Gen. David Goldfein (pictured) hailed President Donald Trump's calls for a Space Force saying it was a 'huge opportunity'

The Air Force Chief of Staff has welcomed President Donald Trump's plans for a military Space Force.

Trump called last month for the establishment of a Space Force as an independent branch of the military, saying: 'We must have American dominance in space.'

Gen. David Goldfein praised the President for 'leading that discussion' and said the Pentagon had begun planning for the proposed new service.

He said the Trump administration had sparked a fresh interest in the U.S. space program with a 'national-level dialogue' about its future, ABC News reported.

Gen. Goldfein said: 'I've got the president of the United States that's talking openly about space as a war fighting domain.

'I've got a vice president of the United States that stood up a National Space Council and is moving that. I've got Congress that's engaged and now interested in talking a lot about space.

'I see this as a huge opportunity right now that we've been given to have a national level dialogue about where we're going in space and so I love the fact that the president is leading that discussion.'

He said there would be 'a lot of votes and stakeholders' involved in the creation of a Space Force but said the Pentagon had 'begun that planning effort'.

Announcing the proposal last month the President framed space as a national security issue, saying he does not want 'China and Russia and other countries leading us'.

He said: When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space.

'My administration is reclaiming America's heritage as the world's greatest spacefaring nation.

President Donald Trump speaks at a meeting of the National Space Council at the White House last month where he called for 'American dominance in space'

'We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal. It is going to be something. So important.'

Gen. Goldfein has previously said that the U.S. should regard space in the same way as other fields of combat.

He said last year: 'Space is a joint war fighting domain that we must normalize and think about no differently than any other domain in which we operate.'

Last week NASA chief Jim Bridenstine also backed the plans and said they were a critical effort to protect the Earth.

He went on to compare space to the ocean, saying 'it's an international domain that has commerce that needs to be protected.'