Biden, finally, makes the right call on Space Command
Washington Examiner
Video Embed
After months of bipartisan pressure from Colorado’s congressional delegation, President Joe Biden finally decided this week to keep Space Command in Colorado Springs, a decision that provides much-needed stability and continuity to a mission facing imminent threats from China and Russia.
China already has more than several hundred low Earth satellites in orbit, and it plans to launch another 13,000 over the next few years. Many of these satellites would be equipped with weapons, including lasers and high-power microwaves, designed to disable other satellites. Not to be outdone, Russian President Vladimir Putin said this year, “It is necessary to concentrate efforts on the use of near-Earth space. … It is necessary to significantly increase the production of satellites.”
JACK SMITH’S DANGEROUS CRIMINALIZATION OF DISSENT
Space Command, which is different from the Space Force, is charged with the responsibility of overseeing all of the Pentagon’s space assets including the defense of satellites. First created in 1985, it was merged into Strategic Command in 2002, before Trump revived it as its own entity in 2019.
Colorado Springs has served as Space Command’s temporary home since 2019 while the Department of Defense underwent a process to identify a permanent home. Colorado Springs was originally chosen as that home for many reasons, including the fact that Space Command’s temporary headquarters, Peterson Space Force Base, was already built, would only need to be renovated, and could be fully operational in just a few months.
Building a brand new base in Alabama, as President Donald Trump decided to do in January 2021, just weeks before he left office, would have taken years. While a new headquarters was being built, Space Command would not have had full operational capability. At a time when the United States is facing growing threats from China and Russia, the nation needs a Space Command at full capability.
Shortly after Trump bragged to an Alabama radio station that he had “single-handedly” moved Space Command from Colorado to Alabama, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) asked the Government Accountability Office to review the decision. That GAO report found that the Pentagon did not follow best practices when it made the decision to switch locations of Space Command headquarters.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
With that GAO finding in hand, Colorado’s elected representatives from both parties have lobbied the Biden administration to revisit the Alabama decision and reverse Trump’s change. These pages endorsed moving Space Command headquarters back in April of this year, and it is good to see that the Biden administration finally made the correct decision, even if that decision should have come months ago.
Colorado is already home to numerous military space assets as well as an established aerospace industry. Making the temporary Colorado Springs headquarters the permanent Space Command headquarters will ensure the fastest acquisition of “full operational capacity” possible. That is just what the security of the United States needs.