A US congressional committee is proposing that the US armed forces add a new military branch called the United States Space Corps. If this is passed it would be the first new branch of the armed forces since the Air Force was created in 1947.
The Space Corp would provide “combat-ready space forces” that enable the commanders of the combatant commands to fight and win wars. The Space Corps would fall under the Air Force in the same way the Marine Corps works with the Navy.
The 2018 Air Force space budget: it grew at least $1.5 billion. That’s a large increase considering the total budget request is $10.4 billion. For perspective, the entire Defense Department space budget last year — known as the space Major Force Program — was $22 billion. The Air Force oversees the vast majority of the unclassified space budget, so much of that other spending can probably be attributed to the NRO, builder and operator of the nation’s spy satellites.
The DOD has been spending $25-30 billion per year on space. There is also the National Reconnaissance office (about $15 billion) and the National Geospatial intelligence office (about $2-5 billion). The military and spy satellites and other non-NASA space activities are about 2 to 3 times as much as NASA budget. This level of spending is before a large human or robotic space corp is created.
The Space Corp will probably add more bureaucracy and more spending.
The US Marines have been $35 to 45 billion of the Navy budget.
The Space related US military and Spy agency budgets are already over $45 billion per year.
But I guess the extra costs will be worth it so that we can defeat the bugs.
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Oh no aliens yet ?
I guess we need to beat China and Russia’s space military forces.
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I guess the military industrial complex needs even more ways to have bloated contracts and juicy payoffs and cushy jobs for retired military leaders. Corruption and graft have been working for the proposed $700 billion defense main budget plus over $300 billion in defense related budget.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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