Trump says he “single-handedly” decided to move Space Force command from Colorado to Alabama
On Friday former President Donald Trump stated that it was his decision to put the headquarters of the new Space Force in Alabama, not in Colorado where most military related space operations have been located for decades.
“Space Force — I sent to Alabama,” Trump said. “I hope you know that. (They) said they were looking for a home and I single-handedly said, ‘Let’s go to Alabama.’ They wanted it. I said, ‘Let’s go to Alabama. I love Alabama.’”
U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican who represents Colorado Springs, said Trump’s remarks were “an admission” that the headquarters move “was based solely on politics and personal preference — not the Air Force’s basing criteria or national security.”
When this decision was announced in January, I then believed porkmeister Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) had forced it through, but it appears now that is wrong. It was Trump, but still for reasons of pork.
This was a bad decision, one that from the beginning was going to have both practical and political opposition. For practical reasons Colorado always made better sense as Space Force headquarters because it would require less relocation of assets. For political reasons it was flying in the face of a lot of well-established vested interests in Colorado.
Trump’s admission yesterday will likely provide the final bit of ammunition needed by Colorado politicians to get it overturned.
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On Friday former President Donald Trump stated that it was his decision to put the headquarters of the new Space Force in Alabama, not in Colorado where most military related space operations have been located for decades.
“Space Force — I sent to Alabama,” Trump said. “I hope you know that. (They) said they were looking for a home and I single-handedly said, ‘Let’s go to Alabama.’ They wanted it. I said, ‘Let’s go to Alabama. I love Alabama.’”
U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican who represents Colorado Springs, said Trump’s remarks were “an admission” that the headquarters move “was based solely on politics and personal preference — not the Air Force’s basing criteria or national security.”
When this decision was announced in January, I then believed porkmeister Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) had forced it through, but it appears now that is wrong. It was Trump, but still for reasons of pork.
This was a bad decision, one that from the beginning was going to have both practical and political opposition. For practical reasons Colorado always made better sense as Space Force headquarters because it would require less relocation of assets. For political reasons it was flying in the face of a lot of well-established vested interests in Colorado.
Trump’s admission yesterday will likely provide the final bit of ammunition needed by Colorado politicians to get it overturned.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Perhaps it‘s better to be in Alabama. Huntsville doesn‘t freeze in Winter, there‘s no need for the mountain and they are next door to the Marshall facility (or should be). This could give new life to the center, designing all kinds of 21st century space vehicles to counter the Chinese space threat. It would likely make Jeff Wright pleased, as well!
I would have chosen Texas, Florida or California. Or New Mexico.
New Mexico would be better.
Low population. Large flat lands. Way from vulnerable coasts. Easy to secure
Its not in a hurricane or tornado zone.
The Springs always made more sense. The rest of the space related stuff is already here. Being close to Marshall doesn’t give you anything. It’s like saying the Pentagon should be moved to wherever weapons systems are designed and built.
We are a redder state. It needed to be here….the land of the ABMA. We were robbed. This rights past wrongs. Let them sniff coke.
You need to visit Alabama, Robert. We don’t have horns.
Jeff Wright: I’ve been to Marshall. Even gave a speech there. Lots of good engineers wasting their lives doing badly managed government make-work.
The entire intention of Space Force was to create a new branch of the military focused specifically on the unique requirements of this domain. Thus basing it away from the existing assets and organizations could make some sense to isolate it from the legacy services and their parochial mindset. Not saying it will work, but our military industrial bureaucracy is decidedly unimaginative and we really need forward thinkers for this organization.
The Pentagon built our existing space asset infrastructure which is great. But it is a fleet of 2 or 3 dozen battleship platforms that are expensive, relatively vulnerable, and slow to upgrade and evolve. Why didn’t they conceive and build Starlink before SpaceX? A constellation of thousands is invulnerable to easy attack, the latency, bandwidth, pervasive and persistent global coverage of the network etc. are ideal for military applications, and they are deployed at the rate of a batch a month so can continuously adopt and deploy new tech and capabilities. And how hard would it be to layer in electro optical sensors as part of the platform? Yeah, you need a few 3m class surveillance sats for super high res, but 5000 .5m scopes could provide A LOT of realtime asset monitoring!
My 2 cents anyway.
MDM- The better play is to partner with commercial companies and get preferential treatment for imagery. Admittedly I am biased as I am building small sats to do exactly what you have laid out.
