The president described in March how he had originally coined the term as a joke, while discussing U.S. government spending and private investment in space. Trump then directed the Pentagon in June to immediately begin the creation of the new branch. Trump first floated the Space Force idea as a part of his national security strategy March 13. On Thursday, he expressed his enthusiasm for the plan in a tweet shortly after Pence made the announcement, saying: "Space Force all the way!" Vice President Mike Pence announced the Pentagon's detailed plan for President Donald Trump 's vision of a Space Force on Thursday, which would establish the first military branch in over 70 years. Pence on Thursday stressed that the new branch would be built, in part, from pre-existing elements. "The Space Force will not be built from scratch," Pence said during a speech before members of the Pentagon. "This is a critical step toward's establishing the Space Force as the sixth branch of our armed forces." Here are the four components to the Department of Defense establishing a Space Force: First, DoD will establish a Space Development Agency to develop and field space capabilities at speed and scale. The Air Force has already begun to transform its Space and Missile Center (SMC). The Department will accelerate and extend this transformation to all services by creating a joint Space Development Agency. Second, the Department will develop the Space Operations Force to support the Combatant Commands. These joint space warfighters will provide space expertise to combatant commanders and the Space Development Agency, and surge expertise in time of crisis to ensure that space capabilities are leveraged effectively in conflict. Third, the Department will create the governance, services, and support functions of the Space Force. Many of these will require changes to U.S. law. The Department will build a legislative proposal for Congressional consideration as a part of the Fiscal Year 2020 budget cycle. Fourth, the Department will create a U.S. Space Command, led by a four star general or flag officer, to lead the use of space assets in warfighting and accelerate integration of space capabilities into other warfighting forces. U.S. Space Command will be responsible for directing the employment of the Space Force. Defense Secretary James Mattis on Tuesday threw his support behind the idea of creating a space-focused military command but stopped short of promising the new "Space Force" branch of service that Trump has touted. Currently the U.S. Air Force manages the domain through the U.S. Space Command. "We need to address space as a developing war-fighting domain and a combatant command is certainly one thing that we can establish," Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon, adding: "This is a process we're in." The Pentagon's top brass is hesitant to form a new military branch, former Air Force secretary Deborah Lee James told CNBC on July 30. "None of them are in favor of a space force but they are stuck," James said. "The president has said it and it will be interesting to see how they now deal with it." Read the full Pentagon report to Congress here:<doc-sep>The Trump Make America Great Again Committee is asking its supporters to vote on a logo for the Space Force. If the United States creates a Space Force, what should its logo look like? Shortly after Vice President Mike Pence revealed detailed plans for the creation of a sixth branch of the U.S. military on Thursday (Aug. 9), a political action committee (PAC) called "Trump Make America Great Again Committee" — which is part of Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign — sent out a mass email asking its supporters to vote on a new logo. The PAC email features six logos made to look like mission patches, one of which is almost identical to NASA's official logo. Rockets and other spaceships adorn the other five logos. One logo seems to imply that the Space Force is going to Mars, with the phrase "Mars awaits." See more During his speech at the Pentagon on Thursday, Pence said the Trump administration is hoping to instate a Space Force by 2020. Whether the United States is really "going to have the Space Force" has yet to be determined, because only Congress has the authority to establish a new branch of the military. But that hasn't stopped Trump's campaign from attempting to monetize the idea. "As a way to celebrate President Trump's huge announcement, our campaign will be selling a new line of gear," the PAC wrote in the email to its supporters. "But first we have to make a final decision on the design we will use to commemorate President Trump's new Space Force — and he wants YOU to have a say." Only Trump's campaign donors can officially vote for a logo via the email sent directly from the Trump Make America Great Again Committee. Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.<doc-sep>Not that any of the proposals are particularly good, of course. One is a direct rip-off of Nasa's logo. Another looks like bad clip-art. And what does defending US commercial and military assets in Earth orbit have to do with Mars?<doc-sep>This morning, Vice President Mike Pence recommended creating three new organizations within the Defense Department that would be devoted to different space military needs. Then, he said President Trump will work with Congress next year to establish the US Department of the Space Force by 2020. Pence’s recommendations are outlined in a report from Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who Congress directed to come up with ways the Defense Department could reorganize its management of space activities. The US military has long relied on space technologies for various combat operations, such as satellites that do surveillance and reconnaissance or probes that can detect missile launches from space. However, all of the military’s responsibilities for space are spread among the Air Force, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Army. Lawmakers have discussed restructuring the military’s space management system to unify it. Establishing the Space Force would require new legislation passed by Congress On June 18th, Trump called for the creation of a Space Force during the third meeting of the National Space Council, a newly formed advisory group that helps shape the US agenda in space. “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,” Trump said at the meeting. “That’s a big statement.” The announcement was surprising, but the Space Force has become part of Trump’s talking points. Establishing the Space Force would require Congress to pass new legislation. Trump hopes to get that process started by asking for Space Force funding in his annual budget request next year, according to Pence. Then the administration will work with Congress to create the Space Force through next year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is annual legislation that outlines the policies, responsibilities, and budgets for the various branches of the Defense Department. Congress recently passed the final NDAA for fiscal year 2019 on August 1st, but it did not include any language about creating a Space Force since the process for writing the act started before Trump’s announcement. “They put together a draft of that bill in the spring,” Doug Loverro, an independent consultant and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, tells The Verge. “They’re not allowed to change anything in the draft they put forward, unless in places they explicitly disagree. The things they can only negotiate are things they have written. And the whole Space Force announcement happened in June.” So the Space Force will have to wait until the next NDAA. But Pence hopes the military will make a