H/T Thomas Ventimiglia

In the mid-1980s President Reagan, a very forward-thinking visionary, proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a land and space-based defense system, designed as a defense against incoming nuclear missiles.

So confident was President Reagan and the proponents of the system that he offered to give the technology to the Soviet Union so that they too could protect themselves from incoming nuclear missiles.

I was on active duty in the Army at the time and found the idea brilliant. It could have eliminated the threat of nuclear war.

However, the Soviets, after seeing the proposal, were terrified. I wondered why they would object to global security once and for all. The reason showed itself several years later when the bankrupt Soviet Union crumbled and finally embraced democracy. President Reagan had ended the Cold War without firing a shot by simply outspending the Soviets on defense. They tried but couldn’t keep up with the United States and it bankrupted and dissolved the Soviet Union. They were terrified of SDI because they knew that they could never afford to field it and the only equalizer they had to American military muscle was the threat of a nuclear strike, which would be neutralized by SDI.

Although a Democrat-controlled Congress curtailed funding for the Initiative, and Bill Clinton all but killed it when he took office, SDI gave birth to associated technology initiatives and programs such as space-based laser technology that the US leads the world in developing.

“Today, the United States holds a significant advantage in the field of comprehensive advanced missile defense systems through years of extensive research and testing.[9][10] The US and the UK also have both laser weapons and 360-degree laser shields in development, which are expected to be ready for military use as early as 2020.”

There is now a proposal in Congress to form a new military branch, equal in stature to the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Titled the “US Space Corps,” its function will be to manage and develop new and existing space-bases defense systems.

The proposed new branch has its critics, which is to be expected. I believe those critics are short-sighted. By 1947, America’s Army Air Corps had outgrown the Army and was in need of independence from it. Thus, the formation of the US Air Force. Likewise, space-based technology will become far too massive a program to exist under the umbrella of the Air Force and requires independence to optimize its effectiveness. I would also propose that the new branch include NASA under its organization.

No question, we are ready and in need of a military branch to manage existing and developing space-based defense systems. We have a Republican President who will no doubt establish such a branch, and with a Republican-controlled Congress, there should be no problem funding the new branch. Then again, that’s what I thought with the border wall.

From Zero Hedge

There’s currently a push in the halls of Washington D.C., to establish a new branch of the military by 2019, one whose focus would be operations among the stars. Proposed legislation by House representatives would create a “Space Corps” that would serve “as a separate military service within the Department of the Air Force.”

 It would be the first branch added to the military since 1947 when the Air Force was officially established.

On Tuesday, the top two lawmakers of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Representatives Mike Rogers and Jim Cooper, added the legislation to the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The subcommittee oversees military space operations and works within the umbrella of the House Armed Services Committee.

 “There is bipartisan acknowledgement that the strategic advantages we derive from our national security space systems are eroding,” Rogers and Cooper said in a joint statement.

 “We are convinced that the Department of Defense is unable to take the measures necessary to address these challenges effectively and decisively, or even recognize the nature and scale of its problems.”

Under the proposed legislation, the Space Corps would serve under the direction of the Air Force much like the Marine Corps serves under the direction of the Navy. But the military branch would have its own chief, equal in rank to that of Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Additionally, the Space Corps head would have a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Air Force itself, however, seems somewhat cool to the congressmen’s idea. At a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the NDAA on Thursday, Air Force spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder said the United States military should be focusing on coordination:

“We think right now it’s important to take the capabilities and the resources that we have and focus on implementation and integration with the broader force, versus creating a separate service.”

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson echoed a similar sentiment while speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday:

The Pentagon is complicated enough. This will make it more complex, add more boxes to the organization chart, and cost more money. And if I had more money, I would put it into lethality, not bureaucracy…I don’t need another chief of staff and another six deputy chiefs of staff.”

The entire House Armed Services Committee will have to approve the subcommittee’s additions to the NDAA before they can go any further. If that happens, the debate will move to the House floor, where the NDAA is expected to be voted on sometime after the Fourth of July.

Whether or not the legislation makes the cut, however, it should be noted that the idea of militarizing space is nothing new for the United States. As Anti-Media has reported, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work stated at a conference back in 2015 that space must “be considered a contested operational domain in ways that we haven’t had to think about in the past.”