Washington, June 20 (RHC)-- U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to establish a standalone Space Force as a new branch of the armed forces.  "We are going to have the Air Force, and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal," Trump said at a meeting of the National Space Council at the White House.  "It is going to be something so important." 

Trump has reported asked Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford to carry out the process of standing up the new military service.  "Our destiny beyond the earth is not only a matter of national identity, but a matter of national security, so important for our military and people don’t talk about it," Trump 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." 
 
During debate on the fiscal 2018 defense policy bill, Congress proposed creating a Space Corps within the Air Force, similar to how the Marine Corps resides within the Navy.  But the measure failed to move forward, with lawmakers instead compromised by ordering the Pentagon to study how space should be organized within the Defense Department.  The study is ongoing and a final report is due to Congress by the end of the year. 

The House's version of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act proposes the creation of U.S. Space Command, as a subordinate combatant command under U.S. Strategic Command.  It's unclear if this plan will survive the conference process with the Senate and end up in the final bill. 

A standalone Space Force as a separate military service, which Trump proposed in March, is different from both of these congressional plans.  "Space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land air, and sea," Trump told troops in California then.  "We may even have a Space Force, develop another one, Space Force.  We have the Air Force, we'll have the Space Force."