
It not clear that lawmakers will ultimately be swayed by Trump’s directive, however. “Some will be encouraged by the president’s statement to try to do just that,” said one congressional staffer. “But there is no consensus in Congress that we should. In fact, I think there is more opposition to a space force than support for it.”
A previous attempt on Capitol Hill to support a “Space Corps” within the Air Force already failed.
Last year Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee, spearheaded an effort — over Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s objections — to insert language into last year’s defense bill that would have created a space corps sitting under the Air Force umbrella, similar to the Marine Corps-Navy structure. “I believe it is premature to add additional organization and administrative tail to the department at a time I am trying to reduce overhead,” Mattis wrote to Rep. Turner last year, in an attempt to thwart the proposal.
Ultimately Rogers’ Space Corps effort failed – legislators removed the language in the final defense policy bill for 2018.
Although the details are not yet clear, it appears the new space force would differ crucially from Rogers’ space corps effort in that it would be an entirely separate entity outside the Air Force, likely with a separate chain of command.
Though the latest space force effort appears to have the support of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, who Trump asked to oversee the change (Dunford responded “got it”), Mattis is not the only senior military official on record repeatedly opposing the establishment of a separate entity for space. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein also voiced opposition to the space corps plan.
“I do not support it at this time in our history based on where we are in this transition from a benign environment to a warfighting domain,” Goldfein said during a Senate Armed Forces Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing last year. “Right now, to get focused on a large organizational change would actually slow us down.”
And Gen. John Raymond, commander of Air Force Space Command, has advocated the Air Force’s imperative to “normalize … space as a war-fighting domain” in lieu of establishing a separate service dedicated to space.
Proponents of a space force or space corps argue that space operations often play second fiddle to jets and nuclear missiles within the Air Force, and that space needs its own separate funding stream and career path. But the Air Force says it has recently made moves to prioritize space, including establishing a new three-star vice commander of Air Force Space Command, and accelerating fielding of a next-generation missile warning satellite constellation.
The president has also apparently not yet put the new charge in writing. He did sign a directive on space policy during the event, but it primarily addresses space traffic management and contains no mention of a new space force.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...orce-but-congress-remains-lukewarm/710909002/
Trump renews Space Force plan, but Congress lukewarm on plan it would have to approve
Ledyard King, USA TODAY Published 2:40 p.m. ET June 18, 2018 | Updated 3:23 p.m. ET June 27, 2018
President Trump directed the Department of Defense to begin plans to form a U.S. Space Force. The idea of forming a sixth military branch shocked some, but it’s not a new idea. Here’s how we got here. Just The FAQs
President Donald Trump on Monday relaunched his call for a Space Force and used a National Space Council meeting to direct the Pentagon ASAP to create a new command in the Defense Department.
One problem: Congress needs to sign off on the plan first – and it probably won't any time soon.
"It is not enough merely to have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space. So important," the president said before saying he would direct the Pentagon "to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the Armed Services."
"We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force," Trump continued, instructing U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to carry out the assignment. "Separate but equal. It is going to be something."
Several times before and as recently as last month, the president has promoted the idea of a fighting force dedicated to defending the United States and its interests in Earth's orbit and beyond. But the proposal has languished in Congress, most recently when the House last month rejected a plan that would have carved out space-related combat functions from the Air Force.
The president needs congressional authorization to approve the move and cover the costs of such a realignment.
Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat and a leading voice on space issues in Congress, wrote in a tweet shortly after the president's comment that "now is NOT the time to rip the Air Force apart. Too many important missions at stake."
There’s general consensus among lawmakers that it’s time to grant special attention to military space issues — but not how it should be done.
The House last year approved a proposal from Alabama GOP Rep. Mike Rogers to create a Space Corps, which would be the first new military branch since the Air Force was broken out of the Army in 1947.
The Alabama Republican contends the Pentagon’s lack of focus on extraterrestrial priorities has eroded the nation's dominance in space. Military satellites aren’t being deployed fast enough because of a bureaucracy that cares more about superiority in the air than space, said Rogers, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on Strategic Forces.
Under Rogers' plan, the Space Corps' primary purpose would be to oversee the acquisition, development and deployment of military satellites and the ground stations that control them. It would not include intelligence satellites or the National Reconnaissance Office, the government agency in charge of designing building, launching and maintaining intelligence satellites.
The Space Corps also would not have direct oversight of missile launches conducted by the military.
At the time, Trump administration officials resisted the idea.
“The Pentagon is complicated enough,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters last year. “We’re trying to simplify. So to make it more complex would add more boxes to the (organizational) chart and cost more money. And if I had more money, I would put it into lethality, not bureaucracy.”
