“There is no other option at this point,” explains Todd Harrison, the director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “The Air Force needs new tankers, and Boeing is the only one making them.”

“If it’s a hurricane, [at the Defense Department], they’ve got the mission assignments. They know, ‘OK, we’ve got to send people to fill sandbags,'” DHS’s Jeanette Manfra explained. For cyber responses, she said, “that part is not mature enough.”

“Today, the House passed H.R. 2500, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2020 by a vote of 220 to 197, without the support of a single Republican.”

Senate language on the Space Force leaves open the chance that a new administration could walk it back to merely changing the name of Air Force Space Command, says CSIS’s Kaitlyn Johnson.

If the Senate has its way, Gen. John Raymond will lead the new joint US Space Command, the existing Air Force Space Command, and the new Space Force. If this sounds both confusing and daunting, that’s because it is.

The HASC ‘Space Corps’ will be much cheaper than the Trump Administration’s plan for a Space Force, says CBO.

A junior GOP congressman will challenge the Democratic House leadership to restore $96 million in funding for intermediate-ranged conventional missiles, cut by the Democratic majority for fear the new weapons would reignite an arms race that ended in 1987.

“My integrity and belief in SCO’s mission is more important to me than my friendship over many years with Mike (Griffin).”

“Given the DoD’s poor job of presenting how we would move people and what criteria would be used, the congressional pushback is expected,” says one Space Force proponent.

Despite Democratic chairman Adam Smith’s best efforts, the defense budget is likely to creep back up to the full $750 billion the administration asked for.