Many Americans were taken by surprise when a whole new branch of the military - the U.S. Space Force - was launched during the Trump administration. But this branch of the military wasn't created on a whim, and its mission is more complicated than you might expect.
On this episode, we unpack the history of the militarization of space, the creation of the Space Force, and ask the question: is it here to stay?
Our guest is Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb, Associate Professor of Strategy and Security Studies at US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.
Transcript
Note: This transcript was machine-generated and may contain errors
Nick Capodice: Hannah, did you know that each branch of the military has its own theme song?
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. They also have their own marching bands.
Nick Capodice: Six marching bands here. And I'm going to do a little quiz, Hannah; guess which branch this song belongs to?
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. Yeah, That one's the Marines. It's very recognizable.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, it's the United States Marine Corps hymn. How about this one?
Hannah McCarthy: Believe it or not, I used to sing this a lot with my friends.
Nick Capodice: It was very popular in chorus.
Hannah McCarthy: It's very- that's the Navy.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, you got it. The name of it is Anchors Aweigh. And here's the last one.
Archive: (Music).
Hannah McCarthy: Ohhh. Well, it sounds like it's the Coast Guard?
Nick Capodice: No.
Hannah McCarthy: Is that the Army?
Nick Capodice: Wrong. I'm going to give you a hint. The name of the song is Semper Supra, which is Latin for "always above".
Hannah McCarthy: Ok, the Air Force.
Nick Capodice: Nope. So close. This is the song for the newest branch of the U.S. military. The Space Force.
Archive: Music
Hannah McCarthy: I guess it does feel kind of John Williams-y, right? Like Star Wars-y.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. You are not the first person to make that observation.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: This is unconfirmed, but I did hear a rumor that John Williams, the composer behind Star Wars and a lot of other movies, had offered to do the theme for them, and they turned them down because they, you know, obviously, they wanted their own people to do it. But that's an unconfirmed rumor.
Nick Capodice: That is Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: I am an associate professor of strategy and security studies at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, otherwise known as SASS.
Nick Capodice: Wendy is a self-proclaimed space geek and went to school near the Space Coast in Florida.
Archive: 5,4,3,2,1, ignition.
Hannah McCarthy: I love that it's called the Space Coast.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: I grew up watching space shuttles launch my whole life.
Nick Capodice: Wendy was teaching a course on space policy at the United States Air Force Academy when that Space Force theme song dropped.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: My memory associated with it is just hearing what these young future space leaders are really excited about and being able to sort of get in on the ground floor of something new that they're building and, you know, having to come up with a song and think about it and- and what does that tell the world and our citizens about what it is that we do?
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Space is a very unseen, invisible sort of world. People don't know a lot about what actually goes on up in space. So all we have, all the references we have to go on are science fiction for the most part. So I think it's hard for the public not to see those connections, even if they were not deliberately trying to make them.
Archive: We'll call it the Space Force... Think of that Space Force.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: You know, it's hard when the public hears these things or sees something like the Space Force logo to disassociate and disconnect, you know, what you're doing in the real World Space Force from what they see on TVs and movies.
Archive: Space Force! Space Force! Look, look.As long as J.J. Abrams directs and Mark Hamill has a cameo, I'm in.
Hannah McCarthy: I remember a lot of jokes about the Space Force on late night TV shows.
Archive: But there's no threat in space. Who are we fighting? Satellites? A bunch of frozen monkeys? Elon Musk's convertible?
Nick Capodice: Yeah. The Space Force has been the butt of many a joke since then. But Wendy says that a lot of that has to do with what we didn't hear when the branch was unveiled. Perhaps because we were so wrapped up in how sort of sci-fi it sounded.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: A lot of the things you see on Star Trek or Star Wars or any other science fiction show- that's not really possible given the laws of physics today. So, you know, I think the public, just in general, needs to have a better understanding of what the reality is. We're not actually going up there and fighting pew pew with lightsabers and all of these things. But it is really important to our everyday lives, especially here in the United States. It's going to get more important as the years go on. We all need to have a better appreciation for it and understand the realities and what can and can't be done there. So again, you know, we're not going to be fighting. We're not going to send the Space Force to plant the flag on- the Space Force flag on the moon and take over the moon. That's not happening.
