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The Military Government Space

Biden Reverses Trump Decision, Keeps Space Command In Colorado (politico.com) 199

Posted by BeauHD from the moving-sucks dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: President Joe Biden has determined that Colorado Springs will be the permanent headquarters of U.S. Space Command, reversing a Trump administration decision to move the facility to Alabama, the Pentagon announced Monday. The decision will only intensify a bitter parochial battle on Capitol Hill, as members of the Colorado and Alabama delegations have spent months accusing each other of playing politics on the future of the four-star command.

The command was reestablished in 2019 and given temporary headquarters in Colorado while the Air Force evaluated a list of possible permanent sites. With an eye on Russia and China, its job is to oversee the military's operations of space assets and the defense of satellites. Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said Biden notified the Department of Defense on Monday that he had made the decision, after speaking with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and weighing the input of senior military leaders. "Locating Headquarters U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs ultimately ensures peak readiness in the space domain for our nation during a critical period," Ryder said in a statement. "It will also enable the command to most effectively plan, execute and integrate military spacepower into multi-domain global operations in order to deter aggression and defend national interests." Austin, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and U.S. Space Command chief Gen. James Dickinson all support Biden's decision, Ryder added.

The most significant factor Biden weighed in making the decision was the impact such a move would have on the military's ability to confront the changing threat from space, according to a senior administration official, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations. Keeping the headquarters at Colorado Springs "maintains operational readiness and ensures no disruption to its mission or to its personnel," according to the official. The command is set to achieve "full operational capability" this month, the official said. A move to Alabama, by contrast, would have forced the command to transition to a new headquarters in the mid-2020s, and the new site would not have been open until the early to mid-2030s, the official said. "The president found that risk unacceptable, especially given the challenges we may face in the space domain during this critical time period," according to the official.
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Biden Reverses Trump Decision, Keeps Space Command In Colorado More

Biden Reverses Trump Decision, Keeps Space Command In Colorado

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  • Alabama (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @06:04PM (#63732418)

    Racing Mississippi to the bottom. Fuck that backwards red state that costs the government money.

  • It's a hell of a commute from Alabama to Colorado for conjugal visits.

  • Culture war? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @06:23PM (#63732456) Journal

    Tuberville is already engaged in a pitched battle with the Pentagon over its policy granting leave to troops who must travel to seek an abortion

    I don't know if it factored in here, but anti-abortion & anti-LGBTQ+ laws in red states could make recruiting and transfers difficult. Many won't want to be subject to fundamentalist laws. We ain't seen the worst of the culture wars yet.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by myowntrueself ( 607117 )

      Tuberville is already engaged in a pitched battle with the Pentagon over its policy granting leave to troops who must travel to seek an abortion

      I don't know if it factored in here, but anti-abortion & anti-LGBTQ+ laws in red states could make recruiting and transfers difficult. Many won't want to be subject to fundamentalist laws. We ain't seen the worst of the culture wars yet.

      It might make recruiting gay trans people who want to get their unwanted babies aborted difficult. But I thought that 'gender affirming' care was also sterilising and therefore abortions wouldn't be an issue?

      • But I thought that 'gender affirming' care was also sterilising

        I assume you quickly spotted the obvious error right after posting that. (Why does Slashdot still not allow edits?!) If you let a bunch of boys and girls do what they want, instead of making them do whatever the far left wing State wants, a lot of the boys and girls will fuck each other. After all, cis/straight/whateveryoucallit is still a pretty majority preference.

        Not that I don't understand the left's (Republicans') position. The Chinese Com

      • Excellent bait, Jesse Watters' mentally disabled clone.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )

        I don't know if it factored in here, but anti-abortion & anti-LGBTQ+ laws in red states could make recruiting and transfers difficult. Many won't want to be subject to fundamentalist laws. We ain't seen the worst of the culture wars yet.

        It might make recruiting gay trans people who want to get their unwanted babies aborted difficult. But I thought that 'gender affirming' care was also sterilising and therefore abortions wouldn't be an issue?

        Believe it or not, but there are many people who care about

    • I don't know if it factored in here, but anti-abortion & anti-LGBTQ+ laws in red states could make recruiting and transfers difficult. Many won't want to be subject to fundamentalist laws. We ain't seen the worst of the culture wars yet.

      The abortion thing may affect some people....but all the LGBTQRSTUVXWXY alphabet crap the cult is pushing, really doesn't matter to most average normal citizens.

