Editor’s Note: This is an ongoing breaking news story. Updates will be provided as they become available.
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday his administration’s plans to relocate the U.S. Space Command to Alabama from Colorado, where former President Biden elected to keep the combatant command.
The decision comes after a four-year disagreement between the two administrations, both believing SPACECOM would be better served in different locations. Elected officials from Colorado and Alabama have both fought for SPACECOM’s headquarters to find a home in their state, particularly due to the significant economic advantages that would accompany it.
In 2002, SPACECOM was subsumed into the U.S. Strategic Command by former President George W. Bush, with the primary goal of identifying areas that would reinforce and uphold U.S. interests in space. In 2018, Trump signed a order that reinstated the U.S. Space Command.
Biden attempted to make SPACECOM’s headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado, permanent after Secretary of Defense James Mattis advised him to do so, citing that the potential relocation to Alabama’s underdeveloped headquarters in Huntsville may compromise military readiness.
Word has already been echoed by Colorado’s congressional delegation that it will take “necessary action” to ensure SPACECOM remains in the state.
“Bottom line — moving Space Command headquarters weakens our national security at the worst possible time,” reads a joint statement from Colorado’s two senators and eight House members. “Moving Space Command sets our space defense apparatus back years, wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, and hands the advantage to the converging threats of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.”
Along with the national security threat posed by the relocation, lawmakers noted that moving the Space Command will also jeopardize the civilian workforce that keeps it operating. These entities and their employees will not reassume their positions in Alabama.
The Trump administration asserted that the move will provide over 30,000 jobs to people in Alabama, along with investments worth hundreds of millions of dollars that will eventually flood the state’s economy, which was ranked No. 36 among all U.S. states.
Many heed the notion circulated by the Defense Department inspector general in 2021 that the Army Redstone Arsenal located in Huntsville would be the Air Force’s ideal location for the Space Command; however, the renovations needed to match up in quality to the current building facilities could take three or four years.
“Moving Space Command would not result in any additional operational capabilities than what we have up and running in Colorado Springs now,” lawmakers said. “Colorado Springs is the appropriate home for U.S. Space Command, and we will take the necessary action to keep it there.”
Reach Claire Vogl at science@collegian.com or on social media @CSUCollegian.