Nick Capodice: This is civics 101. I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: And today we're going to take a look at the United States Space Force, our newest branch of the military. We're going to clear up what the Space Force is actually doing, why it was formed, and who is being recruited for it. And I have to admit, Hannah, like a lot of people, I didn't really get it when the Space Force was created. Like, is this whole other branch of the military even necessary when we already have the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard. And not to mention, isn't space covered by NASA exclusively?
Hannah McCarthy: So is the Space Force doing brand new things, or is it taking on responsibilities that other branches and departments were doing? Because creating a new military branch, that is a big deal. I mean, it's got to be expensive.
Nick Capodice: We are going to get into all of that. But first, Hannah, I want you to think about our military branches. So when you think about the Navy, you think about its role in fighting and protecting territory in the sea. And the Army, you think about land forces. And here's where Wendy says the Space Force fits in.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: They do have a really important purpose to serve in protecting what we do have there and making sure that the United States is able to access an area that has become vitally important to each and every one of us.
Hannah McCarthy: Wendy mentions protecting what we have out in space. What exactly needs protecting?
Nick Capodice: Have you ever thought, Hannah, about space as a militarized zone?
Hannah McCarthy: Only in the context of like Star Trek.
Archive: We're venting plasma.
Archive: Reroute power to aft shields and return fire.
Archive: You're just prolonging the inevitable.
Archive: We've defeated the Borg before. We'll do it again.
Archive: Not this time.
Nick Capodice: Well, in the real world, it didn't really used to be considered a militarized zone until human technology reached it. And the technology that is there now, a lot of it relies on and relates to the military.
Archive: At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Army's Jupiter-C rocket is ready for America's second attempt to launch a space satellite. No relation to the IRBM-Jupiter.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: We say that space is militarized because we use space for military purposes.
Nick Capodice: The United States Space Forces stated mission is to, quote, "conduct global space operations that enhance the way our joint and coalition forces fight, while also offering decision-makers military options to achieve national objectives. So in practical terms, Hannah, the Space Force's job is to protect our access to space and to operate and defend military satellites and their ground operations.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Since the very beginning, since the Soviet Union launched its first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957- the Soviet Union and the United States have known that space is important for military purposes.
Nick Capodice: Military purposes being things like intelligence gathering, surveillance and communications.
Archive: The Soviet Sputnik beep beeped its way across the sky. The reaction was one of astonishment and concern. For it was now known that a potential enemy was at least temporarily ahead in developing means for space travel.
Nick Capodice: After the Soviet Union's successful launch of Sputnik, the first satellite launch in human history, America was in shock. Right?
Hannah McCarthy: Right. Because it wasn't just that Russia was our rival. Right? It's also that the occasionally self-proclaimed "greatest nation on earth" could not understand how Russia could have beat us into space.
Nick Capodice: Exactly. Many of Russia's claims of military and technological superiority had been sort of ignored up to that point.
Archive: Russia has in recent months been threatening nations who grant bases to America. Those threats have not been taken very seriously. But now the world knows that it took a far more powerful projectile than America possesses to push that satellite into its orbit in space.
Nick Capodice: But Americans could no longer ignore it when another superpower had the capability to launch rockets into orbit around the Earth. So the United States ramped up its space program and engaged the Soviet Union in a space race. With each side trying to one-up each other and tech and military hardware.
Archive: Today, a new moon is in the sky, a 23-inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a Russian rocket. Here, an artist's conception of how the feat was accomplished. A three stage rocket-
Hannah McCarthy: Wait a minute. They called Sputnik a moon?
Nick Capodice: Yeah. Very quickly Hannah let me define the word satellite. Satellite is really just an object that circles a larger object, like a moon circling a planet. So a moon is a natural satellite.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, yeah. And, of course, there are artificial satellites, machines made by humans and launched into space.
