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US Air Force to be ripped by Trump’s space force: Senator

A model of a rocket is seen before an event with the space council in the West Room of the White House on June 18, 2018 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

The United States Air Force will be ripped apart by US President Donald Trump’s newly announced space force, says a Democratic lawmaker.

Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson said Monday that he was pushing back on Trump’s declaration of the new military branch dedicated to space at the Pentagon.

The commander-in-chief personally asked Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph Dunford “to carry that assignment out,” Trump said at a meeting with members of the National Space Council,

If created, the force will be the sixth military service branch at the Pentagon.

“I’m not too keen on ripping space out of the Air Force and creating a space corps,” Nelson said, during a briefing with the head of the US Strategic Command, General John Hyten.

He also took to Twitter to slam the decision, which needs the US Congress’s green light to go ahead.

“The president told a US general to create a new Space Force as 6th branch of military today, which generals tell me they don’t want,” said the Florida senator. “Thankfully the president can’t do it without Congress because now is NOT the time to rip the Air Force apart. Too many important missions at stake.”

In addition, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Dunford have previously expressed opposition to creation of an independent space corps.

During a speech to military personnel in San Diego, California, in March, the US president threw his support behind the idea of establishing a dedicated military branch for space.

Once Trump talks to the US Air Force about the idea, “I think he will get a different consideration, that there shouldn’t be, that all of that is being handled by the Air Force now,” Nelson told the Hill.


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