BY BRIG. GEN. (RET.) DAMON FELTMAN
The Presidential election win by Trump has interest communities across the country speculating what changes the U.S. and world will see after next year’s Inauguration. U.S. space policy, whether directed at defense, civil, or commercial is no different. The first Trump administration put significant emphasis on space, issuing six Space Policy Directives, a National Space Policy, creating the Artemis Accords, and in the DoD re-established United States Space Command (USSPACECOM) and created the United States Space Force.
It’s reasonable to believe the second Trump administration will look to pick up where it left off. Some shifts may be minor to none, as space has had bipartisan support in Congress and across administrations. However, what is different this time (likely, as of this writing) is that Trump will have a Republican Congress backing him up. If Democrat support for space continues as it has in the past, there will be opportunity for additional transformation of U.S. space power, particularly with the Department of Defense.
Revisiting Military Space
There is perhaps no greater visible sign of Trump’s interest in space than what happened in the Department of Defense. Conversations about elevating the mission of space and status of space forces in the DoD pre-date his first term, but the re-establishment of United States Space Command and United States Space Force represented a significant realignment of military resources and authority. In case you haven’t followed, USSPACECOM turned five last month, and the Space Force will follow in December.
Still, pieces and parts have lingered. For people living in Colorado and Alabama, there’s no greater potential issue than a re-re-visit on where to put the permanent headquarters of USSPACECOM.
In the closing days of Trump’s first administration, Alabama’s Redstone Arsenal, near Huntsville, was announced as the location for USSPACECOM’s headquarters. The congressional delegation from Colorado immediately pushed back as it felt that Colorado Springs was the natural choice as it was already the location of the provisional headquarters. Colorado’s argument was helped later that year when Trump later said that he sent Space Command to Alabama.
Following a series of investigations, it was concluded that Huntsville indeed bested Colorado Springs. However, by this time several years had passed, USSPACECOM had continued normalizing its operations in Colorado, and last summer President Biden decided to set aside findings favoring Huntsville and made Colorado Springs the permanent headquarters. It was around this time, too, that the Biden Administration was having a battle with Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville over Tuberville’s hold-up of general officer promotions due to objections over DoD travel policies for abortion.
Not to be outdone by the Administration's move, the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act restricted the Department of Defense from spending any funds on building a new headquarters. This effort was led by House Armed Services Committee Chairman, Alabama's Mike Rogers, who some news reports say is on the short list of candidates for Trump's Secretary of Defense.
Meanwhile, there are issues at the Space Force. In its rush to craft the language that created the Space Force, the law passed by Congress was silent on what to do with Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units and personnel who had long been part of what was then the Air Force’s space missions. This has been no small matter. At the time of the Space Force’s creation, nearly 40% of the DoD’s total space operations manpower was in the Guard and Reserve, and these units made up 100% of DoD capacity in certain missions. Since 2019, both the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, as organizations in the Air Force, have continued to support Space Force missions.
The easy solution would have been to create a Space National Guard and Space Force Reserve by amending the sections of U.S. Code Title X containing National Guard and Reserve language adding “Space Force” to the list. However, the Space Force and Biden Administration wanted to pursue new ideas.
It has taken four years, but the disconnect with the Air Force Reserve’s space missions is on a path to being fixed. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act included the Space Force Personnel Management Act (SFPMA) and will move the 1,400 space-coded billets of the Air Force Reserve over to the Space Force. This will allow the Space Force to have members in both full- and part-time duty statuses without having a dedicated “reserve” in the way the other services do.
While the law created the ability to move the personnel authorizations, it did nothing to address the costs and time needed to make the underlying DoD data systems work with this new model. The inability to find an affordable, timely fix risks derailing the solution the DoD and Biden Administration sought.
As for the Guard, this has been a prickly situation that has had the states, House, Senate, and White House all at odds with one another for five years going. The few states with Air Guard units performing space missions want to have a Space National Guard comprised of these units. For the most part, the House has agreed. The Democrat-controlled Senate and Biden Administration have not, in part due to concerns of costs for establishing a new National Guard structure. The Guard believes the costs are very minimal as the people and facilities for a headquarters staff already exist.
Finally, as if there isn’t enough going on with Space Force and USSPACECOM, there’s the general issue of the size of the Space Force. The service was cleaved mainly from the bases and personnel belonging to then-Air Force Space Command, plus some contributions from the other services’ space missions.
As a cost-saving measure, much of the fundamental activities required to run the new service are still being provided by the Air Force, somewhat in the same way the Marine Corps depends on the Navy for certain support functions. This makes the Space Force the smallest military service with only 18,000 military and civilians.
Now, five years post-creation, it can be argued that the service is way too small, both in terms of manpower and dollars appropriated for the mission it has. The magnitude of China’s enormous growth in military space capability is much better understood by the DoD and political leadership, as is the magnitude of tasks and assets required of the Space Force and USSPACECOM to counter.
At the same time the Space Force hasn’t had the recent recruiting challenges as the other services. In fact, it’s had the luxury of being highly selective of who it brings in. It is also becoming a bright spot in the morass of DoD acquisitions. Led first by the Space Development Agency (which also came into existence in the first administration), but now with all three of its major acquisition organizations falling into this category, the Space Force is delivering new capabilities at better cost, performance, and schedule than when it was subordinate to Airmen.
It's reasonable to presume that the second Trump Administration will take another look at DoD Space. If his first term and intervening years have taught anything, it’s that President-Elect Trump is doggedly relentless on holding to his decisions and he leans hard into his successes. It would not be surprising at all if there’s a revised push to move USSPACECOM to Huntsville, creation of a Space National Guard, and additional money and manpower going to the Space Force.
Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Feltman gives us a glimpse into our galaxy. Feltman was a career-long space operations officer, having commanded space units, led exercises and training at United States Space Command, and set budget and requirements priorities at Headquarters Space Force. Follow him on LinkedIn here.
