The creation of a Space Force—a proposed new branch of the armed services—is one of the most significant defense discussions in a generation. Everyone from the president and congressmen to late-night comedians have chimed in. Everyone, that is, except for the Air Force’s foremost experts on space doctrine, the Space Horizons Task Force.

On this fundamental question of space policy, the group known as “America’s space think tank” has been silent for more than a year—muzzled by a servicewide gag order.

The Space Horizons Task Force, and the related Schriever Scholars program, are part of Air University, the “intellectual and leadership-development center of the Air Force.” “Academic freedom attaches to all aspects of staff or faculty members’ professional conduct,” according to the faculty handbook. “Only the adherence to security classification limits the faculty’s freedom to expound subject matter inside or outside the classroom.”

Yet Air Force officials have confirmed that Air University faculty were subject to the gag order on discussing Space Force publicly—driven, perhaps, by then-Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson’s well-known opposition to the president’s plan. Whatever its origin, the gag order tilted the public conversation about Space Force by silencing some of its most knowledgeable proponents as politicians, civilian scholars and comedians took pot shots at the idea.

Beyond Space Force, the gag order has the broader effect of chilling academic discourse within Air University. Faculty are supposed to have the ability to raise controversial ideas and unorthodox positions. But the Space Force gag order signaled loudly that on live issues, dissent was unwelcome.