Nick Capodice: Yes. And just like that Sputnik launch, we still use rockets to launch satellites into orbit. Some satellites are the size of a school bus or a hippo like the GOES 15, which is a weather satellite launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But some satellites are the size of a lunchbox. They can hitch rides into orbit on rockets whose main objectives are other missions. For instance, delivering supplies to the ISS, the International Space Station. And the cost of manufacturing. A satellite has dropped dramatically. So, more and more of them are being launched, both by global government agencies and private corporations. And these satellites serve a variety of purposes. As Wendy mentioned, a lot of them are military in nature. But even if you aren't taking spy photographs of Russia, you are benefiting from satellites.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: It's very hard to think about something that we do on a daily basis that isn't affected by space. When you go to the ATM and take money out that- you're using a satellite to make that withdrawal. When you go to the gas station, you're- and you pay at the pump, you're using a satellite to make that payment. Many of the day-to-day economic transactions we make are supported by these space-based systems. And so the fear over the past couple of years is, as we have come to depend more and more on these space-based systems, other countries see that and can potentially threaten our dependence by shooting down satellites. And so that would be a very bad day.
Archive: This morning outrage from U.S. officials after Russia carried out a missile test early Monday, firing an anti-satellite missile into space.
Archive: We were recently informed of a satellite breakup and need to have you guys start reviewing the safe haven procedure. It's nine decimal two one.
Archive: Obliterating one of its own satellites and creating a vast debris field that's now orbiting Earth.
Archive: At least the occurrence is out of control to have a conversation on dragon the ground about-
Nick Capodice: But the value of our satellites goes way beyond how we pay for stuff and move money around. They are the reason, Hannah, we can reach in our pocket and see where we are and how we're going to get where we're going. Because 31 satellites make up what is called the Global Positioning System, G.P.S..
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: G.p.s. is one of these things that I think we all sort of take for granted because we're using that information on our phone nearly every day.
Hannah McCarthy: I have to confess, I almost entirely depend on a map app on my phone, like, I can get around my hometown, but that's kind of it.
Archive: In two miles Hannah make a right on navigation-dependent Boulevard.
Nick Capodice: And those GPS satellites have been important to the military long before the creation of the Space Force. Quick interesting fact The network of global positioning satellites orbiting the Earth was developed by the Air Force in the late 1970s and used to be called NAVSTAR. The mapping technology was first made available for civilians in 1983, when President Reagan authorized its use by commercial airlines. The first consumer GPS devices came in the market in 1989, but the GPS satellites are still owned by the government and operated by the Space Force. But here's the thing, Hannah, there's something else those GPS satellites do that is vitally important. They provide incredibly precise timing data.
Hannah McCarthy: Timing?
Nick Capodice: Yeah. So each GPS satellite has an ultra precise atomic clock on board that continuously sends out what time it is according to that clock. This precise timing is used in financial transactions and by institutions around the world.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: You trade a stock, let's say, you want to buy it at the price it is at that very moment and not 5 minutes from now, not 5 minutes ago. So they use these ultra-precise timing signals to make these transactions and make them happen and make them match up. We also use these same signals for things like emergency services. If you think about how often we're making economic transactions on a daily basis, imagine what happens if you lose that capability. Many of us in society today don't carry a lot of cash. If GPS goes down, you're not going to get cash out of the ATM. You're not going to be able to use your credit cards or make financial transactions. In the past, where there have been errors in the timing signals of GPS satellites, emergency services have been unable to get signals and know where to go or know that they need to go somewhere.
Hannah McCarthy: So there are a bunch of extremely important and expensive pieces of equipment orbiting above us in space, and a lot of them have to do with supporting the military. But a lot of the value of these satellites is in making the modern world run. So my question is, given that collective value, is this the first time that our government has considered making a military branch to protect all this important stuff in space?
Nick Capodice: Yeah, the idea of having a military force for space came long before the creation of the Space Force. Over the years, many leaders in Congress and the military have considered consolidating space operations. There was talk of a military space service in the late 1950s. President Ronald Reagan also toyed with the idea. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted to consolidate space operations, but then those plans were sidelined by 9-11. Wendy said that over the past couple of decades, members of Congress started pushing for more proactive defense of our space based assets. And the Trump administration ran with it.
Archive: You know, I was saying it the other day- because we're doing a tremendous amount of work in space. I said, maybe we need a new force. We'll call it the Space Force. And I was not really serious. And then I said, What a great idea. Maybe we'll have to do that. That could happen.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: The president's support for this was sort of the culmination, the final point of this movement, this push to do it, this recognition that space is really important and really fragile. And we really need to think seriously about how we protect what it is we're doing in space.
