(Image: The U.S. Air Force's X-37B unmanned spaceplane that orbits for hundreds of days at a time on classified missions.)

Perhaps the biggest question regarding the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) currently being debated by the House is whether the legislation will require the Air Force to create a new branch of the military to operate and defend assets in space: the Space Corps. Provisions requiring a Space Corps to be established by 2019 are already in the NDAA, and the bill was approved 60 to 1 by the House Armed Services Committee last month.

But the Space Corps has some major opposition, including Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, Chief of Staff General David Goldfein, and perhaps most significantly, Secretary of Defense James Mattis. It is the opinion of the White House and the Air Force leadership that a new Space Corps would create burdensome bureaucracy and actually work to counteract the Air Force's efforts to defend assets in space against emerging threats from nations like China and Russia.

"The Pentagon is complicated enough," Wilson said last month. "We're trying to simplify. This will make it more complex, add more boxes to the organization chart, and cost more money."

"The Pentagon is complicated enough. This will make it more complex."

Mattis recently echoed the sentiment when he wrote a letter to Ohio Rep. Mike Turner, the Republican Chairman of the House Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee who is leading an effort to oppose the Space Corps. Mattis wrote that he feared a Space Corps would create a burdensome "additional organizational and administrative tail."

"At a time when we are trying to integrate the Department's joint warfighting functions, I do not wish to add a separate service that would likely present a narrower and even parochial approach to space operations," Mattis wrote.

However, those in favor of a Space Corps just won another legislative victory. A measure was recently introduced by Turner to derail the Space Corps and replace the legislation with a study on space defense, but it failed to get approval from the House Rules Committee for a public debate on the House floor. The result was a setback for Mattis and Air Force leadership and a win for the Congressmen pushing for a distinct Space Corps.

The primary champion of a Space Corps is Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, who chairs the Strategic Forces Subcommittee and introduced the Space Corps provision to the NDAA. Rogers has the support of the House Armed Services Committee when he argues that a distinct Space Corps would give the leadership overseeing space defense more authority and more resources to address threats.

Rogers and other lawmakers worry that China or Russia could cripple U.S. surveillance and communications capabilities by taking out DoD satellites, particularly since China shot down a defunct weather satellite with a missile in January 2007 as a test. Currently, Rogers argues, the space contingency of the Air Force is getting short shrift. And he's not alone.

"The Air Force doesn't have enough space personnel, and the space personnel they do have, unfortunately, have the lowest promotion rates in the Air Force," said Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn last month, whose Colorado district includes the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base. "Not enough people, who don't get promoted enough, and who are also way underrepresented in Air Force leadership."

Rogers' own comments last month at a House Armed Services Committee markup session were a bit more blunt.

"As we say in Alabama, I'm pissed."

"When I see arguments that we are actually going to set back efforts to respond to adversary space threats, well, as we say in Alabama, I'm pissed," Rogers said. He went on to say of the Air Force's opposition: "They better shape up or they'll figure out who is in charge here. I'll let you in on a secret: It's the branch of our government that controls the purse strings."

The White House and the Air Force oppose a Space Corps, while most of the House Armed Services Committee supports it. The full House of Representatives could vote on the NDAA as early as this week or next.

But there is one more camp that has yet to weigh in on the Space Corps: the Senate. So far, the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by John McCain, has remained silent about the proposed sixth military branch. McCain could be the swing opinion that pushes the Space Corps through despite White House opposition, or he could be the final nail in the Space Corps coffin.

Regardless of the opinion of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the NDAA still needs to go through debates and votes from the full House and Senate, with opportunities for additional lawmakers to weigh in. So the Space Corps has a long way to go, but even with opposition from Mattis, it's not dead yet.

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Jay Bennett
Associate Editor


Jay Bennett is the associate editor of PopularMechanics.com. He has also written for Smithsonian, Popular Science and Outside Magazine.