Does the U.S. Military Need a Space Corps?
The U.S. military hasn’t added a new uniformed service in 70 years, when the Air Force was created in the aftermath of World War II.
If Congress gets its way, that will soon change.
In a bipartisan vote last month, the House of Representatives approved legislation that would direct the Defense Department to build a new “space corps” within the Air Force. Its backers blame the Pentagon for failing to prioritize space security in recent years, a lapse that has allowed rivals like Russia and China the opportunity to catch up to U.S. superiority. The proposal’s fate now rests in the Senate, but its most powerful foe is the military itself, which says Congress should simply send more resources rather than force it to undertake bureaucratic overhaul during a time of war.
“The military has not done a good enough job looking after space with all its other distracting priorities,” said Representative Jim Cooper, a