      It's such a small % of the population but seems to have a vastly outsized bullhorn to push propaganda.

      But o

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        > The abortion thing may affect some people....but all the LGBTQRSTUVXWXY alphabet crap the cult is pushing, really doesn't matter to most average normal citizens.

        It matters to companies and orgs trying to recruit people. Even if direct employees are not affected, their family and relatives might be.

        > It's such a small % of the population but seems to have a vastly outsized bullhorn to push propaganda.

        I see the right-wing media pushing the propaganda all around, calling them pedo's, groomers, mutilat

      • It ain't the LGBTQ+ community that is pushing it.

        It's the RWNJ politicians and media that are pushing the hate. Whatever it takes to distract the vast unwashed masses, and give them someone to punch down on to feel better about their crappy life instead of doing something about the real culprits.

        End the persecution of that "small % of the population" and things would be much quieter.

      • Dismissing tyranny because only X% is effective is how tyranny survives to oppress another day.

        Allowing that small % of the population to get the care they need to live a happy life doesn't effect me (or anyone that is up in arms about it) at all so basically we're talking about a small % of the population being able to live their lives and being true to themselves, versus some angry tightass ignorant assholes getting their tighty-whiteys in a bunch.

        Through that logic, I think it's pretty obvious which side

  • Pissing on military readiness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Immerman ( 2627577 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @06:58PM (#63732520)

    And thus we see the price of pissing on military readiness.

    Alabama, along with every other state that is shitting all over reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights had better get ready to wave goodbye to all future and eventually existing military bases, because their regressive policies severely impact military readiness.

    Yes, seriously. And the military takes readiness *extremely* seriously.

    Consider - just like the rest of the population, about 10% of soldiers are gay, and at least twice that many are somewhere on the LGBTQ+ rainbow. That means right off the top, over 20% of available soldiers can't be stationed in your state without imposing on their first-amendment right to self-expression. And even more women can't be stationed in your state without compromising their right to reproductive health care.

    Then there's all the straight personnel that have a child or spouse on the rainbow - they can't be stationed in your state either without violating their children's rights. And their children might not come out until *after* their parents have been stationed for a while, requiring relocating them someplace else and replacing them - and there's no guarantee someone else with the required expertise is going to be conveniently available. With 38% of personnel having children, 20% of which will be on the rainbow, that's somewhere around another ~8% of personnel that can't be stationed in your state. Plus all those who want to get reproductive health care for their daughters.

    So what do you expect? Do you realistically think the military will build a base somewhere that over a third of their personnel can't be stationed? Or even keep an existing base operating there in the long term? Seems unlikely.

    And how about recruitment? You're going to seriously reduce recruitment numbers if enlisting comes with a risk of being stationed in some intolerant backwater. And recruitment numbers have already been falling steadily for over twenty years - they can't afford any further avoidable reductions.

    • Re: Pissing on military readiness (Score:4, Insightful)

      by firewrought ( 36952 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @07:42PM (#63732610)
      Your numbers seem very high. The 2015 HRBS survey by Rand found 6.1% of the military to be LGBT, which is more in line with the general population. How are you getting 10% LGB and 10% T+?

      • Hmm, seems you may be right and I was misremembering.

        Still, even if you halve all the numbers, having 15-ish% of the personnel unable to serve at a bunch of different military bases is a huge logistical headache.

      • The 10% is the percentage of the population thats Gay. Not 6%. The lower number for the military I assume is a cultural thing.

        • Surveys from other countries where there are fewer taboos tend to break it down roughly as follows:

          LG: 15%
          B: 30%
          T: 3%
          Q+: 15%

          Bisexuality is very common, most just won't admit to it in the US.

          (Abortions are also a big recruiting issue, I would note.)

    • And the military takes readiness *extremely* seriously.

      Nonsense. The military only cares about turning red boxes on a spreadsheet into green boxes, usually measured by such things as warfighting qualifications, professional progress, flight hours, etc. LOL almost said that with a straight face! They're really measured by how many people have completed CBT modules and attended transgender and sexual assault training seminars. They couldn't give two shits about actual "readiness".

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by quantaman ( 517394 )

      And thus we see the price of pissing on military readiness.

      Alabama, along with every other state that is shitting all over reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights had better get ready to wave goodbye to all future and eventually existing military bases, because their regressive policies severely impact military readiness.

      Yes, seriously. And the military takes readiness *extremely* seriously.

