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'Space force': Trump orders new branch of US military
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: June 25th, 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/18/space-force-...
Donald Trump said on Monday he would direct the Pentagon to create a space force as a new branch of the US military to shore up American dominance in space. Trump claimed that the plan will ensure that America, which plans a return to the moon and a mission to Mars, stays ahead of China and Russia in any new space race. But it is likely to raise fears over the militarisation of space. Very importantly, Im hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces, the president said at the White House. We are going to have the air force and we are going to have the space force separate but equal. The president was speaking at the third meeting of the National Space Council, revived after a quarter of a century. He was joined by Mike Pence, the new Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine and former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. But there was a skeptical reaction from Bill Nelson, the Democratic senator for Florida. He tweeted: The president told a US general to create a new Space Force as 6th branch of military today, which generals tell me they dont want. During his remarks, Trump ... insisted: When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space. So important. Trump has floated the idea of a space force before but met both mockery and high-level resistance.
Note: In 1974, the founder of modern rocket science Wernher Von Braun told his spokesperson Dr. Carol Rosin that "first the Russians are going to be considered the enemy. Then terrorists would be identified. The next enemy was asteroids against asteroids we are going to build space-based weapons. Then ... the last card is the alien card. We are going to have to build space-based weapons against aliens, and all of it is a lie."
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