At Tuesday’s briefing, Psaki was asked if Biden had made any decisions about the future of the Space Force, which was established by Congress in December 2019 with support from the Trump administration.
“Wow. Space Force. It’s today’s plane,” replied Psaki, apparently comparing the question to a previous one about Air Force One’s color scheme. “It’s an interesting question. I am happy to check with our point of contact in the Space Force. I’m not sure who it is. I’ll find out and see if we have any updates on that. ”
Representative Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) Also criticized the White House for Psaki’s comments on the Space Force, which Waltz said was created to protect national security and economic space missions from Chinese threats.
“This is just another example of the Biden government that does not take China seriously while downgrading the incredible work of Space Force personnel,” said Waltz, who is a founding member of the Caucus Space Chamber.
Experts widely believe that the Biden government will retain the Space Force because it would take steps at the Capitol to eliminate the branch.
A Space Force spokesman declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. national security space mission became politicized under the government of former President Donald Trump, a Space Force supporter who talked about the new branch at political rallies, garnering applause from his supporters. The service soon became food for Hollywood and inspired a Netflix series starring Steve Carell, in which an inept president sends space troops to fight his Chinese counterparts on the lunar surface.
The service was not established to send armed personnel into orbit or to colonize the solar system. Instead, Space Force personnel, recently appointed “guardians”, operate the country’s GPS and missile alert satellites with their boots firmly on Earth.
Trump made the Space Force cross the finish line, but he rarely acknowledged that a bipartisan group of lawmakers had proposed a similar reorganization of military space missions in a Space Corps in 2017. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), One of the first supporters of the Space Corps idea, said last week at a live POLITICO event that they hope the new branch can escape the politics surrounding it.
“I hope my fellow Democrats are not too discouraged by the blemish that former President Trump put on the Space Force when he tried to kidnap it for his own political purposes, because the Space Force was actually originated on an entirely bipartisan base before Trump was elected president, long before he noticed the shiny object that caught his eye, “said Cooper.
The Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on the sustainable use of space, also listed improving the Space Force’s public relations campaign and clarifying its mission to the American public as one of the top positions in the Biden government in a report. from December.