A final determination for whether Colorado will be the permanent home to the big U.S. Space Command could be made within weeks—or maybe not.
For most of the last two years, the question has been up in the air. Toward the end of his administration, President Trump determined that the force’s headquarters would be located at the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal, located just outside of Huntsville, Alabama.
That decision, moving the Space Force from its temporary site in Colorado Springs at the Peterson Space Force Base, prompted Colorado officials, beginning in early 2021, to revisit the Trump decision, arguing that the Peterson base was better fitted for the command.
Now, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has announced that a decision, one way or the other, will be announced “fairly soon.” Kendall made that announcement in response to a query from the site Military.com.
Earlier speaking before the Air and Space Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium held in Aurora, Kendall said, “I hoped to make a decision and make an announcement earlier,” before adding: “We’re doing some additional analysis; we want to make very sure we got this right and have a well-defended decision.”
The action by the Trump Administration to locate the Space Command’s headquarters in Alabama was reviewed last summer by the Government Accounting Office, which questioned whether the correct criteria had been used in making that selection. The GAO report also identified what it called “significant shortfalls” in both transparency and credibility in the selection of the Alabama base.
In the months since, a number of Colorado lawmakers have urged the Biden Administration to go with Fort Peterson. Several weeks ago, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet characterized the issue as one of urgency not just for Colorado, “but for the country as a whole and for our national security as a whole.”
Looking at matters from a different perspective, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville said he thought the Redstone Arsenal would perfectly serve the facility needs of the Space Command.
But Tuberville also expressed frustration, waiting for a final decision out of the White House, and from there, through Secretary Kendall’s office.
“I think they’re getting close to a decision,” Tuberville was reported to have remarked to the news site Al.com. “But who knows? It could be tomorrow. It could be this time next week, or it could be six months from now.”
By Garry Boulard
