By The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) has rejected an attempt to derail its proposal to create a space corps in the Air Force Department.
During a late-night debate June 28 on its fiscal year 2018 defense authorization bill, the committee defeated, by voice vote, an amendment by Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) that would have replaced the space corps provision with language calling for a study on whether the new service is needed. The HASC proceeded to approve the overall bill by a 60-1 vote.
Turner had argued that most HASC members have not examined the space corps proposal in depth and need more information before creating a space corps.
“As a committee, there’s a whole lot of work that we need to do before we go to the extent of establishing another service branch, and at least one of those steps should be a study,” Turner said.
But Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the HASC’s strategic forces subcommittee, countered that his panel has been working on the space corps proposal “vigorously” for almost a year and has been informed by many briefings from experts and by studies conducted by the Government Accountability Office and others.
“We have a real sense of urgency in our committee,” Rogers said. “To delay this, in my view, would be irresponsible.”
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), the subcommittee’s ranking member, agreed with Rogers, saying, “We could wake up one morning, we could be at supper one night, and be blinded and deafened by adversary powers. So much of our most precious assets are up in space. We have got to do more to protect them and to develop other capabilities.”
Space corps proponents say the new service is needed to streamline the Air Force’s excessive bureaucracy and make space a higher priority. The Air Force is opposed, insisting that a major organizational overhaul would slow its ability to counter growing threats in space.
