President-elect Donald Trump will undermine national security by moving the U.S. military’s Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama. While there are legitimate debates about whether the risks of such a move are manageable or prohibitive, any jeopardy to U.S. security interests in space should be of profound concern.
Today, Russia is developing nuclear weapons systems designed to destroy U.S. satellite constellations. Today, China has plans to deploy 13,000 satellites in a new constellation that would rival Elon Musk’s Starlink network and provide a means of attacking U.S. satellite constellations. Today, Iran and North Korea are advancing their ballistic missile capabilities with a view to establishing first-strike nuclear capabilities.
Some Republicans underplay these concerns. Led by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, they claim Trump should restore his first-term decision to move Space Command to Alabama. As Rogers recently put it to a local Alabama radio station, “I think you’ll see in the first week that [Trump is] in office, he’ll sign an executive order reversing Biden’s directive [to locate Space Command in Colorado].”
Let’s be clear: the reason why Rogers wanted Space Command in Alabama is not because it’s the best operational location for Space Command. It’s because such a basing location will bring jobs and investment to Alabama. That’s a legitimate rationale to support a basing decision, of course. It’s also legitimate for Rogers to point out an Air Force assessment that suggested relocating Space Command to Huntsville would accrue the benefit of lower living costs.
Still, Trump’s first responsibility will be to put national security before economic interests. On that basis, the evidence plainly supports Space Command’s sustainment in Colorado (for full disclosure, it should be noted that the Washington Examiner is owned by the Anschutz Corporation, which is based and has business interests in Colorado).
For a start, Space Command reached full operating capability at Colorado Springs Peterson Space Force Base late last year. Even more importantly, all of the U.S. Space Force’s Operations Command units are already based at one of three Space Force bases in Colorado: Buckley, Schriever, and Peterson. The Air Force announced just last week that it has chosen Schriever to host one of Space Force’s two command and control units.
Why break what’s working? Why do so when doing so will cause bureaucratic challenges, logistics difficulties, and new construction costs? Why do so when, as the map below shows, the Buckley, Schriever, and Peterson bases are within three hours of each other (Peterson and Schriever are only a 15 minute drive apart). Why do so when China is escalating its threats to critical U.S. interests? Why do so when Russia is doing the same thing?
As I noted in 2020, “Relocating Space Command, moving the headquarters to a different state from its main operational components, or relocating all the components along with it, would be a decision that has nothing to do with operation effectiveness and everything to do with politics.”
The key point here is that Colorado already provides the infrastructure and day-to-day efficacy to support its retention of Space Command. In late Sept. 2023, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall III emphasized this point. He testified to Congress that the then head of Space Command had told him relocation to Alabama would “greatly reduce readiness and impose risk to the mission of the force.”
There is an additional point in Colorado’s favor. Namely, the presence of the U.S. Air Force Academy so close to Peterson Space Force Base gives cadets a unique opportunity to see what the Space Force does on a daily basis. This is of significant value to the Space Force’s ability to attract the best and brightest future Air Force leaders. As Elon Musk’s SpaceX ability to show up NASA proves, we want the best and the brightest working on space matters.
Huntsville is a weak alternative to Colorado Springs. Space Command fears a significant majority of its civilian personnel would not relocate to Huntsville. That matters because civilians make up approximately 60% of the command’s total personnel. These are highly trained engineers, analysts, technicians, scientists, etc., who are neither easy to attract away from this field’s booming private sector into lower-paid government service nor easily replaced.
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Ultimately, Trump has to decide whether he cares more about marginal long-term savings on Space Command-related living costs or the most effective sustainment of that organization’s mission. Considering the risks and opportunities presented by military operations in space, Trump’s decision should be a no-brainer.
Space Command should stay exactly where it is.