Ground the Space Force here on planet Earth - LA Daily News

Is it too late to put the phasers on annihilate and destroy the current president’s recently announced intergalactic endeavor, the Space Force?

Because, really, what with the thing, and the other things, the precise last thing this nation needs is an entirely new military bureaucracy. A boondoggle such as an orbital fighting force would swiftly make other government money pits such as the bullet train look like particularly parsimonious penny-pinchers.

It took hundreds of years of tradition before our existing service branches got their mild television sendups such as “F Troop” and “Hogan’s Heroes.”

Whereas the Steve Carell-starring parody of the infant sixth branch of the United States armed forces, “Space Force,” renewed this month for a second season, premiered before there even was a real Space Force out there launching rockets and figuring out who to salute and what jargon to coin.

The show’s actually pretty good — hard to go wrong with the late, great Fred Willard in his last role, John Malkovich as chief scientist, a perfect Jane Lynch as the head of naval operations.

But that doesn’t mean that President-elect Joe Biden, along with all those other things he’s going to do on Jan. 20, shouldn’t immediately shoot a silver missile through the cash-hungry heart of the actual Space Force before it really gives us something to make light of. I mean, Inauguration Day is not going to exactly be chock-full of glamorous balls and other big get-togethers come January. The pres can surely make time to put a military branch out of our misery sometime before sundown.

Nobody but the current president — a draft dodger who as chief executive made a habit of mocking everyone from dead WWII soldiers to war hero John McCain — was clamoring for the pomp of a Space Force anyway. He’ll have forgotten all about it by the time the down escalator dumps him in Mar-A-Lago.

I mean, the cosmic entity does have a website, so it at least thinks it exists. There you will find a most catchy recruitment motto: “Maybe your purpose on this planet isn’t on this planet. … Join us. The future is where we will make history.”

And the USSF apparently does have a local tie at the Los Angeles Air Force Base, an outgrowth of Southern California’s decades of experience as home of most of the private contractors who supply NASA and the military with satellites and other space junk. Except it wouldn’t seem to be a place you can just drop by for a tour: “Before you come to base, call to confirm hours of operation,” the website says.

But this week it was announced that Vandenberg Air Force Base on the beautiful coastline north of Santa Barbara is “officially out of the running for the U.S. Space Command headquarters,” the news site Ed Hat Santa Barbara reports. Instead the space brass are looking at bases in New Mexico, Nebraska, Colorado, Texas and Alabama for the eventual HQ. Not a hard call. Housing prices on the California Riviera are for people like Meghan and Harry, not future Flash Gordons.

Commentors on the Ed Hat site were not kind: “Did Trump ever get any $ from Congress for it? Or did he just steal money from the food stamps program or something similar? We don’t need another expensive government program in this time when we have so many other critical needs,” one writes.

Another adds: “That’s great news. We don’t need Russia and North Korea aiming missiles at us, and I’d prefer our beautiful central coast less developed.”

I’m actually a space buff, and am all for making the solar system great again by heading out there. I’d just prefer one less military branch for us to support with our taxes.

Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.

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https://www.dailynews.com/2020/11/29/ground-the-space-force-here-on-planet-earth/

2020-11-29 16:00:00Z
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