few big changes in the interim based on the Shanahan report. First, he’s calling for the creation of a new “unified combatant command” for space that will be named the United States Space Command. This would seemingly reorganize the warfighting chain of command for space, which is separate from what the Space Force would do. Pence hopes the military will make a few big changes before the Space Force is created Within the Defense Department, there are two primary chains of command: warfighting and OTE (organize, train, and equip). OTE is the responsibility of the various military branches, such as the Air Force, Army, and Navy. They’re in charge of figuring out what kinds of military equipment they want to make and then training the necessary people to use that equipment. This is what the Space Force would focus on: creating satellites and training personnel to operate them. The warfighting chain of command works at a higher level. This area of the Defense Department consists of various combatant commands, such as EUCOM or STRATCOM, which decide how to strategically use the branches of the military. For instance, CENTCOM decides what troops and equipment it needs stationed in the Middle East based on what’s available, and then the armed forces provide those resources. Currently, the warfighting chain of command for space is overseen by STRATCOM, which is mostly focused on nuclear deterrence and global strike. But the Trump administration would create a separate command for space apart from STRATCOM, led by a four-star flag officer. This is a throwback: in 1985, the US created the US Space Command to do exactly this, but the organization was put under the umbrella of STRATCOM in 2002. Pence also wants the Defense Department to create a new organization called the Space Development Agency, which would reorganize how the military acquires new space technology. Currently, space acquisitions are done by the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center. But this new agency would seem to take that responsibility away from the Air Force. Pence called for a new “elite group of joint warfighters, specializing in the domain of space” Pence called for a new “elite group of joint warfighters, specializing in the domain of space,” who would be part of a newly minted Space Operations Force. It’s not clear where this organization will reside, but it may serve as the backbone for what the eventual Space Force will become. “They’re going to be pulling people from the Air Force, from the Marines, from the Army, to put them in this new organization to think about how space fits into warfighting,” Brian Weeden, a space expert at the Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit that specializes in space security, tells The Verge. “It sounds like that is to be the nucleus that becomes the separate Space Force.” A new civilian position will also be created, Pence says: the assistant secretary of defense for space. This person will report to the secretary of defense and make sure the new reorganization efforts are running smoothly. “Creating a new branch of the military is not a simple process,” Pence said during his speech. “It will require collaboration, diligence, and, above all, leadership. As challenges arise and deadlines approach, there must be someone in charge who can execute, hold others accountable, and be responsible for the results.” These changes may sound like good news to some lawmakers who have supported shaking up the way the military does space.<doc-sep>
Air Force Space Command shield. This command aims to provide space capabilities for the Air Force and the nation. President Donald Trump's administration is pushing to form a U.S. Space Force, a new military branch, but how would that agency differ from the Air Force Space Command, which already oversees much of the country's defense assets in space? In a speech at the Pentagon Thursday (Aug. 9), Vice President Mike Pence revealed a detailed plan to create the Space Force, which Trump proposed earlier this yearn. The Space Force swill meet "the rising security threats our nation faces in space today and in the future," Pence said. If approved by Congress, the Space Force could be ready by 2020, he added. But the proposed Space Force is not the United States' first foray into militarizing space. [Space Force Logos by the Trump Campaign] The first U.S. rockets were launched by the U.S. military, and NASA's first astronauts were military officers, Pence said. And in 1982, the U.S. Air Force established the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) to provide "space capabilities" for spaceflight missions, navigation, satellite communications, missile warning and space control, according to AFSPC's website.) The AFSPC has units at Air Force bases all over the United States. These units provide space capabilities including "services, facilities and range safety control for the conduct of DOD [Department of Defense], NASA and commercial launches" of satellties, according to AFSPC's website. But if the AFSPC is already dedicated to space, why do we need a Space Force? On Aug. 9, 2018, Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech at the Pentagon in which he outlined a plan for Trump's proposed Space Force. (Image credit: White House/DoD News) In an interview with Space.com, Michael Dodge, an assistant professor in the Department of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota, likened the creation of a Space Force with the birth of the Air Force in the 20th century. The early version of the U.S. Air Force existed as the U.S. Army Air Corps, an aerial warfare sector of the U.S. Army. But as planes continued to advance technologically and find their way into mainstream travel, "Congress decided they needed to have a new branch of the military," Dodge said. The country needed a branch that could "address issues unique to this domain." The Air Force became the fifth branch of the U.S. armed forces in 1947. The Space Force would essentially serve the same purpose, but for space. Dodge said it would "free up the Air Force to focus on what it does best," as the new branch addressed issues unique to space. Dodge noted that this space-oriented, sixth military branch makes the most sense now. " [O]ur assets are so critical in outer space and everything that we do is so dependent on outer space that we need a new force capable of focusing on that domain by itself," he said." However, Dodge added, one driving force to create a Space Force now instead of sometime in the future is political. Pence called out the military activities of Russia and China in his speech at the Pentagon today. Both countries have tested anti-satellite technology in the past and are actively pursuing hypersonic weapons that surpass current missile-defense capabilities, Pence said. Dodge noted that creating a Space Force now, instead of waiting for the future, would allow the U.S. to "Keep pace with and [go] beyond the abilities of potential adversaries to the United States." In other words, instead of waiting until there is a need for a U.S. military presence in space, the Space Force would beat other countries to the punch, paving the way. In June, President Trump said that it wasn't enough for the U.S. to have a presence in space. "We must have American dominance in space." But Trump's Space Force would add more than just a competitive presence in space or an additional focus on protection of U.S. space assets. Aside from being a new military branch, a Space Force at the Pentagon today would have a few features that would set it apart from previous U.S. military space efforts, like AFSPC, Pence said. The vice president mentioned four major, fundamental steps that the U.S. government will take to create a Space Force.