Rogers rails against Air Force response to Space Corps proposal

The chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee said Thursday he is "shocked" and "pissed" at Air Force leadership's response to his subcommittee's proposed mark of fiscal year 2018 policy legislation that would direct the creation of a separate Space Corps.

The new corps would be a separate service under the leadership of the Air Force secretary and a new Space Corps chief of staff. The proposed language says the organization should be established by Jan. 1, 2019.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told reporters June 21 the proposal would complicate the Air Force's own organizational reform efforts and would disrupt ongoing efforts to better position the service to operate in an increasingly contested space environment.

Rogers, in his opening remarks at the subcommittee's June 22 mark of the legislation, said the Air Force's response misses the point of his proposed directive.

"These changes won't be easy and will be disruptive in the short-term, but our adversaries will never be less capable than they are today," Rogers said. "I had no illusions they were going to embrace our reforms. But when I see arguments that we are actually going to set back efforts to respond to adversary space threats . . . I'm pissed."

Wilson told reporters the Air Force needs funding for "lethality, not bureaucracy."

"I don't need another chief of staff or another six deputy chiefs of staff," she said. "We need to simplify, not make it more complicated and bureaucratic."

Rogers questioned Wilson's claim that the new corps would require six additional deputy chiefs of staff.

"The secretary should tell me where in this proposal it says she needs to add six more deputy chiefs of staff," he said. "If she can't implement this proposal without creating six new deputy chiefs of staff, that's on her. Maybe we need a Space Corps secretary instead of leaving it to the secretary of the Air Force."