People not paying attention to the issue can mock this proposal, of course, because Trump:
President Trump is a political force of nature who refuses to be hemmed in by the bureaucratic status quo. He proved that again Tuesday when he raised the possibility of creating a Space Force to oversee U.S. military efforts in space. Not a space command or a space corps, but a Space Force.
This makes sense as a concept if not the precise nature of the force.
I think of space around the Earth as an extension of the atmosphere above the planet that we need the Air Force to control to support operations lower down to ground and not a truly separate domain. That doesn't happen until we have military forces moving beyond the Earth-Moon system.
Then we can discuss a separate space service, whether modeled on the Navy or Air Force, pulling people from those services to man the new force. I'd go with the Navy with their planes, subs, and long-endurance mission experience. Although I'm open to drone-based rather than crewed models of a Space Force/Navy that plays more to Air Force drone experience.
But I am in danger of digressing.
In my ideal world, the Air Force sheds the close air support mission (and money and force structure) to the Army, leaving the Army with capabilities to fight for the air over its units and support them in combat that the Marines have, while leaving the Air Force to focus on strike missions not primarily in support of Army units in combat, air superiority, cyber, transport, nukes, missile defense, anti-satellite assets (ground, airborne, and space-based), and space control (off the top of my head, this is hardly set in stone).
I'd call the re-focused Air Force the Aerospace Force.
Strategypage has related thoughts on the Russian space farce. Clearly, China is the spacefaring nation America will see the most in space.