      Consider - just like the rest of the population, about 10% of soldiers are gay, and at least twice that many are somewhere on the LGBTQ+ rainbow. That means right off the top, over 20% of available soldiers can't be stationed in your state without imposing on their first-amendment right to self-expression. And even more women can't be stationed in your state without compromising their right to reproductive health care.

      I think you're close, but not quite on the mark.

      There's a lot of very Conservative families with strong military traditions, they probably wouldn't mind being stationed in Alabama or some other deeply red state. But I agree there's a risk that as culture and laws diverge there's going to be more and more people who won't sign up because they're worried they'll be stationed in a red state. Probably why it's so important that military members stationed in red states are still allowed to do things like get abo

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by walshy007 ( 906710 )

      And thus we see the price of pissing on military readiness.

      Yes they are pissing on readiness [www.dossier.today] with strongly encouraging trans people to join up with eternal waivers for fitness requirements and from deployment and paying for their at times quite expensive medical wants.

      Yes, seriously. And the military takes readiness *extremely* seriously.

      Apparently not enough to require it of everyone.

      Do you realistically think the military will build a base somewhere that over a third of their personnel can't be stationed?

      If they are willing to employ personnel that cannot be deployed and require continual medical treatment it wouldn't surprise me. It would be interesting to see the demographics of the military though, especially between single contract vs lifers and the

      • What the hell kind of site is dossier.today? Looks even shadier than NewsMax.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          What the hell kind of site is dossier.today?

          The kind for which Firefox gives me a warning about a security risk instead of loading the page.

      • The destruction of practical blokey-blokes is the goal, and judging from the recruitment numbers.. it's working.

        This might be the single dumbest thing I’ve read in ages.

        Let’s ask some critical questions and watch how this falls apart.

        1) Who chose this goal?
        2) What is to be gained once it’s accomplished?
        3) Are all the democrats in on it or are they chosen somehow?
        4) Is George Soros behind it?

        You drank the kool aid and bought into the “replacement theory” https://fivethirtyeight.com/fe... [fivethirtyeight.com]

    • Consider - just like the rest of the population, about 10% of soldiers are gay,

      While I find the "gist" of your response enlightening, 10% of the US population is not gay, not even at an LGBTQ reservation site like NYC or CA. Putting the guestimate at 5% of LGBTQ in the US to be its upper bound possibility, and I don't even believe its that high. And even if the US military had an elevated number of LGBTQ enlisting, its not going to bump the percentage to much more than 3% over the general population, even if US military recruiters were desperately trying to enlist LGBTQ to meet its

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )

        Putting the guestimate at 5% of LGBTQ in the US to be its upper bound possibility, and I don't even believe its that high.

        A poll I recently saw (but can't find now) shows a self-reported LGB status of around 5.6% (I don't know the margin of error). Some polls also asked questions about whether and/or how often the respondents have been attracted to the same sex and/or had a sexual encounter with the same sex (genital or otherwise) which could put it up to 10%+, depending on where you draw the line. But t

    • Exaggerating your numbers is not helpful. Something around 2%-3% of the population is homosexual or bisexual. It's a very loud minority, which is why people assume the numbers are higher. Of course, LGBT+ organisation also have an interest in exaggerating the numbers.

      While some states have passed stupid, religious-based laws, but none of them have tried to outlaw homosexuality. Moreover, since military bases are federal territory, the military has already confirmed that abortion rights remain intact [military.com].

      Fin

      • Check your numbers - yours seem to be coming from a couple generations ago, when the overwhelming majority of the rainbow were still in hiding and not about to out themselves for some survey.

        The *lowest* modern estimates I can find just for gays are around 6%, not including the rest of the rainbow. And there's still a lot of social fallout for admitting it, so those numbers are probably still low.

        • I'm going by the summary in Wikipedia. Under "general findings": 97% of men and women identify as exclusively or mostly heterosexual. Further "there is no persuasive evidence that the demographics of sexual orientation have varied much across time or place." You can follow the references yourself.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          The *lowest* modern estimates I can find just for gays are around 6%, not including the rest of the rainbow.

          Polls [statista.com] I've seen put just gay/lesbian at less than 5%, closer to 2% or 3%, when including all age groups. When [gallup.com] you add in bi, it goes up to 7%+, largely driven by the youngest cohort of women, up to 14% of whom self-identify as bi.

