NASA legend Buzz Aldrin has called for Donald Trump to rename Space Force something less aggressive.
The President announced a new branch of the armed forces in June last year to handle military operations in space, with a name straight out of a science fiction action movie.
But former astronaut Aldrin – the second man to step on the moon – isn’t impressed.
‘I have thought for some while that a better name would be Space Guard, because it is more deterrent,’ Aldrin told DailyMail.com.
‘It is not strike. We have a strike force that is aggressive.
‘Space Guard is more defensive and I think that is pretty much what people had in mind with the space force.’
Buzz Aldrin (pictured earlier this month with a friend in Beverly Hills) has called for Trump to rename Space Force something less aggressive, suggesting the name of Space Guard
Trump (pictured with Buzz right in June of 2017) announced a new branch of the armed forces in June last year to handle military operations in space, with a name straight out of a sci-fi action movie
Despite his reservations over the name Aldrin, who turned 89 on Sunday, tweeted in August that he thought the plan was ‘one giant leap in the right direction’, referencing his co-pilot Neil Armstrong’s immortal words when he first set foot on the moon.
Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were the first men on the moon after piloting the Apollo 11 mission and safely landing on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969.
Although some are excited by Trump’s new Hollywood-sounding military branch, others have ridiculed the name.
This month Netflix announced a new comedy series called Space Force, made by the creator of The Office and starring Steve Carell.
The push for more military focus on space was prompted when the Chinese armed forces dramatically tested a new anti-spacecraft missile in 2007 by launching it and blowing up one of their own satellites in orbit.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force is the only independent military wing that deals solely with war fighting in space.
Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were the first men on the moon after piloting the Apollo 11 mission and safely landing on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969
Russia previously had an independent wing, Russian Space Forces, from 1992 to 1997 and again from 2001 to 2011, but in 2015 brought the department under the command of the country’s air force.
In the US military, responsibility for space-related warfare is currently shared between the Air Force and other branches.
But when Trump signed Space Policy Directive-3 in June, a new law that governs space traffic, he also ordered the Department of Defense and the Pentagon ‘to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces’.
Trump said the new agency would be ‘separate but equal’ from the other branches, and tasked General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to take on the project.
Despite his reservations over the name Aldrin, who turned 89 on Sunday, tweeted in August that he thought the plan was ‘one giant leap in the right direction’, referencing his co-pilot Neil Armstrong’s immortal words when he first set foot on the moon
‘The Air Force is going to focus on the Air Force. We need a separate branch, and we’re working on that. It’s called the Space Force, which is very exciting. People love it, they get it,’ Trump said.
In a speech at the Pentagon last week the president revealed his new budget will include ‘a space-based missile defense layer,’ adding that the plan is ‘ultimately going to be a very, very big part of our defense – and, obviously, of our offense.’
‘We will recognize that space is a new war fighting domain with the Space Force leading the way,’ he said.
Since 1982 the US military has had an agency called Air Force Space Command, with an $8.5 billion budget and 36,000 workers founded in 1982, as well as the clandestine National Reconnaissance Office, an extremely secretive branch of the intelligence services, with a budget thought to be around $15 billion.