Hannah McCarthy: Who was in charge of that protection before the Space Force was created?
Nick Capodice: The responsibility was shared. Before the Space Force, The Air Force was in charge of protecting and maintaining military satellites, and NASA was in charge of its own equipment in space. And the other branches, like the Army and the Navy, have recently turned over all of their military satellite communications to the Space Force as well.
Hannah McCarthy: Now, earlier, you mentioned that it wasn't just military satellites orbiting the Earth. I know a lot of US corporations have equipment up in space, too. Does the Space Force have any interaction with those satellites? Do they protect them or monitor them? You know, kind of like how the Coast Guard has both military and civil jurisdiction when it comes to waterways and boats?
Nick Capodice: Well, that's not part of their stated mission today. But, Wendy says it's actually not clear what role the Space Force could play in the future. It's possible.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: There are very few rules of the road when it comes to operating in space. And I think a lot of that's going to depend on whether the companies themselves want the protection of the Space Force or not. Some companies might say, "listen, it's not- you know, our satellite isn't worth a lot. We'll launch another one. Don't bother." I- because they don't want to get involved in the conflict. So you can imagine, like you might have a company like Planet, which provides remote imaging services. So they have a fleet of satellites up in space and taking pictures of the Earth, oftentimes with very good image quality. And let's say they are under threat of attack. They might not want the Space Force to step in because, you know, maybe that would just bring more threat to their satellite versus just sort of leaving it alone. I think a lot of it would also depend on the type of threat. And there's different ways to attack things in space. You can do it obviously physically by shooting it down essentially, or you can do it electromagnetically by blinding it or lasing it. So there's different types of sort of weapons in that sense. So I think a lot of it depends. A lot of it is unclear. The companies are under no requirement to tell anybody they're under attack. And even then they might not know they're under attack because it's very difficult to know what's going on up in space.
Nick Capodice: But this points to one of the reasons the Space Force was seen by a lot of people as needed in the first place. There is a lot of stuff up there military satellites, corporate satellites, space junk, a ton of space junk. That's the debris left by us in space when things break or are just abandoned. Aside from military threats, space is simply becoming more and more crowded. So it's a riskier place to operate. And that might require a dedicated branch of experts.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Maybe we need a service that is specifically dedicated to the protection and defense of our space based systems and our access to space, and that perhaps having a group of specialists and people who are really knowledgeable about space might be the better way to do that.
Hannah McCarthy: I would assume that there was quite a bit of conversation and debate about this, right, Because you can't just go ahead and create a whole new branch of the military without some push and pull.
Archive: The committee meeting will be come to order.
Archive: I'm like the chairman. I'm genuinely undecided, although as you can tell, I'm skeptical. I don't think it's broken. I think you're doing a good job. Why are we going to fix it?
Archive: So, Senator, I think we have been doing a good job, but we've been doing a good job in an environment where space has not been contested.
Hannah McCarthy: Given that the Space Force does indeed exist today, this was obviously resolved. But how did it get done?
Nick Capodice: Like so many things are resolved in politics, negotiation. In December of 2019, Congress was working on a new defense spending bill the Republicans wanted to include in that bill the creation of the Space Force, which the Democrats opposed, and the Democrats wanted to include paid family leave for government employees, which the Republicans opposed.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: And so, the space Force ended up as this bargaining chip. The Republican Party wanted the space force, the Democrats wanted paid family leave. And so they sort of traded it at the end of the day. I don't say that to take anything away from the Space Force, because saying that might say that might sound sort of glib and that it was a trade- they got it because of a trade. But I think it's also a reflection of, you know, very real political realities that we have in the country today. Whether you- whether a policy move is going to be good for national security or not, it has very real implications. And you're going to spend more money on space. Well, then maybe the other party is going to say, "well, let's spend some more money on this area." So I think it's very much par for the course, so to speak, with- with what we see in government today. And it doesn't make the Space Force anything less than what it is. But it- I think it acknowledges the very real political reality that we face today in the United States, having the political system and the party system that we do.
Nick Capodice: The establishment of the Space Force was ultimately included in the $738 billion defense spending bill. And with the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act on December 20th, 2019, the US launched that shiny new military branch. The Space Force was born.
