Standing Up Space Force: The Road to the Nation's Sixth Armed Service

The United States won the race to the moon, but the Soviets were more active in space during the 1980s. Experts recommended a space force within two decades, and the Trump administration established the Space Force in 2020 with presidential-congressional leadership and bipartisan support.

Format: Hardback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 15 December 2023
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

The United States secured its place in history by reaching the moon first, but the Soviets were far more active in space during the decade that followed. By the 1980s, concerns arose.
The United States secured its place in history by reaching the moon first, but the Soviets were far more active in space during the decade that followed. By the 1980s, concerns were raised among some space experts that the United States might be surpassed in space, particularly in the development of dual-use systems that could be used offensively in a military confrontation. A few experts, looking ahead, recommended the establishment of a space force within roughly two decades.

The establishment of the Space Force is organized chronologically by presidential administration, beginning in the mid-1990s and progressing through the Trump administration. During the Clinton and George W. Bush years, the move towards national security space was incremental. The Obama presidency witnessed the rise of NewSpace entrepreneurs whose impressive space activities facilitated their initial partnering with U.S. government National Security Space (NSS) missions, helping the United States keep pace with China and Russia.

During the Trump administration, all necessary elements finally came together, most significantly, presidential-congressional leadership and bipartisan support, to eventually produce the fiscal 2020 national defense authorization act (NDAA). Because the NDAA authorized and provided for the Space Force, when the President signed the defense bill on December 20, 2019, at the same moment he officially established the nation's sixth armed service.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781682472392