August 08, 2023 03:11 PM UTC

Alabama Howls While Colorado Celebrates Space Command

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• by: Colorado Pols

Mary Shinn at the Colorado Springs Gazette reported from yesterday’s celebration at America the Beautiful Park in Colorado Springs of the decision last week by President Joe Biden undoing the political revenge wrought by President Donald Trump in his last few days in office, ordering the move of the U.S. Space Command and the associated jobs and spending to Alabama as a cronyist reward to Republicans in that state who stood by Trump during the 2020 coup attempt. We’ll recount that history as many times as it takes lest it slip down the memory hole:

Alabama lawmakers have doubled down on their harsh rhetoric since President Joe Biden announced last week that Colorado would keep Space Command after a year’s battle between the two states. The decision reversed President Donald Trump decision in 2021 to make Huntsville, Ala., the permanent home of Space Command.

Now, Alabama is promising the keep the fight going with the chairman of the House Armed Forces Committee, Mike Rogers, R-Ala., threatening to subpoena high-ranking military officials involved in the decision, Space Command leader Gen. Jim Dickinson and Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall.

But as Sen. John Hickenlooper told the celebration  in Colorado Springs yesterday, the greatest disruption to military readiness by far would have been to transplant the nearly-operational Space Command 1,200 miles to a state famous for no one wanting to live there:

Sen. John Hickenlooper told the crowd that, while the command was going to reach full operational capability much faster in Colorado Springs, it is also going to be “an order of magnitude more capable” because the civilian staff will stay employed.

About half of Space Command’s staff is civilian and between 80% to 90% likely would not have moved to Huntsville, he said. [Pols emphasis]

It’s a situation not all that different from the failed attempt to move the Bureau of Land Management headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction–although from our point of view, Washington D.C. and Huntsville, Alabama are similarly undesirable. But the same human resource brain drain that ultimately undid the BLM’s move to Grand Junction would have plagued the move of Space Command to Huntsville. And while local supporters of moving the BLM to Grand Junction will disagree, the overall consensus is that the BLM move was not in the best interests of the bureau or its mission.

If you want Space Command to be all it can be, you want Space Command in Colorado Springs.

If that’s not enough of a reason, “don’t reward coup attempts” should certainly be.