Archive: Today also marks another landmark achievement as we officially inaugurate the newest branch of our military. It's called the Space Force.
Hannah McCarthy: Now starting a brand new military branch, how does the government go about that? You've got a whole chain of command that has to be established, command centers. You have to build buildings, among other things, I would assume. How did it all work?
Nick Capodice: I shall tell you all about the intricacies of branch building, Hannah, right after this quick break. But first, do you know how to tell if you're wishing on a star or a GPS satellite?
Hannah McCarthy: Honestly, I have always wondered that because I take my wishes very seriously.
Nick Capodice: That's the sort of stuff we put in our civics 101 newsletter, Extra Credit. It comes out every two weeks and you're going to love it. Sign up at our website, civics101podcast.org.
Archive: According to regulations
Archive: According to regulations
Archive: And the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Archive: The Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Archive: So help me God.
Archive: So help me God.
Archive: Congratulations and welcome to the United States Space Force.
Nick Capodice: We're back. You're listening to Civics 101 and we are talking about the Space Force and all the work that needs to be done when a brand new branch of the military is established like this one was in 2019.
Hannah McCarthy: Now, before the break, Nick, I asked you a pretty big question. How do you create a whole new arm of the military from scratch? How was the Space Force created?
Nick Capodice: Yeah, so similar to how the Marine Corps is organized under the Department of the Navy, which also oversees the United States Navy. The Space Force is organized under the Department of the Air Force as a, quote, "separate but co-equal branch along with the US Air Force."
Hannah McCarthy: How big is the force? Does co-equal mean it's the same size as the Air Force?
Nick Capodice: Absolutely not. Not at all. Of the approximately three hundred and thirty thousand active duty air force department military personnel, only about eighty four hundred are in the space force.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: It makes it the smallest service. Even aside from the Marine Corps, which had been the smallest service to date.
Nick Capodice: And that is Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb, again.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: One of the concerns when they created the Space Force was that you would create too much bureaucracy, too much organization and too much duplication of effort. And so one of the things that they have really worked hard is to keep the organization as small, flat, fast and efficient as possible. To sort of avoid some of those concerns. So I don't think there's necessarily any political appetite to enlarge that in the near future. Of course, barring something happening, if something happens and we find out, "wow, we really need to be doing more." You can imagine a situation where we might start to enlarge what the Space Force is doing and give them more people to do that. But I think for the most part it's going to stay relatively small.
Nick Capodice: Once the newly created US Space Force had indeed achieved liftoff, there was a lot of work to do to keep that bird in the air, so to speak. There were the monumental tasks of organizing the branch, recruiting skilled active-duty Air Force personnel and civilians. And of course, branding. And branding is important. Military folks know this, every branch has its own singular identity, and the Space Force needed one too.
Hannah McCarthy: Branding like a theme song?
Nick Capodice: Exactly. And also sleek new uniforms, a memorable symbol, a motto. These are all important parts of the Space Force's identity and brand. And while these may seem like little details to civilians, they all play a pretty big role in shaping the culture and character of the Space Force as a vital part of the U.S. military Space Force.
Hannah McCarthy: All right. So here's my question.
Nick Capodice: Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: Members who serve in different military branches are called different things. In the Army You've got soldiers. In the Navy, you've got sailors. And the Marines, You're called a marine. What do they call the personnel within the Space Force?
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Again, this was something that the Space Force had to take a new eye to. In the Air Force, we actually call members of the Air Force, "airmen" not necessarily gender inclusive. And so, you know, I think the Space Force wanted to be sensitive to being gender inclusive, but also find a name that spoke to what it is that they intend to do. They did take some suggestions from the public about what to call members of the Space Force.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, boy. So one of these open to the public things?
Nick Capodice: Yeah
Hannah McCarthy: Like, kind of, when we asked grade school students to design quarters. My quarter design was not accepted by the state of Massachusetts, by the way. What kinds of names did they get?
