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Assuming that Space Command is going to reside on Redstone Arsenal, there is quite a bit of infrastructure already in place for them to fall in on. NASA has multiple functions there, along with the Army's Space and Missile Command. Both Peterson and Redstone make sense in my opinion, but there can only be one winner.
Not really busted up over this one. Interesting twist on the politics of it in KKTV's report, but I had a feeling as soon as it was kicked back with new requirements that we probably weren't being consider any longer and it was all a ruse to better align their preferred choice.
Hunstville may lack the broader military infrastructure but does have a longer association with space efforts than Cos and has any number of accolades for education, engineering, and opportunity that Cos lacks. Sure they will have floods and tornados to deal with, but that's a great excuse to stay in the hardened and cool command centers. Proximity to Atlanta, Memphis, and Nashville are bonuses too.
Huntsville makes no sense. It has climate related issues (tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding) that are a greater threat than what Peterson or Schriever faces from wildfires. There's no satellite infrastructure whereas COS has oodles of it, not to mention that Buckley is close by. From a defense in depth perspective, Huntsville has less alert time for a first strike and is in cruise missile range of offshore threats. It's a Command that likely needs to survive the longest given that's it's elements are more reliant on central command than, say, a fighter wing or maneuver division. From the logistics and cost perspective, the facilities are already present in COS while they're going to have to be all built from scratch in Huntsville.
Plus it's in the South.
Don't really care about the non-military perspective for the housing market. The few thousand people including families that this will bring in, or who are already there, are relativity tiny compared to COS overall growth trends.
What?
Huntsville may have the occasional tornado, but it does not have hurricanes or flooding. It's a 7 hour drive from the coast.
"Military officials selected Huntsville, Ala., as the preferred location for the headquarters of the U.S. Space Command, delivering a coveted prize to an area with a long aerospace history and vibrant economy.
Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett chose the city from among six finalists, including Colorado Springs, Colo., and Cape Canaveral, Fla. The headquarters is slated to be housed at Redstone Arsenal, an Army post that also is home to tenants including the Marshall Space Flight Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The Space Force is a new military branch established in 2019 that is aimed at protecting U.S. and allied interests in space.
The secretary’s office highlighted Huntsville’s “qualified workforce, quality schools, superior infrastructure capacity and low initial and recurring costs” in its announcement. In addition, Redstone offered a facility to support the headquarters at no cost while a permanent home is built.
“Our state has long provided exceptional support for our military and their families as well as a rich and storied history when it comes to space exploration,” said Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he was “thrilled that the Air Force has chosen Redstone and look forward to the vast economic impact this will have on Alabama and the benefits this will bring to the Air Force.”
The Air Force expects to make a final decision on the headquarters site in spring 2023, pending the results of required environmental-impact studies, according to the secretary’s office. The five other finalists will remain potential alternative locations.
Until a permanent location is ready, Colorado Springs will remain the command’s provisional headquarters.
Known as “Rocket City,” Huntsville has a longstanding connection to space exploration. The Marshall Space Flight Center developed Saturn rockets in the 1960s and propulsion systems for the space-shuttle program. Today, the area is home to a growing crop of aerospace companies, including Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, which built a new rocket-engine plant there.
Huntsville is growing rapidly and on pace eventually to become Alabama’s most populous city. It has scored numerous economic successes beyond aerospace in recent years. Toyota Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp. are constructing a new assembly plant, and Facebook Inc. is building a new data center."
"President Donald Trump has awarded U.S. Space Command to Huntsville, Ala., in a move that several Pentagon insiders and lawmakers say bypassed the military’s top pick of Colorado Springs, the unit's current home, because of political considerations.
It’s a decision that Colorado lawmakers say they will ask President-elect Joe Biden to overturn and has caused Colorado Springs Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Trump loyalist, to break with the administration. The move also will likely kick off a congressional probe into how the decision was reached.
“I am extremely disappointed. I have never been so disappointed in my whole life,” Lamborn said. “I believe, based on inside information, that politics must have played a role. By any standard, Colorado would come out on top of any competition.”
