“Space Force”: Trump Teases Sixth Branch Of US Military Again

Source:

Six weeks after Trump told a crowd of U.S. Marines at Miramar Air Station in San Diego of a proposal to expand the military’s reach into space – the President is at it again; teasing the idea of a space force to a White House crowd on Tuesday.

Trump made the comments while presenting the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy to the Army football team for its victory over both the Navy and Air Force last year. 

“We’re actually thinking of a sixth [military branch] — and that would be the Space Force,” said Trump, after naming off the existing military branches. “Does that make sense? Because we are getting very big in space, both militarily and for other reasons and we are seriously thinking of the Space Force.”

A few of those in attendance standing behind Trump seemed to have issues taking the idea seriously:

When Trump floated the idea to Marines at Miramar Air Station in March, he said We are finally going to lead again,” Trump said. “You see what’s happening. You see the rockets going up left and right. You haven’t seen that in a long time. Very soon we’re going to Mars. You wouldn’t have been going to Mars if my opponent won. That I can tell you. You wouldn’t even be thinking about it. You wouldn’t be thinking about it,” he added.

The President also said we’re going to Mars “very soon.”

“My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air, and sea. We may even have a space force,” Trump revealed. 

“We have the air force. We will have a space force. We have the Army, Navy. I was saying at the other day because we are doing a tremendous amount of work in space. I said maybe we need a new force. We’ll call it the space force, and I was not really serious and that I thought what a great idea, maybe we’ll have to do that. That could happen. That could be the big breaking story,” said Trump. 

Proponents and critics have debated the merit of a dedicated “Space Corps” for decades, which would take over the Air Force’s current operations in space – with some pointing out that the United States has been a party to an international treaty that limits military activities in space since 1967.

The Outer Space Treaty restricts states from testing any weapons in outer space, as well as the establishment of military bases on the moon or other celestial bodies. The orbital deployment of weapons of mass destruction is also expressly prohibited. 

Reactions to Trump’s space force have varied:

Original source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/mjR5UBPjYuo/space-force-trump-teases-sixth-branch-us-military-again

0 0 votes
Article Rating

Follow ZeroHedge on:

VIEW MORE FROM ZeroHedge
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments