Space Force picks Alabama for its future headquarters
In a victory for Alabama and its politicians, the U.S. Space Force has chosen the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville as the location for its future headquarters.
The selection of Redstone Arsenal is a huge win for Huntsville, nicknamed “Rocket City.” U.S. Space Command is currently based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. Alabama was considered a long shot and Colorado was the front runner, given its incumbent status and concentration of military installations and space industry contractors.
U.S. Space Command was established in August 2019 as the military’s 11th unified combatant command. The future headquarters will have approximately 1,400 military and civilian personnel.
While there are many good reasons to pick Huntsville, I guarantee a major factor was the clout exercised by Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), head of the Senate appropriations committee. He will no longer be in charge of the committee with the new Senate, but in his final act as head he likely used it to get the Space Force to move to his state.
This decision however is not yet final. According to government officials, it will take six years (!) to make the move, and already the politicians in Colorado, where the Space Command is presently based, are lobbying to rescind it.
Republican congressman Doug Lamborn, who represents Colorado Springs, sent a letter to President-elect Biden urging him to reverse what he called a “political decision” to move U.S. Space Command to Alabama. “I am disappointed by the horrendous decision to rip U.S. Space Command out of its home in Colorado Springs and move it to a new location,” said Lamborn.
As always, pork is the goal, not defending the U.S. in the most effective manner.
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In a victory for Alabama and its politicians, the U.S. Space Force has chosen the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville as the location for its future headquarters.
The selection of Redstone Arsenal is a huge win for Huntsville, nicknamed “Rocket City.” U.S. Space Command is currently based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. Alabama was considered a long shot and Colorado was the front runner, given its incumbent status and concentration of military installations and space industry contractors.
U.S. Space Command was established in August 2019 as the military’s 11th unified combatant command. The future headquarters will have approximately 1,400 military and civilian personnel.
While there are many good reasons to pick Huntsville, I guarantee a major factor was the clout exercised by Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), head of the Senate appropriations committee. He will no longer be in charge of the committee with the new Senate, but in his final act as head he likely used it to get the Space Force to move to his state.
This decision however is not yet final. According to government officials, it will take six years (!) to make the move, and already the politicians in Colorado, where the Space Command is presently based, are lobbying to rescind it.
Republican congressman Doug Lamborn, who represents Colorado Springs, sent a letter to President-elect Biden urging him to reverse what he called a “political decision” to move U.S. Space Command to Alabama. “I am disappointed by the horrendous decision to rip U.S. Space Command out of its home in Colorado Springs and move it to a new location,” said Lamborn.
As always, pork is the goal, not defending the U.S. in the most effective manner.
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.
The Springs really is the more logical choice. Both Air Force bases have expertise in using space based military assets, where as Redstone is mostly an Army base.
At least its a better place than Virginia or anywhere around Washington DC, not that anything is wrong with Virginia, its just that too much of the Bureaucratic State is located around there.
Surprise, surprise, surprise…as Gomer would say. Huntsville and Alabama continue to accumulate massive government agency infrastructure.
On another note, Hope you are feeling much better Robert.
Jules Verne had it right: Neither Colorado, nor California, nor Alabama make any geographical sense. It’s pretty much Texas and Florida for useable coast for launches intended for space development. You can polar launch from Vandenburg, which is okay for observation satellites.
It doesn’t make any sense to do design work half a world away from manufacturing, or manufacturing half a world away from where you’re doing your launch operations.
Doubting Thomas and Mad Rocket Sci, what you say puts it all together for me suddenly.
On another note, Doubting Thomas, whenever I see your screen name, for some reason it makes me think of where I first heard of Robert, and hence a perfect bumper sticker I thought of for this last election …
“Thomas from La Jolla for president.”
A necessary clarification:
The U.S. Space Command is not the same as the U.S. Space Force.
The HQ of the U.S. Space Command is not the same as the HQ of the USSF.
The HQ of the USSF is in the Pentagon.
A thought!
Did Von Braun’$ Germans win another round in the Space Wars?
From someone who is half Welch and German (landed in 1709 in time for the Revolution Number One) with a dollop of Cherrokee in the mix.
Given the Space Force logo, they should probably locate headquarters in San Francisco.
Blair: Star Trek was a lefty’s fantasy of the future (a benevolent authoritarian government that rules all and where no money or property exists). San Fran was thus the perfect choice for home, as it was then and remains the lefty’s modern concept of paradise.
Everyone else knows better. The military would be insane to want to go there.
Robert wrote: “Star Trek was a lefty’s fantasy of the future . . ”
I have a different take. Please review the episode “And The Children Shall Lead”. There are other examples of a generally conservative message in the show.
At one point I decided to find out Gene Rodenberry’s politics, and the publically available information at the time pretty much came to “We don’t know”. No one could nail him down. Which to my mind, in Hollywood, means not entirely Liberal.
Blair: I should have been more clear. I wasn’t referring to the original series, but all the series that followed.
Roddenberry might have been a Democrat, but he would find today’s Democratic Party quite abhorrent.
Blair-
check out the intro for the unaired pilot
https://youtu.be/GFtc2Ypwzl0
4:18
After the original series ended the spin offs realized they needed some form of cash.
How else to you do interstellar trade?
Gold pressed latinum or Star Fleet credits either one is cash.
They did try to make a utopian Federation but found out that without conflict things got pretty boring for people. Peace and unity do make a good TV show.
Plus people get board and eventually go out looking for new excitement and adventure. And they do find it, for good or bad.
Mad Rocket Sci wrote:
“Neither Colorado, nor California, nor Alabama make any geographical sense. It’s pretty much Texas and Florida for useable coast for launches intended for space development. You can polar launch from Vandenburg, which is okay for observation satellites.”
Yeah, … So what?
US Space Command won’t be designing or launching rockets, … they are operators of satellites. If *any* bone was going to be thrown to Shelby, they were the more obvious pick. The Service HQ for USSF will be in the Pentagon.
If the assets must be moved to high enough orbits that speed-of-light latency becomes a problem, *then*some of the operators may be moved into Space to keep latency lower, but again, the position of their base on Earth won’t matter much at all. That will be a different base for drone operators, is all. The same will happen if some Guardians are assigned to spacecraft assembly facilities in HEO out into CisLunar Space to do whatever robots still cannot, yet. Their work would be closest to what the Navy Construction Battalions have been, CBs, …or Sea Bees, as popularly known. It still doesn’t require being near a launch site, or any manufacturing site, on Earth.