Nick Capodice: I think there was a paucity of sort of Boaty Mcboatface jokes, but there were a lot of fun submissions. My favorites were the Thunder Children and Mars Bars. But Wendy says there was a common theme in many of the public's suggestions.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Many of them did end up being sci-fi inspired in many ways. And I think that again, was another place where the Space Force tried to sort of separate out the science fiction from the fact. Obviously, when you hear the term guardians, you might think Guardians of the Galaxy. But I think the- the choice of the name Guardian really says what it is they want to do. They don't want to get actively involved in a war unless they have to. Their job is to guard. Guard our assets, guard our way of life, guard our access to space from any potential threat. And so I think that really is descriptive of what it is the Space Force hopes to do and what they see their mission as.
Hannah McCarthy: All right. Now, you said earlier that. The Space Force brought in active service members. And you mentioned recruitment. So where are these new guardians coming from? Like, are they being wooed away from other jobs in, say, NASA or even civilian jobs that have to do with space, like working with corporate satellites?
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: The core of the new Space Force has been taken from the Air Force. And a lot of the space units that the Air Force was operating, a lot of the space professionals that the Air Force already had. The other services also had some space professionals and space systems. And so over the past couple of years, the Space Force has started to sort of consolidate a lot of the military space operations under their umbrella.
Hannah McCarthy: So to recap, the Space Force was formed to pull together a bunch of things that other branches, but primarily the Air Force, were in charge of before. They are essentially maintaining and protecting military satellites and the military access to space. And this includes potential attacks, collisions with space junk, communications. Are they doing anything else?
Nick Capodice: Well, one of the most important things is the support they're providing to all the other branches of the military, not just satellite operations, but communications, intelligence, navigation capabilities and missile defense. But they're not holding a total monopoly on government operations in space. Hannah have you ever heard of the National Reconnaissance Office, the NRO?
Hannah McCarthy: I have not. What is that?
Nick Capodice: The NRO was a highly, highly classified office during the Cold War that only became declassified in the 1990s. They run a lot of space based systems for the wider intelligence community. That's going to stay its own organization separate from the Space Force. And of course, NASA is still overseeing science and technology related to space and space exploration. And private corporations with a footprint in space aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: The civilian companies like Space X, Blue Origin will still be there. Obviously, the Space Force has looked to recruit from those companies and sort of bring in these working professionals who already have large areas of knowledge.
Nick Capodice: Wendy said that the Space Force has often sent its personnel to work with commercial companies in order to foster collaboration. There's a big focus on these private public partnerships, as well as international governmental relationships, which makes sense considering the diverse international mix of satellites orbiting our planet right now.
Hannah McCarthy: So I know that the Space Force falls under the Department of the Air Force and is this, quote, separate but co-equal branch with the Air Force. But given that the Space Force is so new, what is that relationship like?
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: So there's still a relationship there between the Air Force and the Space Force. And in fact, the Air Force is still going to provide many of the support services for the Space Force. So over the past couple of years, we've renamed some Air Force bases to be Space Force bases. So Patrick Air Force Base, down near the Kennedy Space Center, used to be called Patrick Air Force Base. It's now called Patrick Space Force Base.
Nick Capodice: As of this taping, there are six main Space Force bases and seven smaller stations. There's even a base called Space Base Delta One, just a few miles from where we are taping this very podcast. It's in New Boston, New Hampshire.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: So we've broken out a lot of the space specific operations to be the purview of the Space Force. But the Air Force is still helping a lot in terms of providing some of those foundational things like base security that they're not necessarily big enough to do on their own. It's kind of, I guess, a sibling like relationship. we're at, right at the moment, between the Air Force and the Space Force.
Hannah McCarthy: What is training like for these guardians? Does the Space Force have a boot camp?
Nick Capodice: More like a space camp.
Hannah McCarthy: I always wanted to go to space camp. Looked so cool.
Nick Capodice: Space camp?
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: We don't have astronauts going into space. They're not necessarily going into a war zone to fight. But we still want to make sure that they're healthy. There is a Space Force boot camp or basic training that they're running that they have broken out and they are currently the Space Force is currently working to separate their out their own system of professional military education and enlisted education to separate that out from the Air Force.