Lamborn said he and other Colorado lawmakers plan an appeal to Biden to overturn the decision as soon as he takes office next week. The congressman said the Alabama move was likely made with “bad advice from political advisers.”
Dirk Draper, CEO of the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC, said "If ever there was a Trumped up decision, this feels like one." The chamber led the local effort to keep the command in Colorado Springs, including printing red T-shirts for one of Trump's visits here promoting Colorado Springs as the best location for the command.
An earlier Air Force decision will keep the command in Colorado Springs until at least 2026 while the decision to move it plays out. The White House didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The decision came after Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett traveled to the White House this week to tell Trump the military had chosen Colorado Springs after a new presidentially ordered process that tossed out an earlier decision to keep the command, its 1,400 airmen and thousands of civilian workers here.
Trump, officers familiar with the briefing said, instead ordered the command to head to Alabama, a state that includes six lawmakers who objected to certifying the presidential election results last week and delivered Trump a Senate win, with Republican Tommy Tuberville unseating Democrat Doug Jones.
“This is just beyond belief,” said one officer familiar with the decision who spoke with The Gazette on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisal from the administration.
The Air Force on Wednesday defended the Huntsville pick.
"Huntsville compared favorably across more of these factors than any other community, providing a large, qualified workforce, quality schools, superior infrastructure capacity, and low initial and recurring costs," the Air Force said in a news release.
The service said other sites including Colorado "will remain reasonable alternative locations for the U.S. Space Command Headquarters," if Alabama doesn't pass an environmental review.
The Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce and EDC said it had independently determined that Trump bypassed a military recommendation for Colorado Springs to pick Alabama.
“I am extremely disappointed by this development,” Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said in a statement. “I have said from the beginning, that if this was a merit decision, Colorado Springs would prevail. It is not in the interest of national security and the American taxpayer to move Space Command.
"We made an extremely strong case for the city, and we had every indication that the Air Force was impressed by the community commitments we made in support of Space Command’s future. My concern is that politics played a significant role in this result. It would be wholly appropriate, and we would request, that Congress and the Biden administration direct the U.S. Air Force to provide full details regarding the recommendations it made and make public the role President Trump played in this decision.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said he would work to overturn the decision.
“Reports that the in-depth military process found Colorado Springs to be the best location for military readiness and cost and recommended Colorado to the president only to be overruled for politically motivated reasons are deeply concerning,” Polis said in a statement. “This move threatens jobs, could cause serious economic damage and upend the lives of hundreds of military and civilian families that were counting on U.S Space Command staying at home in Colorado Springs, as well as harm military readiness.”
Moving the command to Huntsville would require major construction projects to house it, and new infrastructure to be built, including satellite ground stations and other equipment.
Lamborn said he’s concerned that the move could make the nation less safe while hitting taxpayers in the wallet for billions of dollars.
“The Pentagon liaison I talked with admitted that, operationally, this will cause disruption in a major combatant command and admitted in the short term this will be much more expensive,” Lamborn said.
The Pentagon has spent more than $350 million on Colorado space infrastructure in recent years and is breaking ground on a new $800 million space operations center at Schriever Air Force Base.
City Councilman Don Knight said he was shocked and disappointed by the news.
"My jaw hit the floor," said Knight, a retired Air Force colonel.
He said he could see no technical reason why Colorado Springs should not be the permanent home for the command.
"I spent four years in the Pentagon; politics and logic just don't go together," he said.
However, since the decision was announced at the tail end of Trump's term there is a chance to reverse the decision.
"I would say there is hope for us, maybe more than usual," Knight said.
Space Command grew out of expanding evidence that America’s rivals would target military satellites in a future war. It’s a year older than the Space Force, a year-old service branch created to house the military’s satellite troops.
The command, which oversees military operations of all service branches in orbit, was re-established and housed in Colorado Springs in 2019, kicking off an initial Pentagon process that picked the Pikes Peak region as the unit’s home over Huntsville, another finalist. Many in Colorado Springs expected Trump to make the Colorado location permanent when he came to the Air Force Academy to deliver the school’s commencement address in 2019.
