This website has been very critical of President Trump. And that’s why I hope it won’t be taken lightly when I support and endorse his vision to add a sixth branch of the United States military: The Space Force.
Politics aside, space really is the final frontier, and we have always been a people of exploration. Militarizing space sounds bad, but even Gene Roddenberry, whose Star Trek universe painted a picture of interplanetary cooperation and peace, had a military fleet paving the way. The United States should take the lead on this, and right now. I have some thoughts as to how we might go about it, to maximize the impact a U.S. Space Force could have.
First of all, we need a fleet of space ships. And we need to develop the technology to create them. The first step should be to increase funding to NASA so they can get right on that. It will take several years before the space fleet is ready, so we can use the intervening time to build our capacity to create the finest space force the world has ever seen.
As President Trump understands, the appearance of a successful project is often more important than the actual success, at least in the early stages. So to keep our numbers up, all men and women in America will be automatically conscripted into Space Force. When other countries understand that our space force is several hundred million stronger than theirs, they will finally show us the respect we deserve, and maybe even ease up on some of those tariffs.
Once everyone in America is in Space Force, they will immediately begin receiving a universal basic income and health insurance. President Trump supports the troops, and this will prove it to everyone. We will construct large barracks to house the Space Force across the country. At first, we won’t have room for everyone, so the barracks will be used to house and feed those who currently do not have another residence. That should get the ball rolling.
We should immediately set up a home base where Space Force will be located. It should ideally be someplace warm. You may recall that the Challenger disaster happened because Florida was too cold, so we’d have to choose someplace warmer than Florida. For the United States, that will probably mean the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. Now, they were recently hit with a hurricane and things are kind of messy there, but we can easily go in and rebuild their infrastructure and get everything ready for our Space Force base. In return for their hospitality, we would forgive their debts. Big wins all around, and all thanks to President Trump.
As the Space Force will be large, we will want to set up some kind of public broadcasting system to facilitate communication, as well as a national public radio station. Alternatively, we can simply increase funding to existing systems that serve the same functions. We’ll also want to take immediate steps to reduce global climate change, to ensure that our base in Puerto Rico remains temperate. But that’s just common sense.
Since we have a few years before the fleet is ready, we can start building capacity in our younger Space Force members, by increasing funding to public education, particularly in programs dedicated to science, technology, math, and engineering. Of course, a crew that is tasked with long-term space missions must be composed of men and women equally (for reasons that President Trump would certainly understand), and so we must ensure that boys and girls have equal access to these programs. Curricula should expose students to a variety of cultures, to better prepare them to make contact with alien races. Young Space Force members who want to go to college will, of course, have the opportunity to do so tuition-free. This will strengthen our talent base, so that when Space Force becomes operational, it will be the envy of the world! It might even be the envy of the galaxy; we won’t know until we get out there!
All of this sounds expensive, but we can pay for a lot of it by rolling back the most recent round of tax cuts. I know that sounds tough, but trust me, it will all be worth it when you see how awesome the U.S. Space Force looks as it’s tearing across the cosmos!
The fleet should be constructed by February 2021, at which point President Trump (assuming he wins re-election) can approve Phase Two of the plan. But in the meantime, there is plenty that we can get started on right away. As they say in the Space Force: Be Best!