There is no need for anything space related to be located anywhere close to Marshal Space center.
They are at best investment speculators and not designers.
They offer prizes for ideas and provide cash for their chosen ones.
We do not base our navy at the ship yard. We base them at strategic places.
Since most of our space services will be needed in the northern hemisphere we have no real need to launch from close to the equator.
The greater need is security. The US desert area would be best for this, if your going to have a militarized launch facility.
Come to think about it we already have a great place. Groom lake.
Just guild an assembly building and a few launch towers.
I think you have to build them before you guild them! Or gild them…
I don’t think those engineers are wasting their lives at all. What Kerry is to coal miners, you are to them…It is not a bit different than saying coal miners are in “the wrong jobs.”
I wonder if this decision was made before or after Trump found out just how badly suborned the military command structure is to the leftist DNC cabal?
Placing Space Force Command away from the center of that power may make it less vulnerable to corrupt influences.
There’s something to be said for uprooting the existing installation, leaving the dross behind, culling what isn’t needed, and starting new.
The location may be pork, but the growth opportunity afforded by building from the ground up and abandoning the existing clique has much to recommend it. Easier to exercise bureaucratic demons that way.
There’s something to be said for uprooting the existing installation, leaving the dross behind, culling what isn’t needed, and starting new.
I think it would be a great idea to move the Executive Branch to the middle of Kansas – near Hutchinson, or wherever the salt deposits would allow underground facilities to be built for secure areas – and put the various agencies in non-urban-feedlot places where they are actually relevant. Turn DC into a city of museums.
And while we’re at it, how about spreading out Congress, back to their districts/states, and hook them up through secure teleconferencing from publicly-accessible studios in-district, so that their constituents can see them in action, and watch them carefully?
This would also increase the opportunities for those other than professional politicians to serve in those offices; not uprooting them from their home states makes it easier both to serve, and to return to private life after a few years instead of becoming the poster children for term limits and/or moving to pseudo-private K Street (though I do think term limits are still prudent, even with this TeleCongress).
We certainly need to relocate all of the above, out of the stew of collusion, corruption and realpolitik known as Washington DC.
Not to mention, DC is a prime target for a decapitation strike to come in from the ocean. We’d get a few more minutes of warning if the President was in Kansas.
That’s the best idea yet. Green too. Stay in your districts where we can see you…with DC itself all museums. Wall it off from the rioters. Defang the snake.
Jeff, you obviously love the folks at Marshall and your loyalty is commendable. But the analogy of those engineers and coal miners just doesn’t hold up. Coal miners do dangerous, dirty work on a daily basis to provide a significant proportion (still) of the energy which keeps the lights (and other things) on in this country. As best I can tell, Marshall engineers are employed to design systems which don’t fly and just suck up tax dollars. If you eliminated coal miners, the country would grind to a halt. If you eliminated Marshall, not many folks would notice.
It pains me to write that because Redstone Arsenal, Werner Von Braun and the Germans and all those other folks were mythic figures in my childhood. But, just because they put us on the moon nearly 60 years ago, isn’t an excuse for their engineering descendants to have a lifetime employment, especially when the systems they are working on are a dead end.
A day late here, but I like the idea of moving the Space Force away from the Air Force. Separate the new armed forces from the older more established and dominate one or risk it being absorbed back into it at a later date. Moving to Alabama on the other had, while its a state that doesn’t get much love, at least its not Virginia, no offence to Virginians, but there are way too many Federal Government buildings and offices and employees in that State. Alabama does scream of Pork and those are the poorly managed jobs they are protecting. I would of picked Utah or Nebraska, or even Wyoming, if the goal was to center it in the country, but with ICBMs and rockets I doubt it matters where its located.
Kyle,
To add to your Virginia comment, moving most of the Atlantic Fleet in the 1970’s from Newport R.I. to Norfolk Virginia was a bad idea. Yes it is closer to Annapolis, but it is closer to D.C. as a target. Newport was in between Boston and NYC, and had the protection of Narragansett Bay/Rhode Island Sound.
Kyle,
I think you are right that the new force needs separation from the old one but for a different reason. If they remain too close together, then the older force can influence the new one into acting more like the old force. The whole reason to create the Space Force was because the Air Force was not moving fast enough to protect our space assets. Separating them allows for a better chance that the new Space Force will act independent of the Air Force, and a better chance to do what it takes to protect our assets.
I don’t think that an actual absorption is the danger but that a similar philosophy toward our space assets is the danger.