House Defense Panel Would Create Space Force
A House Armed Services panel intends to create a new fighting force called Space Corps within the Air Force to improve the U.S. military’s ability to address threats in space, according to a summary of the Strategic Forces panel’s forthcoming fiscal 2018 mark.
“There is bipartisan acknowledgement that the strategic advantages we derive from our national security space systems are eroding,” said a joint statement from Mike D. Rogers of Alabama and Jim Cooper of Tennessee, the panel’s chairman and ranking Democrat, respectively. “We are convinced that the Department of Defense is unable to take the measures necessary to address these challenges effectively and decisively, or even recognize the nature and scale of its problems. Thus, Congress has to step in.”
The Space Corps, they added, would be “a separate military service responsible for national security space programs for which the Air Force is today responsible.”
The panel intends to mark up its portion of the sweeping defense policy measure on Thursday.
Its mark also would establish U.S. Space Command as a four-star position under U.S. Strategic Command.