{"id":142945,"date":"2018-06-18T20:06:09","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T20:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/trump-space-force-us-to-set-up-sixth-military-branch\/"},"modified":"2018-06-18T20:06:09","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T20:06:09","slug":"trump-space-force-us-to-set-up-sixth-military-branch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/trump-space-force-us-to-set-up-sixth-military-branch\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump space force: US to set up sixth military branch"},"content":{"rendered":"
Media playback is unsupported on your device
Media captionTrump: 'We must have American dominance in space'<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

President Donald Trump has ordered the US military to establish a sixth branch of its armed forces - a "space force".<\/p>\n

The US president said on Monday it would bolster national security and the economy with the creation of jobs. <\/p>\n

"It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space," Mr Trump said at the White House.<\/p>\n

He also promised that the US would "return Americans to the Moon" and would eventually send people to Mars.<\/p>\n

"I'm hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces," Mr Trump announced, moments after he discussed US and German approaches to immigration .<\/p>\n

Media playback is unsupported on your device
Media captionCould Trump's 'Space Force' become a reality?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He also said it would be unacceptable to let either China or Russia lead in space, and he would be directing federal agencies to "implement a state-of-the-art framework for space traffic management".<\/p>\n

Details of what a new space force would look like and what it would do were not immediately clear. <\/p>\n

However, the US Congress would need to pass a law authorising it before any new branch of the military could be created.<\/p>\n

Speaking ahead of a meeting with the National Space Council, Mr Trump said, "This time, we will do more than plant our flag and leave our footprints. We will establish a long-term presence, expand our economy, and build the foundation for the eventual mission to Mars."<\/p>\n

    \n
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    The Trump administration would also embrace the budding commercial space industry, Mr Trump said, by allowing American "rich guys" to use US real estate to launch their rockets.<\/p>\n

    "If you beat us to Mars, we'll be very happy, and you'll be even more famous," Mr Trump told the press conference, adding: "They can beat us and we're taking full credit for it."<\/p>\n

    An enthusiastic president<\/h2>\n

    Tara McKelvey, White House reporter, BBC News<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I stood across the East Room from Mr Trump during the event, "Moon, Mars and Worlds Beyond", and I could see he was enjoying himself - especially when he spoke of a "space force". Other people in the audience seemed surprised, though. <\/p>\n

    People in the back of the room started to laugh, and others wondered aloud how Joseph Dunford - the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the man whom the president had just put in charge of the project - felt. <\/p>\n

    Still, the idea's not completely new. <\/p>\n

    The president has spoken on previous occasions about adding another branch, the "space force", to the armed forces. And a former US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, once proposed the idea in 2000 (nothing ever came of it). <\/p>\n

    Mr Trump's remarks in the East Room underscored his enthusiasm for the project, though, making it seem as though he'd return to the subject again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Media playback is unsupported on your deviceMedia captionTrump: 'We must have American dominance in space' President Donald Trump has ordered the US military to establish a sixth branch of its<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}