  • To be fair ... (Score:4, Informative)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @07:48PM (#63732626)

    Colorado is closer to Space than Alabama.

    As a bonus, this is really pissing off Senator Tommy Tuberville (R- AL) who's holding up holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions because he personally doesn't like the military policy of paying travel expenses for female service members who need reproductive-care/abortions and are stationed in states with restrictive laws about such things.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      Colorado is closer to Space than Alabama.

      Are you accounting for the Earth's equatorial bulge?

    • Colorado is definitely HIGHER than Alabama /sarcasm

  • [Claimer: I lived in Huntsville for a few years in the early 80's.]

    If you can stand the heat (I couldn't), Huntsville, and even more so Madison, have a lot going for them. I have family still in Madison, and living there, it's easy to forget you're in the Deep South. Madison is a lot like Cary, NC ("Containment Area for Relocated Yankees"). The cost of living is dirt cheap, the high school is one of the best public high schools in the country, UAH has very much come into its own since it was the handful of buildings I went to, and there are proportionally pretty much the same number of rednecks as you'll find anywhere in the US.

    This is not an accident. The military built up Redstone Arsenal having been promised by the county and the state that there's be an ample, educated workforce. It took them awhile, but they delivered. But there's still a need to bring in people from the outside. The South has a bad rap, and it's tough to convince outsiders to move there despite its advantages, and that's on a good day. Add in the anti-choice, anti LGBTQ+, antebellum style legislation, and nobody's going to want to go there, and in turn, when the next BRAC round comes, a lot less will be brought to Redstone.

    Just like the rest of New York doesn't want to be ruled by New York City, the rest of Alabama doesn't want to be ruled by Huntsville, so they're likely to not be too sympathetic to Huntsville's job losses due to the state government doing the Lord's work.

  • Recreational marijuana is legal there. So they should have less trouble hiring space cadets.

  • Space Force and Air Force work hand in hand. Also Air Force Academy is in Colorado Springs so easy transition to Space Force.
  • The Spacey like in Macross?

  • Polarization (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RazorSharp ( 1418697 ) on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @11:35PM (#63732984)

    As I read through the comments, I found it strange how passionate everyone seems to be about decision. Unless you work in the Space Force or live in one of the cities in question, this won't affect your life at all. But everyone has to come to the defense of their team.

    Did politics play a role in the decision? Probably. Did they play a role in the initial decision? Probably. Anytime the government builds anything and needs to decide a location politics come into play. Who do you owe favors to? Who do you not want to grant favors to? Will a political rival grant concessions in exchange for this thing? I find it hard to believe that anyone who has complained about "politics" would do things any different if they had political power. If location X and location Y are both suitable, why wouldn't you consider how you can advance other political goals by choosing one location over another?

    The charge of "politics" seems to suggest that political considerations aren't pragmatic. But it's those who decry "politics" who most want their politicians to be unflinchingly partisan even when it serves no one's interests.

    • I was kind of wondering the same thing. If you don't work for Space Force, or you aren't a politician wanting to crow you brought home the bacon, why in the world does this matter? Up until today I didn't realize Space Force had a headquarters.

  • I despise these kinds of state politics pressuring the federal level on what to do. It's like with the Space Shuttle program, somehow every state wanted a piece of that massive budget, to the point it nearly crippled the program and massively inflated costs. "We want the tires made in Ohio!" "We want the Soybeans for the astronaut food to be produced in Kansas!" on and on (I made those up BTW).

    There's a major advantage for commercial entities, like SpaceX for example, where they can make decisions a bit mor

  • If the people with the purse allocate $0 and put into law that no other USG funds may go to establishing a Space Command HQ outside of Huntsville.

    • Now the republicans can cancel space force. Brilliant!

    • So you are advocating for the GOP to cut military funding? Yeah, that's gonna happen.

      These are the guys that usually allocate more money to the military than the military even asks for, so they can send that pork back home to pet projects that the Pentagon doesn't even want in their own states.

  • "Colorado offers one-bounce satellite uplinks that provide real-time connections to six out of seven continents in one business day."
    https://www.metrodenver.org/do... [metrodenver.org]

  • Trump moved it from a far left state to a far right state, so they could get the federal dollars. Tuberville, senator from that far-right state, is holding up military promotions over military abortions. Biden is moving it back to a far left state for 3 reasons: (a) do the opposite of Trump on everything, (b) punish Tuberville, and (c) tit for tat childishness.

    This has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with plain raw politics and money.

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