6 big questions about Trump's Space Force

How would a federally funded space agency operate, and what would it mean for international relations?

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | AP Photo/NASA, Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images, ChristinaFelsing/iStock)

Virtually no details about President Trump's proposed Space Force exist beyond his ramblings, but if congressional Republicans are willing to back him on prison camps for children, it's hard to see them saying no to this.

Since the U.S. already has NASA, the world's preeminent (and perennially underfunded) space agency, it's worth examining how a new federally funded space organization might affect our civilian pursuits, and what purpose it will hold beyond satellite security. On a long enough timeline, a Space Force is not a wild idea, but there are a few questions worth asking before we prep the celestial battlefield.

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David W. Brown

David W. Brown is coauthor of Deep State (John Wiley & Sons, 2013) and The Command (Wiley, 2012). He is a regular contributor to TheWeek.com, Vox, The Atlantic, and mental_floss. He can be found online here.