The council’s recommendations, which included the creation of Space Force with a dedicated funding stream starting in fiscal year 2020, were cemented in a policy directive signed by President Trump on February 19. The Trump Administration’s fourth Space Policy Directive directed the Pentagon to draft legislation for Congress to establish the Space Force within the Department of the Air Force as a temporary measure, and then implement a timetable for transitioning the Space Force to become a separate department.



Even if the Space Force stayed within the Air Force for the foreseeable future, costs would likely mount quickly for taxpayers. In November, the Center for Strategic and International Studies unveiled a report estimating how much a sixth branch would cost under a variety of scenarios. Even in the permanently-under-Air Force scenario, the Space Force would cost $11.3 billion annually, with $11 billion ostensibly coming from existing accounts. But shifting around (“reprogramming”) money leads to less accountability by Congress.

As Taxpayers for Common Sense explains, “Typically reprogrammings move money from lower to higher priority programs that actually exist. Starting a new program via shifting money away from a congressionally-approved program short circuits the congressional oversight process.”

And reprogramming requests often go hand in hand with new appropriations and historic budget increases. In fact, larger Pentagon budgets make it more likely that reprogramming requests will be approved, since the Pentagon has limited time to spend given funds by the time the current fiscal year ends.

Shortly after the passage of a nearly $660 billion Pentagon budget for FY 2018, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps at the time, Gen. Glenn Walters, commented that, “the Pentagon is not going to be able to spend all the money [in fiscal year 2018]… We are going to set a record for reprogramming requests starting about the second half of this year.”

Veteran Pentagon-watchers know that no matter what budgetary maneuvers are used, any and all cost estimates from the services must be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. The late Ernie Fitzgerald, an Air Force civilian analyst and early Pentagon reformer, used to say that every military program passes through two stages. At first, it’s too early to tell whether or not the performance goals will be met at their estimated costs. Second, it becomes too late to stop once the political and financial concerns overtake concerns of the inevitable upward-spiraling costs and corresponding reduced performance expectations.

A new service, flush with the confidence that it represents the future of warfare, would undoubtedly spend vast sums of taxpayer dollars attempting to secure its own identity. Space Force leaders will argue they will need everything from new buildings to uniforms, to say nothing of glitzy acquisition programs in between.