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WATCH: Neil DeGrasse Tyson Actually DEFENDS Trump’s Plan For A Space Force

YouTube screenshot/Salon

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Evie Fordham Politics and Health Care Reporter
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Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told Salon he does not think President Donald Trump’s proposal of a Space Force is a “crazy idea” in a video posted on YouTube Tuesday.

“Just because it came out of Trump’s mouth doesn’t make it a crazy idea,” deGrasse Tyson said.

DeGrasse Tyson has been defending the idea of a Space Force on the cable news circuit since as early as June.

He told Salon the U.S. already basically has a space force, but it is a subsidiary of the Air Force.

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“It’s called the U.S. Space Command,” the physicist said. “They’re the ones that put the GPS satellites up in orbit. … This would take all those activities from the Air Force and move it over into a separate umbrella, and that would be the Space Force.”

DeGrasse Tyson has his own suggestions for what Space Force should prioritize.

“If you’re going to do that, I’d throw in a couple of extra things,” he told Salon. “Throw in asteroid defense. … How about cleaning up space debris?”

He also brought up the idea of a seventh branch of the military being needed in the future.

“Could the military use a cyberforce?” deGrasse Tyson asked. “War is different. It’s not lines of soldiers marching across borders the way it had been for so long in history.”

DeGrasse Tyson used history to back up his argument for a sixth branch of the military. (RELATED: Scientists Want You To Know That 98.6 Degrees Is Not Really ‘Normal’ Body Temperature)

“Are you questioning that we have an Air Force?” he asked Salon. “Probably not. You’d say it makes complete sense. Pilots are different from infantry. The engineers that design aircraft are different from the engineers that design tanks, so of course you have a separate branch. It wasn’t always separate. The Air Force used to be a branch of the Army, the Army Air Force, throughout the entire second World War. Then people realized these are different needs so you make a different branch.”

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