Nick Capodice: Wendy said guardians won't necessarily be going into battle like an Army soldier or Marine would, but that doesn't mean they're not doing dangerous work.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Many of them do get deployed and sent down range to operate satellite communications links and other valuable on the ground assets. So, you know, and being a military service, they still do have standards that they need to meet. However, the Space Force has really thought long and hard about what those requirements should be. And so they are looking to change it somewhat from the traditional military physical requirements that you would think of. They've been trying to take a more holistic attitude not just to physical fitness, but to health and wellness and to really encourage their guardians to have a a lifestyle of being fit. And so they're working on standards that that talk more about how much physical activity a guardian should be getting on a regular basis. So I think the Space Force has really been trying to think about how they might do things differently, especially in an era where we have a lot of wearables and technology that can look at it, what we're doing over time. So, you know, and it's a very interesting question. We don't have astronauts going into space. They're not necessarily going into a war zone to fight, but we still want to make sure that they're healthy.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. Got it. But I cannot help but think about the brain training. I mean, we're talking about working on the ground with equipment in space that is highly scientific, esoteric stuff. How are the Guardian recruits being trained for that?
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: It's very hard to visualize sometimes. I think the the outer space environment. But you have these very large, sometimes very large satellites, and sometimes very small satellites, moving at incredible speeds in different directions, at different orbital inclinations. And orbital trajectories are just crazy. And so, you know, I think the Space Force has been really thinking hard about, well, "how do we train to operate and work in an environment that we can't necessarily be in all the time?"
Nick Capodice: Wendy says that the Space Force is looking into cutting edge technologies like virtual reality headsets with 3-D replicas of satellites, space stations and mission control rooms.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: You know, our satellites aren't necessarily set up for instant servicing. If something goes wrong with the satellite, you don't just send up a repair person. So, yeah, there's just different ways of operating in space that we have to learn and figure out and use the best tools to our advantage when you can't really get there. And we're not really anticipating sending guardians into space in the near future either.
Hannah McCarthy: I would assume that building a virtual reality space station is more affordable than sending someone into space, but I bet it doesn't come cheap.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, it's all pretty pricey. The 2023 budget bill passed for the Space Force was $26.2 billion. That's more than a 70% increase over their 2022 budget. And here's a staggering statistic that never fails to shock me. The United States comprises about 40% of the world's total military spending. That's more than the next nine countries combined. And with this highly specific branch addition, that number's going to keep going up. But these satellite and space programs already existed and already were expensive. They were just spread out under other agencies. And now with them being consolidated into one place, this funding could theoretically be harder to cut.
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: And it sounds like a lot. And it is it's actually a little bit more than what NASA gets. But, you know, compared to the other services, it is rather small. And this, I think, has been a concern to people who support the Space Force, because one of the things about what the Space Force does is it supports the other services. It supports everything else the Army does, the Navy does, the Marine Corps does by providing communication, by providing missile warning services, by providing remote sensing. You know, this is one of these things that the Space force has tried to argue that, like we need to get more money to do these things for the other services. It's not the U.S. Space Force doing it for the US Space Force sake. It's the Space Force doing it for the Armys sake.For the Marines sake. The Navy sake, or the Air Forces sake.
Hannah McCarthy: Is there a chance that political winds will shift and Congress could decide, you know, "let's just dismantle the Space Force, split the responsibilities back up under different branches and programs."
Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb: Listen, anything's possible. I'm never going to say never. But as someone who has studied bureaucracies, government bureaucracies, once one is created, it's very hard to kill it. It never really goes away. It might become morph into something else and change, but it never really goes away. But I think now that the Space Force is an organization, it's been around for three years now. It has people who support it. It has a budget line. It has facilities that they're starting to create. It makes it even harder to stop. So I think as as an agency gets older, it just gets even harder to kill. Even if a new administration came into office after the 2024 election, that means you're still going to have a space force that's been around for several years, and that's going to be even harder to kill than it would be now or two years ago.
Nick Capodice: Well, that is it for the Space Force here on Civics 101. This episode is created by our producer, Jacqui Fulton, with Rebecca Lavoie, Hannah McCarthy, and me, Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Music in this episode by Larry Poppins, Bonsai Needle Mouse Rubik's Cube, Rubio's Lupus Knocked Silver Maple Bio Unit, Anissa Orchestra, Nando and such military musical entities as the United States Navy band, the President's own US Marine Band and the United States Air Force Band. And last but never, never least, Chris Zabriskie. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio. Blast off.