But it soon became apparent that the Pentagon’s initial process was crumbling in the face of political pressures. States including Florida and Texas didn’t make the list of finalists, and top leadership shifted at the Pentagon, with Defense Secretary Mark Esper taking over after Jim Mattis resigned and Barrett was picked to succeed Deborah Lee James.
In February, during a campaign rally in Colorado Springs, Trump said he would personally make the decision.
“I will be making a big decision on the future of the Space (Command) as to where it is going to be located, and I know you want it," Trump told the crowd. "I will be making a decision by the end of the year."
In May, the Pentagon formally restarted the process to pick Space Command’s home while provisionally giving it to Colorado Springs through 2026. While local leaders feared the new process would get wrapped up in politics, the Pentagon promised to make its call based on military needs.
Cities in 26 states joined the fray, but the Air Force again came up with six finalists, with Colorado Springs leading the pack and Huntsville again making the cut. So many places wanted the command because it comes with thousands of civilian jobs and billions of dollars in potential military contracts.
Draper said the command alone has an economic impact of of more than $450 million per year.
Tatiana Bailey, director of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Economic Forum, said the possible loss of the command wouldn't throw Colorado Springs into a recession, but is a missed opportunity.
"There is no question that the benefit of Space Command is massive and is only going to grow," she said. "A lot of contractors have come here because of Space Command and may move that expertise to Alabama."
“I am appalled, but not surprised, that yet again this president has demonstrated that he places politics over national security,” Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said in an email. “If it is true that the Air Force recommended Colorado and Alabama was selected for political reasons by the president, this decision must be reviewed. I will engage with the incoming administration to ensure that a full review of the process is conducted and that our nation’s security is prioritized.”
Billing itself as “Rocket City,” Huntsville is home to Army rocket research programs and missile defense studies. Among Huntsville’s advantages are a high-tech workforce and low-cost housing.
It has a long heritage in space, housing some of the earliest military rocket programs in America.
Colorado Springs has a long space history, too, with control over the military’s constellation of satellites headquartered here. And the voice for troops working in military satellite programs, the Space Force Association, gave the city its endorsement as home for Space Command.
The new round of reviews also came with a new wrinkle: For the first time, the Air Force would consider incentive packages from cities seeking the command.
Huntsville reportedly offered incentives including new housing for top Space Command officers.
Colorado Springs came up with a mammoth package of incentives including 1,500 acres of city-owned land to expand Peterson Air Force Base, utility discounts, tax breaks for construction work along with private donations for a new child development center at the base, a golf course for its families and a major investment in space education at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Suthers said the incentives were worth more than $130 million, dwarfing offerings by other finalists for the command.
The mayor said he wants a full accounting of the president's role in the decision.
Amid the most fractious political year in decades, Space Command was a topic that drew support from lawmakers of all stripes across the state. Republicans and Democrats leaned on the Pentagon and the White House to keep the command here.
Polis climbed aboard Air Force One in February during the president’s Colorado Springs stop to lobby Trump to keep the command here, and city leaders, state lawmakers and Colorado’s entire congressional delegation rallied to the cause with letters to the Pentagon and White House.
Several Pentagon officers and others say Colorado Springs again became the military’s top pick to house the command, but President Trump in his role as commander-in-chief made the final call.
Moving the command doesn’t mean Colorado Springs will suddenly be bereft of space assets. The town is home to the bulk of troops in the new Space Force and controls most of the military’s satellites. It is also home to the Space Force’s Space Operations Command, which carries out most missions for U.S. Space Command.
Also in Colorado Springs is the National Space Defense Center, a headquarters that brings together the military and intelligence agencies for war planning and intelligence sharing.
None of that is moving.
Space Command and its 1,400 troops, though, could be gone by 2026."
Huntsville may have the occasional tornado, but it does not have hurricanes or flooding. It's a 7 hour drive from the coast.
And the hurricane would have to cross over the southern Appalachians.
The eastern front range isn't exactly tornado proof either, though the higher plains around Peterson appear to be better than say the area around Buckley. https://data.coloradoan.com/tornado-archive/Either one of these locations is pretty good from a disaster perspective, especially considering they had Florida in the running .
