While speaking to the National Space Council on Monday President Trump called on the Defense Department to take steps toward creating a “space force,” a new branch of the United States military focused on space.
“Very importantly I’m 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,” the Commander in Chief declared.
“We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the space force, separate but equal,” he explained.
The president asserted that America’s activity in space represents a national security issue.
“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, so important,” he declared.
In an article reporting this news CNN pointed to the president’s use of the terminology, “separate but equal,” writing in the lead paragraph that “President Donald Trump used a term from US segregationist history to describe the relationship between the Air Force and his newest military branch, the Space Force,calling it ‘separate but equal.’”
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) approved of the president’s plan for a space force, but Senator Bill Nelson (FL-D), a former astronaut, tweeted:
“The president told a US general to create a new Space Force as 6th branch of military today, which generals tell me they don’t want. Thankfully the president can’t do it without Congress because now is NOT the time to rip the Air Force apart. Too many important missions at stake.”