REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump said Tuesday he wants to create a U.S. “Space Force” during a speech before service members at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego. “My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land air and sea. We may even have a Space Force,” Trump said. “We’re doing a tremendous amount of work in space, and I said, maybe we need a new force. We’ll call it the Space Force.” Trump was most likely referring to the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law on Dec. 12 and stipulates that the defense secretary “establish in the executive part of the Department of the Air Force a Space Corps.” Back in July, senior Air Force officials told CNN that the corps was an “unnecessary change in the force’s existing space efforts.”