The one thing that does make sense is that there wouldn't be moving costs associated with moving it out of Peterson. But long term conditions are probably more important than one upfront cost.
""Sources at the White House and the Air Force have confirmed the Air Force’s site selection team recommended the permanent headquarters be located at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. President Trump ignored their recommendation and selected Redstone Arsenal," the release said. "The Chamber & EDC will work with state and federal leaders to encourage the incoming Biden administration to accept the U.S. Air Force’s recommendation."
Also in a prepared statement, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said, “I am extremely disappointed by this development. I have said from the beginning, that if this was a merit decision, Colorado Springs would prevail. It is not in the interest of national security and the American taxpayer to move Space Command. We made an extremely strong case for the city, and we had every indication that the Air Force was impressed by the community commitments we made in support of Space Command's future. My concern is that politics played a significant role in this result. It would be wholly appropriate, and we would request, that Congress and the Biden administration direct the U.S. Air Force to provide full details regarding the recommendations it made and make public the role President Trump played in this decision."
"A pair of congressional Democrats asked the Pentagon’s watchdog on Tuesday to probe the role of political influence in the Trump administration’s decision to uproot U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs, amid concerns that the command’s civilian workforce could quit rather than relocate to Alabama.
Reps. John Garamendi, D-Calif., and Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., said the decision pulling the command to Huntsville, Ala., “appears to be untethered from national security and military judgment.”
“We are particularly alarmed that the strategic basing process for (Space Command) appears to be politically tainted, potentially at the highest levels of the Executive Branch,” the lawmakers wrote to acting Defense Department Inspector General Sean O’Donnell. “We request that you review whether and how President Trump may have influenced this decision.”
The letter cites a Gazette story last week that found President Donald Trump personally picked Alabama as the command’s new home after military leaders recommended it stay in Colorado Springs.
The letter also cites the move of the Missile Defense Agency headquarters to Huntsville as a cautionary tale.
“When the Missile Defense Agency relocated from the national capital region to Huntsville, Alabama, approximately 80% of civilian employees declined to relocate,” the lawmakers wrote. “We anticipate that we will see similar relocation/retention rates if (Space Command) relocates from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Huntsville, Alabama.”
The lawmakers are senior members of the House Armed Services Committee, with Garamendi heading a panel on military readiness and Cooper heading a subcommittee that oversees strategic issues including space.
While similar letters have come from Colorado’s congressional delegation and local leaders, the involvement of top House Democrats from outside the Rockies raises the profile of the issue as Democrat Joe Biden enters the White House on Wednesday.
A request for an inspector general’s probe into the matter is a first step that could precede congressional hearings on the issue and signals a wider coalition of lawmakers could back a reversal of the Alabama move.
Space Command, with 1,400 troops, was reestablished in Colorado Springs in 2019 amid rising concern that enemies could target American military satellites in a future war. Like the commands that oversee Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Space Command oversees the work of all military branches in its area of concern, space.
The lawmakers wrote that the Pentagon apparently discounted how a move could disrupt military operations in orbit if the command were pulled from Colorado Springs.
“The scoring for this basing decision does not include an assessment of mission impact caused by employee attrition and subsequent loss of expertise,” they wrote. “This disruption from a loss of expertise could have near-term detrimental impacts to National Security as Space Command endeavors to strengthen the capability, requirements and operations necessary to address increasing threats in space.”
While U.S. Space Command was headquartered in Colorado Springs from 1985-2002, the reestablished command was considered to be a new unit and subject to a Pentagon process that would determine its permanent home. After the Pentagon scuttled an earlier process that tabbed Colorado Springs as the command’s location, leaders in May gave it to the Pikes Peak region until at least 2026 while reopening a nationwide competition to house the headquarters.
While the Pentagon established scoring criteria that winnowed down the national search to six finalist cities to house the command, including Huntsville and Colorado Springs, officials haven’t released the final scores given to cities.
