President Trump ordered the Pentagon to officially begin work creating a Space Force as a sixth service, during a speech at a Monday event for the National Space Council.
“I am hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process of establishing a Space Force as a sixth branch of the armed forces.”
Trump then turned to Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and said “Got it? Lets go get it.”
Trump has floated the idea of a military branch focused on space multiple times. In May, Trump told a group of Army cadets at the White House, “We’re actually thinking of a sixth [branch of the Armed Services] and that would be the Space Force.” “The Space Force,” Trump continued, “You probably haven’t even heard that. I’m just telling you now. Because we’re getting very big in space, both militarily and for other reasons, and we are seriously thinking of the Space Force.”
Trump has floated the idea of a Space Force earlier in 2018 at a speech on a Marine base in California.
“My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea,” Trump said in San Diego, “We may even have a Space Force.”