Leaders of the House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) strategic forces panel are proposing a major overhaul of the Air Force’s space activities, including the creation of a U.S. Space Corps as a separate military service within the Department of the Air Force.
Under the proposal, the space corps would organize, train and equip the department’s space personnel, while a new, four-star-led U.S. Space Command within U.S. Strategic Command would oversee and integrate space operations. The Air Force would have until Jan. 1, 2019, to implement the changes, which the lawmakers plan to include in their portion of the House version of the fiscal year 2018 defense authorization bill. 
Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and John Cooper (D-Tenn.), the chairman and ranking member of the strategic forces subcommittee, unveiled the proposal June 20. They said the revamp is needed to streamline management of the Air Force’s many space activities and make space a higher priority within the aviation-focused Air Force.
“There is bipartisan acknowledgement that the strategic advantages we derive from our national security space systems are eroding,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. “Not only are there developments by adversaries, but we are imposing upon the national security space enterprise a crippling organizational and management structure and an acquisition system that has led to delays and cost-overruns.”
The full subcommittee is scheduled to consider the defense bill June 22. The full HASC is slated to take up the legislation June 28.
The space corps would be led by a service chief who would belong to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Army and Navy would keep their relatively few space acquisition programs. The National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency would remain separate entities, as HASC members believe they are functioning “pretty well” on their own, a HASC aide said.
The announcement came four days after the Air Force said it would soon appoint a deputy chief of staff for space operations to “integrate, normalize and elevate” its space operations (Defense Daily, June 16). HASC aides told reporters that the Air Force step does not go far enough.