The Pentagon also hasn’t released cost estimates for the move to the public, although preliminary numbers were apparently provided to Garamendi and Cooper.
Garamendi and Cooper wrote that the Pentagon didn’t consider “the fully burdened cost associated with relocating personnel and warfighting systems, nor does it address what could be reused or leveraged should the command remain in a location that has existing facilities and infrastructure currently supporting Space Command missions.”
Last week, Colorado Springs Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn penned a letter requesting that Biden reverse the Space Command move.
“I call on you to use your authority immediately upon taking office as commander-in-chief to reverse this foolish and hastily made decision,” Lamborn wrote.
Even if Biden doesn’t act, bipartisan opposition to moving the command could pose a significant roadblock for the Pentagon. Moving Space Command to Alabama would require hundreds of millions of dollars in military construction funds from Congress.
And the Democrats are already skeptical of preliminary Pentagon estimates that were given to lawmakers but not released to the public of how much construction money it would take.
“Regarding military construction, the estimated cost to construct a headquarters building appears to be less than final costs to construct a similar headquarters building in Huntsville, Alabama for the Missile Defense Agency,” the Democrats wrote."
"Colorado Springs Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn has joined a pair of senior congressional Democrats in calling for the Pentagon's watchdog to investigate the role of political influence in the Trump administration's decision to uproot U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs.
"I’m going to be insisting on making sure the inspector general’s office can do an investigation on what went into this decision," Lamborn, who serves as a ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, told The Gazette on Friday. "There were some, I think, unacceptable political pressures that were brought to bear on this basing decision. We need to uncover that."
On Tuesday, Reps. John Garamendi, D-Calif., and Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., said the former president's decision to pull the command to Huntsville, Ala., “appears to be untethered from national security and military judgment.” They requested that acting Defense Department Inspector General Sean O'Donnell "review whether and how President Trump may have influenced this decision."
The letter cites a story published last week in The Gazette, written by senior military editor Tom Roeder, that found Trump personally picked Alabama as the command’s new home after military leaders recommended it stay in Colorado Springs.
Trump's decision came after Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett traveled to the White House to tell Trump the military had chosen Colorado Springs after a new presidentially ordered process that tossed out an earlier decision to keep the command, its 1,400 airmen and thousands of civilian workers here.
Trump, officers familiar with the briefing said, instead ordered the command to head to Alabama, a state that includes six lawmakers who objected to certifying the presidential election results this month and delivered Trump a Senate win, with Republican Tommy Tuberville unseating Democrat Doug Jones.
The move will likely kick off a congressional probe into how the decision was reached.
The decision has caused Lamborn, a Trump loyalist, to break with the administration, saying he has "never been so disappointed in my whole life."
"I believe, based on inside information, that politics must have played a role," he said the day the decision was announced. "By any standard, Colorado would come out on top of any competition."
In a letter to then President-elect Joe Biden sent Jan. 13, the day Trump announced his decision, Lamborn said the move would "damage America's national security and erode our competitive edge in space."
"As we speak, our near-peer adversaries, Russia and China, are actively working to defeat our space capabilities," Lamborn wrote, outlining Russia's recent test of a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile, its second since 2020, and China's increasing quiet on its growing space capabilities.
"In the midst of the ongoing great power competition between the U.S. and our allies against the forces of tyranny and absolutism represented by Vladimir Putin's Russia and the Chinese Communist Party, arbitrarily shuffling (U.S. Space Command) around like a political trophy would prove disastrous," he added, calling the decision "foolish and hastily made."
He called on Biden to use his authority to reverse the decision "immediately upon taking office."
On Friday, Lamborn told The Gazette that he hoped Biden could, and would, fix the decision through an executive order. If legislation is needed, perhaps an amendment through the National Defense Authorization Act would be possible, he said. If the latter is required, Lamborn said he would fight to ensure committee support and support on the floor of the House.
"I'm going to be working hard to reverse that decision," he said. "... We need to make the case and show once and for all that Colorado Springs really is where the work is being done now.
"To rip out the headquarters and put it 1,000 miles away doesn't make any sense.""
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It ain't over until it's over
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