The Space Force is officially the sixth U.S. military branch | Hacker News Reader

The Space Force is officially the sixth U.S. military branch

airforcetimes.com

41 pointstheklub25 comments

I know it is silly but everytime I hear Space Force I chuckle thinking that Space Cadets are going to be a thing.

That aside, it seems like a lot of additional bureaucracy for not a lot of gain. I'm curious how that works out.

Space cadets, space men, or space marines?

Well when you are attending the Space Academy (which should probably be named after one of the Mercury 7 Astronauts who served in the Air Force {cough, cough, Cooper}) you would be a Space Cadet. Once you graduated you would be a 'Spacer' perhaps. I figure at this point a new service isn't going to call their members '*-men' since they will be an integrated group. They could just call them 'Astronauts' and distinguish them as civilian or military in context. A friend suggested 'Space Person' but that doesn't really roll off the tongue. Then there is 'Space Technician' or 'Person of Space' or 'Space Cast' or 'Spaceist'. Not an easy choice.

Likely to be a lot more ground operators than spacemen, and astronauts is reserved for those who have actually flown in space.

They are still going to be called Airmen as far as I know

I've been trying to figure out how much is specifically allocated to this "Space Force".

Is it just a notional change, or is new money going to into this, increasing the (already large) U.S. military spending?

$40 million https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-defense/2019/12...

One year ago, the plan was to start it underneath the Air Force, but I haven't found that detail in today's news. https://www.space.com/43161-white-house-space-force-under-ai...

One key quote from their FAQ:

> Q: Will any units assigned to Space Force move locations? A: There are currently no plans to relocate existing units.

Another answer informs people that they can remain in the Air Force even if their unit is space force.

Final interesting aspect: the join space force link points to airforce.com/careers.

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