CNBC reports:
President Donald Trump declared Monday he would move to make a new branch of the military focused solely on space. “I am hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces,” Trump said during a meeting of the National Space Council.
“Our destiny beyond the Earth is not only a matter of national identity but a matter of national security,” Trump said. The addition of a sixth sister service branch to the U.S. military would be the first in 71 years. The U.S. Air Force is the nation’s youngest branch and was added shortly after World War II.
Pres. Trump calls for establishment of a “space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.”
“When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space.” https://t.co/NkJuIoyFEp pic.twitter.com/1b4w6NGDTC
— ABC News (@ABC) June 18, 2018
According to NASA, The Milky Way is “so big that even at the speed of light, it would take 100,000 years to travel across it.” But Trump’s Space Force is going to patrol the universe at a time when we struggle to get food and electricity to Puerto Rico and clean water to Flint.
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 18, 2018
Trump says he’s directing the government to create a “Space Force” as a sixth branch of the Armed Forces.”
“We have the Air Force and we’re going to have the Space Force. Separate but equal.”
(Yes, he said “separate but equal.”)
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 18, 2018