LOW EARTH ORBIT — Space may be the final frontier, but for one former sailor, it’s only the beginning. Space Cadet Second Class Chester “Fudge” Thompkins, once a quark’s hair away from being administratively separated from the Navy, is now the inspiring face of the newly-established United States Space Force, sources confirmed today.

“Today, I am truly proud to be an American,” Thompkins told reporters, beaming with patriotism and Type II diabetes.

Officials say Thompkins passed his first-ever Body Composition Assessment and is now part of a testing and evaluation group stationed aboard the expeditionary vessel, USS Rico — which is tasked with floating aimlessly above Earth while collecting data on the viability of sustaining long-term, strategic military efforts from an orbital platform.

“We painted asteroids today,” said Space Cadet Third Class Greg Miller. “It’s a lot like painting rocks, but in space.”

The Space Force, seemingly willed into existence by President Donald Trump and legions of Starship Troopers fanboys on a particularly nondescript Monday in June, will face galactic hurdles to become fully mission-capable in its efforts to thwart illegal alien immigration and to take the fight to ISIS.

The one thing it doesn’t have to worry about are the height and weight standards that plague Terran-bound militaries, like Thompkins’ parent service.

“I can say with utmost confidence that we are the fittest fighting force in the universe,” said Chief of Spacial Operations, Star Admiral Cindy Kreuger. “Take Space Cadet Thompkins, for example. On Earth, he weighed a grotesque 291 pounds at a height of only five-foot-six. Now, he is a paragon of peak human conditioning and athletic achievement.”

“In zero gravity,” she quickly added.

For Thompkins, life aboard Rico is a lot like being on any other ship.

“You get into a routine, and the days all kind of blend together, and you keep telling yourself that what you’re doing matters, but you still kind of question the validity of your own disillusion, and then you sort of realize that it’s all futile, and then you just masturbate and repeat the cycle,” he shrugs nonchalantly, plucking one of many potato chips that have begun orbiting his own, planet-like figure.

Asked if he’s in the Space Force for the long haul, he said:

“Oh, I’ll most definitely retire here. In fact, I can’t return to Earth because I’d be crushed under my own weight.”