Spaceships full of little gray aliens, predators, evil insects, disturbingly sexy invading Scarlett Johanssons, even more disturbingly sexy invading David Bowies, and 17 out of 26 James Bond villains agree: Space is Earth’s undefended border. Which why Donald Trump—the only man brave enough to look right at the treacherous sun without eye protection—is saving the world by creating … S P A C E F O R C E.
The AP reports that Mike Pence has been given the task of creating a sixth military service that will be “separate but equal.” Considering that term is coming from Trump, it likely means that he intends his new monster-squad to be segregated. And apparently Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is now on board with the idea of turning the “military’s space warfighting forces” over to this new command, damn the expense. Which might lead some people to say … what space warfighting forces? Because … what?
Because spacesuits and laser beams, that’s what. And also why. Maybe even a little bit of how. In any case, it will look Just Like This below.
Creating a new branch of the military, with all the outrageous waste of funds that entails, is the job of Congress. But considering that Devin Nunes has already made it clear that Congress’s #1 job is bending over for Trump, the question should only be if those spacesuits are going to be white, or gold lamé. Emphasis on lame.
As it turns out, one minute before Trump made his Space Force! tweet, CNN ran a segment on what a waste Space Force would be. So … maybe Trump is sneaking a peek at Melania’s TV.
According to Pence, space was “once peaceful and uncontested” but is now “crowded and adversarial.” By which he means other people are launching satellites into a universe that is, after all, infinite (or finite but unbounded … check it out).
While there are certainly space-related issues that concern defense, such as ICBMs that travel out of the atmosphere before arcing back to Earth, and we really should be, and are, keeping an eye out for near-Earth asteroids, it’s hard to see how any possible scenario benefits from Trump’s “Space Force” plan.
Someone at Mar-a-Lago must be lined up for a profit. Or Sean Hannity is playing a joke on Trump in their late-night chitchats. Either way, the money being spent on Space Force could actually be spent on advancing technologies for space flight. Which would be a far more sensible investment likely to benefit the nation and the world.
But it’s easy to see why Mike Pence would want to be in charge of this. It gives him something to pretend to do, so he can look up in a few months and be “surprised” when Robert Mueller hands down his report.