Space Force

From Page 8 and servicing them are difficult and so every movement has to be considered carefully. “Am I going to need this fuel 10 years from now?” he said in the Aerospace Corporation interview.

Some of these concepts may become real. Some may not. But Purdy at least feels free to pursue new ideas because “we’re not bound by years of tradition within the Space Force or the previous Air Force command,” he said. “It didn’t exist. And so we can define our own concepts of how operations will work.”

Two years ago “we weren’t thinking of any of this stuff, none of it,” he added. “The on-orbit space storage of logistics, we weren’t thinking of six months ago. And so we’ve been able to think rapidly, get with industry and rapidly move the ball forward on all those pieces.”

The fact that the idea of the Space Force is still somewhat in flux is to be expected, said Douglas Loverro, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy.

After it was founded in 1947,

“it took the Air Force 25 years to figure out their mission,” he said. “We shouldn’t expect that the Space Force is going to be able to figure it out the day after we stand them up. It’s going to take a little while, and that’s okay.”

When it was established by President Donald Trump at the end of 2019, the Space Force was widely mocked - derided as a political ploy for a politician desperately trying to project strength and the butt of alien jokes for latenight comedians.

But as it has taken form, the culture of the Space Force “is building, and I think that’s good,” retired Air Force general John Hyten, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview. “We just have to change the process along with the culture because you can have a new culture and the old process, and you still run into a brick wall.”

In Congress, Rep. Mike D. Rogers (R-Ala.) and former congressman Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) advocated for the establishment of a Space Corps as part of the Air Force, the way the Marine Corps exists under the Navy. The effort was driven by a desire to make space a priority for the Pentagon at a time when other nations, particularly China, were catching up.

“We have lost a dramatic lead in space that we should have never let get away from us. So that’s what gave us the sense of urgency to get after this,” Rogers said in 2019.

Since then, the threat has only grown.

In its annual “Space Threat Assessment” report, the Center for Strategic and International Studies recently reported that “China continues to make progress toward its goal of becoming the world leader in space. Over the past year, China has continued to grow its space and counterspace assets, maintaining its status as the second-most-capable space nation after the United States.”

In April, The Post reported that space would likely be a key part of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. China would seek to jam

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