Not all branches of the American military are supportive of the idea of creating a U.S. Space Corps, in case future wars are fought miles above earth.
Under the initial plans, retired U.S. Army Colonel Geoffrey Cornunderstands why the air force is slow to accept this.
“It has to do,” Corn says, “with the Air Force believing that aerospace dominance is its core mission.”
This isn't totally new. Breitbart-Texas associate editor Bob Pricesays you can trace it back to President Reagan's Star Wars defense.
“With North Korea becoming a threat of being able to launch ICBMs that can hit the continental United States,” Price says, “that defense technology is very critical."
And, this isn’t a problem that might come up some time in the distant future.
“The devastation that would be done to the economy if someone starting taking out satellites with weapons based in space,” he points out. “That's a very real threat today."
Corn says many of our allies don’t have multiple branches of military service.
“It's not green, it's not blue, it's not gray,” he points out. “It's purple, because you don't do military operations as a single service. You do them as joint operations.”
In 2007, China destroyed an unused satellite circling the Earth -- just to show it could be done.