2 Responses to President Trump’s remarks on the establishment of US Space Command

1. czarowniczy says:

   August 29, 2019 at 7:56 pm

   Actually US Space Command has existed since 1985, I was under it from 1994 or ’85, my mind’s foggy) until 2002 when NORTHCOM was stood up and I was transferred to it…for a short time.
   There was a neat, new shiny building being built on the north fence at Peterson for Space Command but when 911 happened and the DoD bureaucrats saw the possibility to set up yet another Unified Combatant Command there was this nice, new shiny building at Peterson with no one in it…yet…so the grabbed that. Space Command stayed in its 1985ish building on the west side of the main road.

   What happened here was that Space Command as it existed on the 28th of August was a Joint Functional Component Command under Strategic Command. The GWOT took the steam out of space and strategic Cold Warish issues so Space Command got the short straw.

   Now it has become a Unified Combatant Command, it has a direct and continuing combat mission and is out from under Strategic Command, it’s playing with big boys like SOCOM, CENTCOM, SOUTHCOM, etc. It looks as if it will still be under AF leadership though it has an Army and Navy component but let’s see if we start seeing Admirals and Army 4-stars leading it too. The AF hosted it and those of us from other services largely played a ceremonial ash/trash role, soldiers make Airpersons nervous.

   A number of bases are fighting for it to be relocated there but since it’s historically been at Peterson and it’s sorts duct taped to that obsolete-but-we-can’t-find-a-buyer Cheyenne Mountain – plus NORTHCOM stole it’s squeaky new building, I’m betting it’ll stay at or close to Peterson.

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   • czarowniczy says:

     August 29, 2019 at 8:41 pm

     Actually I see it staying under AF oversight as the Navy has water, the Army has ground and the AF jealously guards oversight of anything over either.

     Some years back the AF was trying to dump the A-10, it really isn’t into providing close air support to the Army. It’s gig is going out at dawn, pilot wearing jaunty silk scarf and flying off to engage enemy pilots, mano-a-mano, them being back at base iun time for happy hour. Pilots of a lesser cut fly off to bomb major targets, dodging fighters, flack and SAMs to obliterate factories, cities and air bases…but back in time for happy hour. Anyway, the Army objected as they need CAS and offered to take the A-10s as Army aircraft. The AF held to their 1947 agreement about who got to have what kinds of aircraft for what kinds of missions and fought the A-10 going anywhere but the scrap yard. Come Desert Storm and the AF saw how attention grabbing the A-10 was so with that and Congressional pressure the AF relented and they’re still flying. The AF, last time I heard, was still resisting a CAS-only replacement for the A-10, it wants to find a way to make CAS a stepchild mission for its frontline fighters.

     Wow, gor off track there but if you remember waaaaay back in the 50s when we were trying to get a grapefruit-size satellite into orbit the Army, Navy and AF all had separate space launch vehicle programs. NASA was created and space launch came under it, the Army and Navy lost any missiles other than tactical but the AF managed to snag the strategic rockets…which are also space rockets. There’s as much ego as anything else in these moves.

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