Pentagon lays groundwork for Space Force to blast off in 2020

Well this is going to be expensive...

I think many people see this as something new, like actual people fighting in outer space (Star Wars stuff), and although that may be a vision for the future, it isn't in the timeframe of 2020. Yes it can have groundwork by then, but the current budget being debated on the Hill now is for 2019 and 2020. This is just a big reorganization, designating a new combatant command, headed by a 4 star, so there will be emphasis on defending space. This is a good thing, but the functions are already being done by the AF. I personally believe we are behind in the cyber world, and I'm glad to see streamlined functions to give them emphasis. I hear people talk about a new fighting force, when in actuality we already spend billions in this area, and it's primarily smart technical and cyber folks, not warriors, nor will it be anytime soon. Right now we can't get out of lower earth orbit and back with humans. Mattis was smart to make it a CC, realizing a different military branch would just create a headquarters and all the bureaucracy that goes with one, with little added value, and dilute other military resources. I will be interested to see if a SDA has any luck with making acquisition any easier, because most any acquisition (not just space) is a lot of red tape. That's because there are laws to be followed, not just for the sake of red tape. The SDA would NOT "by contrast, leverage prototyping and experimentation to achieve technology breakthroughs" because all the other services use those now, so this is nothing new. It will be interesting to see in 5 years if this new reorganization gets us any more capability than we have today. I hope it will, but I have seldom seen a reorganization that did because that usually isn't why we lack capabilities--it's much more than that. Since it's not likely Congress will add too many additional resources for this, often reorgs actually water down real value added. I hope this will be different.