Despite the mockery on social media, US President Donald Trump apparently has not rejected an idea of creating a Space Force. He said he is “seriously thinking” about making it a new military branch.
“We are actually thinking of a sixth [military branch], and that would be the Space Force,” the US leader said during a ceremony at the White House. He was presenting the annual Commander-in-Chief's Trophy to the Army football team, for its victory over both Air Force and Navy last year. Trump went on to say that the US is “getting very big in space, both militarily and for other reasons,” without going into further details.
“We are seriously thinking of the Space Force,” the US leader said on Tuesday. He already floated the same idea back in March as he spoke to a crowd of Marines at Miramar Air Station in San Diego, California. At that time, he said that his national strategy sees the space as a “war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea.”
The idea, however, hardly resonated with the general public as people turned to the social media to have a good laugh at it. The reaction was no different this time, as people once again started to post memes and reference to popular sci-fi movies.
Even some Army football players who were present at the ceremony seem to have found it difficult to take Trumps’ words seriously.
Some people on the social media, however, took the news more seriously and drew attention the fact that there is actually an international treaty that limits military activities in space. The US has been a party of this treaty since 1967.
The agreement, called the Outer Space Treaty, bars states from testing any weapons in the outer space as well as from establishing military bases on the Moon and other celestial bodies. It also prohibits deployment of any weapons of mass destruction to the Earth’s orbit.
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