Edhat Staff
By edhat staff
Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) is officially out of the running for the U.S. Space Command Headquarters.
The Department of the Air Force announced Thursday, on behalf of the Office of Secretary of Defense, the six candidate locations.
The six locations include Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico; Offutt AFB, Nebraska; Patrick AFB, Florida; Peterson AFB, Colorado; Port San Antonio, Texas; and Redstone Army Airfield, Alabama.
Self-nominated communities from across 24 states were evaluated as potential locations for hosting the headquarters.
Last year VAFB was selected as the front runner as it’s currently home to a Combined Space Operations Center where U.S. and allied personnel track objects and activities in space.
The Department of the Air Force evaluated each location and will now conduct both virtual and on-site visits at each candidate location to assess which location is best suited to host the U.S. Space Command Headquarters. This assessment will be based on factors related to mission, infrastructure capacity, community support, and costs to the Department of Defense.
According to the announcement, the Department of the Air Force anticipates selecting the preferred location for U.S. Space Command Headquarters in early 2021.
In the interim, Peterson AFB will remain the provisional location for U.S. Space Command Headquarters until a permanent location is selected and facilities are ready to support the mission.
U.S. Air Force Graphic by Rosario “Charo” Gutierrez
Huge bummer for the central coast.
That’s great news. We don’t need Russia and North Korea aiming missiles at us, and I’d prefer our beautiful central coast less developed.
As always, the future is private enterprise supported by the public dollar. Not one of these companies developed their technology on their own. They all took from the taxpayer. Now creeps like Musk are living it up at our expense. This morning’s LA Times says he has become the 2d richest man in the world!!! His companies don’t even make a profit. Of course we have a history of that: Carnegie, Stanford, Rockefeller, Edison ad naseum. Probably the least corrupt big money company may have been Ford for all Henry’s bigotry. PS The richest people’s wealth increased by 23% in 2020–how’s your retirement fund doing?
Welp. @RHS I think we also spent a bit of taxpayer money creating a military branch that in the end will not actually exist and the money invested will be for naught. The government blows through funding faster than any clueless entrepreneur taking advantage of the holes in the system.
The reason they weren’t chosen is that California housing prices are too expensive for military salaries. Even in Lompoc. Lompoc is a beautiful area but seems to have a lot of social problems. Maybe the prisons did it.
Happy for Lompoc and the central coast that this “deal” fell through. One of the most beautiful and undiscovered areas in California is the Lompoc Valley and environs. My hometown. My folks worked at VAFB, as did I for a short time, as federal employees. My father was very concerned about the militarization of the area. He also was concerned that we would have a target on our backs, especially in offensive weapons were put in there. Up to now, it has primarily been satellite launch, research and defensive activity.
Amazon is the best example of how to make billions but somehow not be profitable or pay taxes. They rig the game, and then benefit from it.
I wish they would just cancel the Space Cadet Force on Biden’s 1st day in office. Did Trump ever get any $ from Congress for it? Or did he just steal money from the food stamps program or something similar? We don’t need another expensive government program in this time when we have so many other critical needs.
Pit, China and India are taking moonshots. At some point, we (the US and rest of the world) need to begin serious space exploration and the Moon may be a good stepping stone for Mars and beyond. Given China’s behavior in the South China Sea, the last thing we want is for China to claim the Moon as theirs, forbidding us or anyone access to its surface or even the ability to fly past it.
“His companies don’t even make a profit. ” They just make stuff that works and are moving us from the Twentieth Century into the Twenty-First Century. If profit were the only measure of success, innovation would be severely stifled.
I was skeptical that SpaceX could deliver, but they have. I am not fond of Musk as a personality, but as an “out of the box thinker”, I think we need more like him. It will be people like Musk who will come up with innovative solutions to help repair the damage we have done to the planet as we move away from fossil fuels. Interestingly, Musk has dedicated billions of dollars towards developing useful and affordable battery pods to that end.
Space Command is more of a functional entity and had been under the auspices of the Air Force (“Commands” control units from multiple military branches). Space Force is different in that it’s a completely new branch on par with the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Either way, our military would have an organization to address space. The question has been whether creating an entirely new branch of the military is the best way to do this. From a tax dollars viewpoint, the Space Force is an expensive way to do it. Many arguments on both sides. Given Trump’s proclivities, one could doubt he did much consideration of those arguments other than “does this make me look good?”.
S Barbarian: You are drinking the Kool Aid. Musk has only spent money given to him by enthralled potential customers, not his own or even that of banks and fund risk takers. He cons everyone into the promises that he has stolen from others. Nothing that Musk has proposed is his innovation. Read US Sci Fi from the 50’s and on and it is the fountain of his “creativity.” Musk is a modern P T Barnum. And, sort of like Ronald Reagan’s brilliant insight that an alien attack would unite the world–Duh. This was boilerplate Sci Fi from HG Wells on. Every thing Musk does involves BIG subsidies from the government. And his wealth is based on his convincing suckers that his ship will soon come in. He is not a model of the conceptual free enterprise system by any means.